Applied Inventiontronics, Period 4 - Week 1

[a-no-brainer.livejournal.com]

"He-hello, class." He smiled sideways at the front of the class and the whole left of his face twitched visibly. "I'm, uh, let's see," he glanced at his notes, "Professor Ambrose? Yes. I'm Professor Ambrose, but you can call me Glitch if you like, heh." He smiled, both sides now.

Glitch set the notes down and fidgeted with his sleeves, then took a deep breath. "Welcome," a flourish, "to Applied Inventiontronics! Here, I'll do my very best to teach you about the intricacies, whys and how-tos of invention. Over the semester, you'll create an invention with the skills you learn in this class for a final grade. I'll provide the materials, if you need them, and answer any questions you have." He was getting into this whole 'teacher' thing.

"Now, uh, my first rule when setting out to invent something is to make sure that it will be helpful to the people around me. That means your first assignment, after everyone introduces themselves of course, is to figure out what someone needs! You can work alone or with a classmate or with a lot of classmates. I've found that it's really much better to bounce ideas like this off other people."

Then he put his hands on his hips and looked out at the class and let his mouth fall into a flat line made purely of seriousness. "Restrictions are, 1) No Weapons. The goal here is to make lives better, not worse. 2) No inventions can rely on hurting others to work." He pointed to his zipper solemnly, as if they'd understand what he meant. "Off limits. 3), uh, three..."

He looked back at his notes, a little panicked, and shuffled the papers around. "Three! Hah!" Glitch held up the notecard in a fist, pumped it into the air once or twice, and smiled triumphantly. "Three!" A pause. "Oh, three." He pulled his arm back and read the piece of paper. "Have... OH!" He brightened. "Have fun! Enjoy your inventions! Or I guess I fail you." He leaned forward on the desk, making the most serious face he could imagine (which only lasted a good fifteen seconds), then smirked. "Well? Get to work!"

[OOC: Please please please wait for the first OCD is up!]

Comments

Sign In

[a-no-brainer.livejournal.com]

While you're here being all collapsed, you might want to pick up a copy of the syllabus (http://a-no-brainer.livejournal.com/1110.html).

Re: Sign In

[the_merriest]

Rikku!

During the Lecture

[a-no-brainer.livejournal.com]

Take notes, pass notes, wonder about why they're letting this man teach you things.

Re: During the Lecture

[the_merriest]

Rikku was bouncing in her seat for the first half of the lecture, and then started fidgeting somewhat uncomfortably after he mentioned weapons.

Re: During the Lecture

[twohalvesofaphd.livejournal.com]

Zack listened intently...between even more intently wondering about the zip.

Re: During the Lecture

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

Anders had Bridge for a best friend. The babbling totally didn't make him doubletake at all. Matter of fact? He thought the teacher was pretty cool.

Re: Introductions!

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

...Oz really had changed over the years. The surprise was rather plain on his face as the teacher spoke.

Re: During the Lecture

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Sokka grinned and took notes. The guy sort of reminded him of the Mechanist -- this class was going to be FUN!

Re: During the Lecture

[by137.livejournal.com]

Aside from the slight panic that was starting to rise up in A.J. over possibly having to think of his invention today or soon, he was thinking that he was going to really kinda like this class. This guy had a really awesome philosophy.

Re: During the Lecture

[honoraryphd.livejournal.com]

Doom didn't understand the "no weapons" rule. His weapons had made life better for all of Latveria. But it could be a worthwhile exercise to create something else, he supposed.

Introductions!

[a-no-brainer.livejournal.com]

He might be taking notes so he'll remember who you are.

Re: Introductions!

[the_merriest]

Rikku swallowed hard, and then stood up. Might as well get this overwith right away, right?

"Hiya, I'm Rikku. I, uh, I love fiddling with machina, just taking things apart and putting them back together, although I usually have some pieces left over, so I'm not good at that yet. But it's still neat just getting your mind to understand what all the bits do, you know?" She bit her lip, and then blurted out, "A-and I don't agree with you. About weapons and them being bad or evil and ... I don't."

She hastily sat down again and hoped he wasn't going to be mad and wondered why she couldn't ever keep her mouth shut.

Re: Introductions!

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

Willow smiled. "My name is Willow Rosenberg and I like to play with computers and spells in order to make them better. Though not in an evil way because that would be bad and I can't stress enough how much I am into breathing and occasionally wearing fabrics that did not come directly from the skin of animals. I don't know that you could say I've made inventions before but the idea of inventions seems like it would be fun and possibly as though it could tie in to the whole computer/spell thing. And if not it can be fun and educational in its own right. Especially after I get my spreadsheets going."

Re: Introductions!

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"My name is Liir," he said, "but we've met already."

He looked to Glitch then.

"And I don't really have anything else to talk about."

Re: Introductions!

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"Hey. Name's Anders, Sam Anders 00-Cylon," he said, clearing his throat. "I'm actually not much with machines, but I'd like to at least know my way around them, so that's why I'm here. Sports are my big thing, I sort of have an aversion to comic books since I got sucked into one for a week, and I'm from another planet."

Re: Introductions!

[twohalvesofaphd.livejournal.com]

"My name's Zack, I like making things...they usually work and don't hurt people."

Re: Introductions!

[wannabe-pan.livejournal.com]

Andrew stood up and waved at the class. "My name is Andrew. I thought this class sounded really cool. I, um, can't say that I've invented a lot of things on my own, but I've worked with my friends back home on some cool stuff. They always say that I'm an integral part of the conceptualization and design phases," he said, totally making all this up. "I'm pretty good with anything involving language, tonal harmonies, plasma mechanics, game theory, vexillology, and, ah, nuclear physics. So keep me in mind for any and all collaborative efforts."

He nodded and sat down.

Re: Introductions!

[slr-mercury.livejournal.com]

Ami blushed slightly and then spoke. "I am Ami Mizuno. Hello." She waved a little and face-palmed inwardly. Lamest introduction EVER.

Re: Introductions!

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

"My name is Sokka, and I've done some inventing in my time, but the tech on my home world is just a little bit" -- he held up thumb and forefinger a millimeter or two apart, to emphasize exactly how badly he was lying -- "behind what we've got here, so I might need a little help."

As an afterthought, he added "If we promise not to use it as a weapon, can we invent something that explodes?"

Re: Introductions!

[by137.livejournal.com]

"Um, so," A.J. shrugged his shoulders a little as he stood up to introduce himself. "I'm A.J. I'm, uh, an artist, but I'm also a little bit of a mechanic. I like tinkering with stuff, kinda figured this class would be pretty good for stuff like that, right? I, uh, think that's it? Yeah. Cool."

There was a lot of gesturing and shifting in all of that; excessive fidgeting. It tended to feed off of itself.

Re: Introductions!

[im-fullmetal.livejournal.com]

Ed stood up, the look on his face just daring people to make a comment. "I'm Edward Elric. I'm an alchemist, and I like working with machines to make them work better." He shrugged. Yeah, that was about it.

Re: Introductions!

[mrodneymckay.livejournal.com]

"I'm Rodney McKay and I'm a scientist," Rodney said importantly. "I'm planning to specialize in astrophysics, but I also think it's important to have a thorough understanding of mechanical engineering. The most annoying people are scientists who know theory but have no practical skills," he huffed. "Well, maybe not the most annoying," he allowed, "but you get what I mean."

Rodney hesitated slightly before continuing. "I built a working model of an atomic bomb for my grade six science fair. But I only wanted to show how it functioned, not to hurt anyone," he quickly added.

Brainstorm!

[a-no-brainer.livejournal.com]

Please, no obvious jokes about this.

Re: Brainstorm!

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

After her conversation with Peter last night Willow began brainstorming about an invention to help beavers make tea.

After the class

[a-no-brainer.livejournal.com]

Talk to Glitch after class. He might ask you to be TA.

Re: After the class

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"I can't think of anything," he admitted after the class as he walked up to the front of the class.

He privately thought that he wasn't much good at thinking in general, but best to keep that to himself.

OOC

[a-no-brainer.livejournal.com]

I heard rumors that if I didn't put this one, bad things would happen.

Let's not have bad things happen on the first day. Right? Right.

Re: OOC

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Rocks fall. Everyone builds inventions so they don't die.