fandomhigh | Applied Inventiontronics, Period 4

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Applied Inventiontronics, Period 4 - Week 4

The classroom today was a bit different. The desks were all paired off, and for each set there was a strange spinny thing, a small set of tools and a question sheet.

Glitch was at the front of the class, standing at a bit of a distance from the desk. It might want some space after last week.

"Today, you'll be taking apart those mini sterling engines , putting them back together, and filling out the worksheet. Don't worry too much about the questions and just answer them as best you can. Sorry, but, you'll have to work in teams for it because I didn't have enough to go around." He gave them an apologetic smile. "When you're finished, bring it and your answers to my desk and pick up one of these packets to go over."

He picked one up from the top of the pile before finally sitting at his desk. "I'll be here to answer any questions during and after class. I'll be in my office tomorrow, too, if you need anything then." He sat back a bit and started to read over the packet again to refresh his synapses if there were any questions.

[ooc: OCD is ~~on its way~~ up like an upping thing!]

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"'s true, I guess," Anders conceded, then held the engine out to A.J., never taking his eyes off it. "You wanna give it a try?"

"Sure," A.J. said, and, distinctly, as if to make a stronger case for his point of warmth over oil, wiped his hand on the leg of his jeans and took note of whether his hands were warm or cold before holding out his hand toward Anders. He wanted a nice smooth transition from one hand to the other; lessen the time between hands where it might slow or stop spinning.

Anders wrapped his hands around the sides of the engine's base, rather than the bottom, and wiped the base of it off on his own jeans leg before bringing it back up and carefully depositing it on A.J.'s palm.

And now that it was settled in A.J.'s hand and spinning again, there was only one thing to say.

"....Wheeeeeee." Followed by a dorky snort that proceeded into a slight giggle.

Well, that just set Anders off on a gigglesnort of his own. "Okay, so you're probably more right," he conceded.

A.J. grinned, briefly sticking out a playfully triumphant tongue. "Thought so. I mean, it's a pretty simple idea, you see it in a lot of other things. Heat rises, basic convection, and so you can use heat to make motion. Ever seen Swedish candle charms? Same idea..."

He did frown at the spinny, though, briefly. "I doubt it's that simple, though. There simply isn't enough heat from your your hands for that."

"Swedish . . . ?" Anders blinked at him. "Well, heat is energy, I guess."

He stared at the spinning engine for a few moments, his own tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, and came to a decision. On the one hand, spinny! On the other . . . he kind of had to know.

"Okay," he said finally, slapping one hand palm-down on the desk. "Let's take this sucker apart."

Curiosity might not have killed a cat today, but it might have just doomed a nifty spinning thing.

"Let's," A.J. said nodding, and, reluctantly, went to set the thing back on the desk, out of his hand, as he tried considering where might be best to start. He was also promising himself that he'd figure out how to properly reassemble it, even if it killed him, but he had vowed the same thing when it came to his invention, and that had gone virtually no where. He narrowed his eyes at it, trying to figure out what the best way to get in would be. He was thinking the top, at first, but then there was the mechanism for the propellery-spinnery things to think about, so he was now tilting it back to inspect the bottom where they'd been holding it.

Aw. The world somehow seemed like a slightly less happy place now that the engine had stopped spinning, but despite this disappointment Anders leaned over to peer at it. "Are those screws around the base, there?"

"I think so," A.J. nodded. "I noticed some on the top, too, but there's the base of the spinny thing to worry about there....We got a little screwdriver over there? They're tiny."

"Yeah, base is too heavy for there to not be stuff in there," agreed Anders as he fumbled for the screwdriver and, after a moment in which he had to pause and make sure he wasn't holding it out point-first and risking putting A.J.'s eye out, handed it over, handle-first.

"Thanks," A.J. said and started to work on unscrewing the bottom when he stopped, blinking, "Err, um, sorry, did you want to? I was always the go-to fix-it guy at my old place, so I kind just tend to jump in..."

"I was the go-to heavy-lifting guy," Anders said with a dismissive wave and a chuckle. "Go on, unscrew to your heart's content."

"If I open this up," A.J. said, nodding and continuing, "and discover something big and heavy that needs to be lifted inside, then I'll know I picked the right partner."

"Or," Anders added, snickering, "if it's got some kind of bitey vicious creature inside that you need someone to pick up and throw really, really far away."

"Are you sure you don't want to unscrew it instead?" A.J. offered after that prospect, chuckling, carefully setting aside one of the screws as it came away from the instrument.

"Yeah," Anders said, putting the screw inside the lid of the mini-screwdriver case. "If I need to do a snatch-and-throw I'll need both hands free. But I'm standing by!"

A.J. shook his head. "So blaming you if we discover this thing is actually run by some magical rodent who then decides to claw off my face."

"Hey," Anders objected, only about a third playfully. "That only works if it actually manages to claw off your face. Or parts of your face. If I get rid of it before that, no fair blaming me. I mean, it could claw off my face while I'm trying to keep it from doing that to you."

A.J. considered this logic carefully as he set aside the second screw. "Good point," he allowed. "Thankfully, though, I'm thinking the point is generally moot. Just about have this baby open and I think I'd detect signs of life at this point if that were the case."

Anders decided to refrain from suggesting that it could be a ninja magical rodent.

"Detecting signs of anything in there?" he asked, trying to peer closer without getting in the way.

As if A.J. hadn't thought of that.

Well, he hadn't, but that wasn't the point.

"Ummm," he said, thoughtfully, as he worked. "Not really yet. Interesting feel to it; my guess is that it's actually pretty simple ~~for me, because my mun is still fairly boggled and pathetically mechanically moronic~~."

"Huh," Anders said, craning his neck to get a different angle. "It doesn't actually look all that complicated inside, but frak me if I know what all that stuff is supposed to do."

"Like a piston, really," A.J. said, frowning because, yeah, he was still kind of trying to figure out how holding this still equaled it moving. Whatever it was, though, it was pretty freakin' sweet.

Anders leaned closer and sniffed at the opened base of the engine gingerly. "Doesn't smell like anything's burned in there, so I'm thinking it's a good thing we didn't bet on the heat versus oil question." He was kind of wishing he hadn't thought of holding his cigarette lighter to the bottom of it only after they'd opened it up.

Applied Inventiontronics, Period 4 - Week 4

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