Guinea Pig: The Robot Problem

Description

Miles Murphy built a robot.

It took six weeks. Four thousand wires. A partner who draws better than she talks. An Arduino microcontroller the size of a credit card. And a variable named “thingy1” that his partner called “a cry for help.”

The robot was supposed to navigate an obstacle course. Forward, turn, ramp, tunnel, push a tennis ball. Simple. Clean. Autonomous.

The robot had other plans.

Run 1 of the Central District Robotics Competition: a wire comes loose. The sensor goes blind. The robot can’t see walls anymore. So it does what any blind robot would do.

It attacks everything.

It crosses three lanes. It crashes into another team’s robot. It launches a DIFFERENT robot into the audience. It drives through a cardboard wall. It goes under the refreshments table. A pitcher of lemonade tips over. The lemonade lands on Principal Whitaker’s khaki pants.

Miles dives under the table. Cookies go everywhere. Dante Wheeler catches the robot against a wall with his foot like a goalkeeper saving a penalty kick.

The entire gymnasium is watching.

The entire gymnasium saw everything.

Miles has twenty minutes to fix the robot, repair his dignity, and somehow run two more clean courses before the judges decide he’s a menace to society.

Meanwhile: Tyler Brandt’s dad built Tyler’s robot for him. Again. Tyler held the flashlight. Again. But this time there’s a technical review where the judges ask questions and Dad isn’t allowed in the room. And Tyler doesn’t know what C++ is.

Also meanwhile: Nicky and Dante built a robot named Gerald. Gerald has a personality. Gerald has a soul. Gerald might be left-wheeled. Nicky disagrees with all of this. Nicky is developing a twitch.

GUINEA PIG: THE ROBOT PROBLEM is the third book in the series and it might be the funniest one yet. If your kid read the first two, they already know Miles Murphy. If they haven’t, start here and watch them go back for the rest.

One kid. One robot. One very wet principal.

We’re not sorry about the lemonade.

Note To Parents BOYS STOP READING HERE!

These books show boys that trying is harder than not trying and that’s exactly why it matters. Miles spends the whole series learning that the comfortable safety of “I don’t care” is a trap. He doesn’t learn this from a speech. He learns it from building things that break and building them again.

These books show boys that smart comes in different shapes. Miles is the thinker. Harper is the artist-scientist. Nicky is the organizer. Dante is the wild card who turns out to be right about things nobody believed. Tyler is the kid who’s been coasting on his dad’s work and slowly learns to use his own hands. Marcus is the quiet kid who knows everything but nobody asks. Every boy reading this will find himself in one of these characters.

These books show boys that failure is not the end of the story. It’s the middle. Miles fails publicly, repeatedly, and spectacularly. His robot attacks a refreshments table. His egg gets run over by a Camry. His dog pees on his invention. And every single time, he gets back up and builds the next version. That’s not a lesson delivered in a lecture. That’s a lesson delivered in a story a kid can’t put down.

These books show boys that being emotional doesn’t make you weak. Miles cries at the science fair. Nicky cries when Gerald gets second place. Dante cries when Fernando talks. Tyler admits he’s scared in the woods. None of them are punished for it. None of them are mocked. The feelings are just there, part of the story, part of being human, part of being twelve.

These books show boys that good men ask for help. Tyler’s entire arc across six books is learning to stop pretending he can do everything alone. He asks Miles to help with the bracket. He lets Marcus answer the judges. He builds his own pedal charger without his dad. Asking for help isn’t weakness. It’s the thing that makes Version Seven possible.

These books show boys that the adults in their lives matter but the adults can’t do it for them. Ms. Ruiz points. The kids walk. Dad buys the hiking boots but Miles has to break them in. Mom puts a glass of water next to him but doesn’t interrupt. Tyler’s dad builds the turbine but Tyler can’t answer the judge’s questions. The message is clear: the adults who help you grow are the ones who let you struggle.

These books show boys that girls are allies, not accessories. Harper is not a love interest. She’s the smartest person in the room and Miles knows it and respects it and learns from it. She doesn’t need rescuing. She rescues Biscuit with a whisper when nobody else can stop him. She’s a full character with her own ambitions and her own arc and boys reading this will see a girl they’d want on their team.

These books are genuinely funny. Not “educational book trying to be funny” funny. Actually funny. The kind of funny where milk comes out of your nose. Herbert’s funeral. The rogue robot. The vice principal’s tire. Biscuit throwing shoes at a wall-mounted dog feeder. Tommy Finch’s shoe bacteria reaching through the tape seal. A kid riding a golden retriever through a convention hall. These are the scenes kids will read to each other at sleepovers and remember when they’re thirty.

And underneath all the funny, these books are about one thing: becoming the kind of person who builds things. Not just machines and science projects. The kind of person who builds friendships and confidence and the willingness to fail in front of people and get up and try again. The kind of person a boy needs to become to grow into a good man.

That’s why these books are good for boys. Not because they teach lessons. Because they tell a story that a boy can’t stop reading, and the lessons are hidden inside the laughter like medicine inside a really good piece of candy.

The kid won’t even know it’s happening until it’s already done.