The Robot Who Needed a Personality

The Robot Who Needed A Personality

by

Grandma  Baadsgaard

Happy Birthday Sammy.

I hope you know how much I love yo

Keep dreaming and building

and your wishes will come true.

             Sam gathered up a pile of gears, wires and pieces of scrap metal in his garage. Then he found some batteries. Next he carefully placed all his supplies into a shoe box. He walked into the kitchen where his mother was making soap on the stove with her safety goggles.  

“Do not bother me,” Sam said to his noisy family. “I am going to make a robot and I need my brain to focus. So don’t bother me until I come out of my bedroom. Scientists need to concentrate without distractions.”

Sam’s mother, still stirring the lye mixture, nodded. She understood. But his younger brothers Logan and Liam scratched their heads. They did not know about the vital importance of absolute quiet in a scientist’s laboratory of wonders.

Sam walked into his bedroom then closed and locked the door. First he tried putting his gears and levers together one way, then another. Then he tried hooking up the wires and batteries one way then another.

It wasn’t working.

“AAAHHHHH!” Sam yelled in frustration. “Why can’t I get this robot to work? What am I doing wrong?”

That is when Sam heard someone quietly knocking on his bedroom door. When he opened the door he saw his sister Sophia holding her old doll.

“Yes?” Sam asked. “I thought I told everybody to leave me alone so I can concentrate.”

“I think that you are frustrated,” Sophia answered. “Maybe your robot needs a little personality.”

She handed Sam two popped off buttons for the eyes, a felt smile and two floppy ears from the doll Sam had destroyed when he was in his rocket scientist stage.

“My robot doesn’t need these,” Sam said. “My robot is not a doll.”

“I know that,” Sophie said. “But you never know. Sometimes I think when I go to sleep all my dolls come alive and play around in my room. Maybe it works the same way with robots.”

Sammy rolled his eyes, thanked his sister and closed the door.

“AAHHH!” kept coming from Sam’s room.

Sam worked hard all afternoon until it was supper time. Then his mother knocked on the door.

“Sam, come to supper,” Sam’s mother said through the door. “You’ve been working long enough and you need a break.”

Sam opened the door and followed his mother into the kitchen shaking his head. He saw her home-made soap lined up on the counter.

“It just won’t work,” Sam said. “I’ve tried everything and it just won’t work.”

“Well, why don’t you sleep on it and try again tomorrow,” Sam’s mother said.

Sam nodded. Then he ate supper and went outside to play. When it was time for bed, he put on his pajamas, brushed his teeth and climbed into bed. He saw his lifeless robot standing in the corner of his room. He was almost going to put a face on him from his sister’s doll but he thought twice and decided not to. Then he fell asleep.

When Sam woke up in the morning he saw his robot in the corner of the room with two button eyes, a felt smile and two floppy ears looking back at him. Sam rubbed his eyes and looked again.

Then he scrunched his eyebrows and said, “Where did you get that face?”

Then he rubbed his eyes again and walked over to his sister’s room where he found Sophia playing with her dolls in her three doll houses.

“Sophia, did you put your doll face on my robot after I went to sleep?”

“No,” she answered. “I went to bed before you did remember.”

Sam walked back into his room and picked up his robot. Then he turned the switch and set the smiling robot on the floor. The robot walked across the room, bumped into the wall, turned around and walked back toward him before it stopped.

“Mom!” Sammy yelled, “My robot works.”

Sam’s mother and father, his sister and two brothers ran into his room and watched while Sam wound it up again.

“See, I told you so,” Sophia said. “Even robots need personality.”

Sammy lowered his eyebrows and began thinking of way to stay up all night so he could see what really happens in his bedroom when he falls asleep at night.

“Maybe you’re right,” Sammy answered.

Sammy’s father and two brothers scratched their heads. But Sammy’s mother and sister winked at Sammy because now he knew the secret.

Magic is everywhere, if you just believe.

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