💻 Programming & Robotics Club Mingle 🤖

[subtract]

Who: Club members & anyone else who feels like dropping by!
When: October, during club hours after class ends
What: ??? club shenanigans
Warnings: TBA... please do not murder anyone in the workshop, there's delicate equipment in here

Programming/Robotics Club is held in the workshop on the 2nd floor of the school. There's no official schedule, mainly because Add tends to just... live in the workshop, basically, so club members are welcome to show up whenever. The room is generally kept tidy, with supplies and scrap electronics stored in a locked closet while the room isn't in use. Two highly advanced computers are available for anyone to use, or you can build/bring your own computer.

Before you can enter club area, however, you first must get past the club bodyguard... Yeah, this fucking thing is stationed by the door now. Anyone not identified as a club member may or may not get picked up and dunked in the nearest trash can. Or maybe you'll get random junk pelted at you until you leave. Or maybe it'll attack you even if you are a club member or given permission to enter... it's a work in progress. Please be patient with our good pal Ball Monokuma, he's still learning.

Comments

[decrypter]

[with Shin so focused, maybe he doesn't hear the gentle tap tap of someone coming up behind him, or she may not register as any sort of threat. either way, Helena coming over out of curiosity, she can only hear him typing away, and so it is that a soft, familiar voice comes from right over his shoulder.]

What are you working on today?

[notsosou]

[It's probably a mix of both; his hindbrain has flagged Helena as 'safe', as much as it ever does to anything, and also when he gets super-focused on something he can miss someone sneaking up behind him with a frying pan until it's too late to do more than half-turn his head towards them. The result is:]

Ghk!

[A stiffening, and then a relaxation with an exhale, adjusting his scarf over his shoulder. It's just Helena... but he's still kicking himself a bit for reacting at all.]

Don't do that... [He shifts over so she can uh... not get a good look at the screen, why did he do that. It gives her space next to him at least.] It's just a commission for someone...

[Someone who's currently on the laptop itself.]

[decrypter]

[with a murmured sorry, she comes to be next to him. even if she can't see the screen, she can hear the laptop whirring, hear the machinery, and it colors her mental landscape some.]

A commission? Did someone ask you to make them a program?

[it would make sense, given his talents...but what would someone need it for? who knows, really - this school has many oddities.

[notsosou]

Ah, it's more like what they want requires programming. Here, have... hold this.

[There's the sound of him shifting and moving cables and then a grunt as he picks something up and then nudges it against Helena for her to take. It's a small mechanical arm, a skeletal frame of two lengths and a joint between them, and then three fingers at the end that close together on the same point, and then a base for attachment to something else. More of a proof of concept at the moment.]

It's just dead metal until it's told how to move, after all. That's my job, right now. That and making sure it's compatible with everything else... and actually works, ahaha. N-not that Senku's work isn't amazing...

[Because it is. He's always both impressed and insecure at the same time about it, but, still. It's subsumed a bit by the fact he's contributing himself. It's also clear from the touch of energy to his words and actions that he's happy to go on about it. It's fun to bounce ideas with Senku, but it's also been burning a hole in his pocket to talk to Helena about it... as long as he doesn't reveal Rei outright it should be fine, right?]

[decrypter]

[her fingers graze over the surface, understanding the form, function from his words, and her eyes widen in that particular way that says she's impressed, and she'll happily listen to what he has to say.]

You're making an arm, aren't you? Programming it to do all the things an arm is supposed to be able to do, how to hold and how to grip...oh, that's incredible!

[Senku's work is amazing, yes, but it doesn't diminish the value of the work Shin's putting into it.]

[notsosou]

[Incredible, huh... help, the flattery... what does he do with it.]

Not just an arm either! Ahaha, you'd be surprised how hard grip strength has been to get right, though.

[There have been... accidents. Using eggs from the home economics room as a test was either a very good idea or a very bad one depending on your perspective.]

Right now it's the feedback on the pressure plates that's a problem... I'm trying to get something a little more granular than just 'yes' or 'no' but... I might have to take it back to Senku for this one.

[He'll try a few more times first at least, since he incredibly hates the feeling of coming to someone and then it turns out he was overlooking something he could have fixed on his own. It just doesn't feel good at all.]

Here, you have your PDA on you, right? [Plug it in, you can have a listen to the dulcet tones of mecha-Senku reading out what he's got so far if you like.]

[decrypter]

I do, but...would it help to read it to me? Generally I find that helps me catch more errors than going over it myself, or find out what I'm missing. After all, it's your time to shine with this!

[she smiles, and it isn't subtle that she wants him to do that - to explain it to her, and open her mind to that part of work.]

[notsosou]

Huh. That's not a bad idea...

[It's basically rubber-ducking, isn't it? In a sense. He already reads things for her when they're studying, and it works there as well.]

Ahaha, let's do it then. So this function is...

[If she's in a comfortable enough position to listen, he'll keep going... He keeps getting sidetracked because at this point he has a rough gauge of what Helena does and doesn't know about programming, and also because he just gets going when he's excited, so the actual text of the code gets a bit embedded in the explanation, especially if she has questions of her own. At some point he pauses, blinking.]

Oh! So that's why...

[Type type type. He leans back a bit.]

Good thing you're here... at this rate we might even be done next month!

[It's a bit of a hyperbole, because how long a project will take is a deep mystery, but it's a compliment because of that.]

[decrypter]

[explanations and understanding come hand in hand, and questions bubble up naturally from there. they seem to build off each other's energy, and she can tell how sincerely invested he is in this, what he's been trying to create in broad strokes. his delight is infectious, and she shares it in a transparent way.

when he pauses, she knows he's got it, and she laughs a little at that optimistic timeline.]

What are you going to do with it once you're done? Will your client come to collect it?

[notsosou]

[She really does like learning things... it's a thought that always has a pang of painful nostalgia to it. Bouncing ideas with her is... actually fun? She seems to enjoy it too.]

Things like this... they're never really 'done', are they? There'll be things like maintenance and upkeep, after all.

[Even leaving aside the urge to keep tinkering and get it perfect... this is mostly him being playfully pedantic though. His tone gains the slowness of someone feeling out how much they should say despite wanting to.]

Ah, it'll be more like we're bringing it to her.

[Or bringing her to it, depending on how things go.]

She's not the most mobile right now... Ahaha, that's what this is for, really.

[That much is safe, right? After Komaeda getting way too close for comfort the factor of not wanting people to find Rei while she's vulnerable has had the dial turned up a bit.]

[decrypter]

Oh! So it's more that you're making her a prosthesis! How wonderful that she's able to get such care and that you're bringing this to life...I can only imagine the further applications of this!

[people being able to get limbs to replace their own should tragedy befall them...like certain automatons, but instead just limited to certain parts. how far could this really go?]

[notsosou]

[It is a complete travesty that this Shin doesn't know exactly how far this can go in his universe, which is that you can apparently straight up ship of Theseus a person.]

A prosthesis... that's one way of looking at it.

[He hadn't really thought of it like that but... she's right. How wonderful... it's difficult to accept the praise when it just feels like it's what should be done?]

This is just one part of it right now... it's easier to do one chunk at a time.

[On his muscles at least, he already gets a bit puffed carrying each bit around to his workstation.]

[decrypter]

Wow...if this is only a section, then I'll be amazed to see it when it's all done!

[because surely...she can witness it, right? at the least, be there?]

[notsosou]

Ahaha, I don't think she'll keep it a secret.

[Rei's been very excited about it, after all, even the small things they've asked her to try out so far. But he's teasing just a bit.]

You can come see it when we get to final touches! [He'll be sure to let her know.] Or whenever really... but it probably won't be very exciting.

[A lot of the time it's butting their heads against a problem, like this... followed intermittently by moments of flow. It probably would look a little more impressive in timelapse or montage or similar where all the iterations come together and refine the whole.]

[decrypter]

It doesn't need to be huge to be exciting to me. The act of creation...that's a marvel as it is, right? Even if it's only little by little, you're making something.

[which, frankly, is more than she has...her writing's stalled out, so she's happy to not think about that.]