Page 52 of Badd Ass
“Oh, hello Mara,” he said, finally. “I’m, um, studying.”
“Studying what?”
He flipped the textbook closed to show the cover. “Advanced Computational Mathematics.”
She gestured at the laptop and robotics. “And all this?”
Xavier just blinked at her. When he was in his head like this, it always took him a while to re-gear into a socializing mindset. “Um, it’s basic robotics, I just…” he glanced at me uncomfortably.
I laughed. “Boy genius here has focus problems.”
“But…he’s doing two super advanced things at once,” Mara pointed out.
“Yeah, well, Xavier’s focus problem is the opposite of everyone else’s. He reads so fast and his brain comprehends so quickly that it’s like…listening to the radio while driving for the rest of us. He has trouble sitting still and paying attention if he’s not mentally occupied. So he has to do something to entertain all of his brain.” I picked up a finished robot, a three-legged little thing, and showed it to Mara. “He builds these robots while he studies. They’re simple little things that only do one or two things.”
“Icananswer for myself, you know,” Xavier said, his voice sharp with sarcasm. He glanced at Mara. “But what he said is correct, even though he spoke for me.”
Mara examined the robot; it was just a box with three tiny pegs for legs, one each on opposite sides of the cube, and then a third on the front forming a sort of off-kilter tripod. “So what’s this one do?”
Xavier took it from her, set it on the table in front of his textbook, and flipped a switch on the bottom. The little box sat on the two primary legs with one edge touching the table, and then rotated backward flat to the table so it was sitting down, so to speak. When the legs and corresponding cube face were parallel to the table, it suddenly flipped into the air, did three somersaults, and landed again, then used the single “front leg” to push itself back into a sitting position, at which point it reared back and repeated the simple performance.
Mara laughed delightedly. “Oh my god, that is so cute!” She crouched to watch the little robot do its jump and flip, laughing every time it launched itself into the air. “And you do this just for fun?”
He shrugged modestly. “Sure. Just to keep myself busy while I’m studying.”
She picked up the robot and turned it off, then examined it again. “You ever think about selling them?”
Xavier did the blank, blinking stare again, the one that made it seem like you’d spoken in Swahili or something. “Sell them? To whom?”
Mara laughed. “Anyone! Online, or downstairs in the bar? You put in one of those USB rechargeable batteries and put a cute little face on this? I bet you could get twenty or thirty bucks out of it.”
Xavier stared at the robot like he’d never seen it. “That’s, like, maybe five or ten dollars in parts. The most expensive part is the chip, and I get a wholesale discount from a supplier I know.”
“Exactly. Huge profit margin, and you make them in your spare time.”
Xavier turned the robot on and watched it flip. “You really think people would buy them?”
“Absolutely.” She dug her wallet out of her purse and set three tens on the table, and then took the robot. “There. I’m your first customer.”
Xavier poked at the money like he’d never seen a greenback before. “For real?”
Mara laughed again. “Yes, sweetheart, for real. This thing is amazing! I could watch it flip for hours while I’m doing paperwork. I know for a fact if I put it on my desk at work, before lunch at least five people would ask me where I got it.”
Xavier pointed at a slot on one side. “It already has the USB battery, because that’s just the easiest way of charging and being able to reprogram it.”
“See? And everyone has a mini USB cord somewhere around the house, so there’s no need to include one. I think you just make it look more like an animal or monster or something, just a little head and eyes or whatever, give it a cute name, and you’re in business.”
“A cute name?”
Mara nodded, tapping the robot on the head. “Like, I’ll call this one Flipper. Like the old TV show about the Dolphin? Only this actually is just a flipper, so it’s…stupid, but—”
“No, that’s cute. I see what you mean.” He was already on his laptop, tapping away. “I could design a basic starter website in like an hour. I’d just need a PayPal account, and some way of packaging them…” And then Xavier was gone, mentally, mumbling to himself, fingers clacking and flying on the keyboard.
I laughed and led Mara toward my room. “You know he has crates full of those things in his room? If he sits and studies or reads for three or four hours, he’ll put together four or five of them. And they’re all like that, simple, cute, funny, and endlessly entertaining. I think you just created the CEO of the next Apple Corporation.”
Mara smiled at me. “It’ll start there, and then he’ll design a more complex one, and next thing you know, he’ll be selling his IPO for half a billion.”
“Exactly,” I said, closing the door behind us.