While Q continued to refine the original robot, Spy boldly pressed forward to create:

Still not walking, this robot has two new features. As before, two servos allow the arms to move up and down – these arms come with flashlight and propeller capabilities (complete the circuit, and the propeller spins as the arm goes up and down). Spygrandpa pulled out more servos for Spy and Q to improve their robots, but Q was too slow or too busy with other projects. Spy grabbed the extra two.

With the addition of a third servo, Soda Bottle Robot can now turn his head (all the better for the red LED eyes to see you, my dear).

(Why yes, that is my old ear bud holder.)

(Flashlight and propeller on above.)

And the fourth servo enabled Spy’s robot to wag his tail. You know, “so you can tell if he’s happy with you or not”.

Did I not warn you all last year that remote control cars were just the beginning? Mark my words, next year there will be wheels.

In an undisclosed location (Grandpa’s Cellar), Spy and Q receive intense training in electronics.

Once upon a time, my father received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering. He went on to medical school, shifting his focus to the electrical system in humans and is now a neurologist by profession. Did he give up those EE skills? No. They simply went underground.

Literally.

Growing up, lights would dim and strange sounds would emerge from the basement….

Today, this underground facility is still in use, occasionally for Spy and Q’s training.  As spymom, my only request was that my children be returned with both eyes and all ten fingers. Yes – for now – there are safety regulations.

At this bench, Grandpa teaches them the basics of wiring electrical circuits:

Nearby, deceased electronics are subjected to dissection:

What? You can’t tell what that is? Look harder….

Did anyone guess? Its a (former) VCR. In the past, a microwave oven… a TV… no one dares throw anything electronic out. I believe an alarm clock is slated for the next postmortem.

A lot of other interesting activities go on down there. One activity is the training Spy and Q receive using remote controls. Sure, they think they’re just playing while they crash remote control cars into piles of soda cans, styrofoam blocks and cardboard boxes. But secretly, Grandpa is training them to operate remote controlled airplanes so they can join him one day on the airfield. Drones are probably only one step beyond that…

Hot glue guns, balsa wood projects, saws, nails, wires… all this and more is at their disposal. Spy and Q can’t get down into the cellar fast enough when they arrive at Grandpa’s house.

For now, the experiments seem harmless enough. But at ages five and eight, its early days. I wouldn’t be surprised if Grandpa has an old electromyograph down there somewhere… so if Spy and Q start talking needles, muscle potentials and nerve conduction, I might just have to intervene.

Then again, NASA is working to interface man and machine by connecting people directly to computers in order to control flight systems using electromyographic signals. Perhaps Spy and Q will just be getting a head start.

This weekend, we are heading to an undisclosed location where Spy and Q frequently train: Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Which brings to mind one incident that foreshadowed future Spy activities.

Spy was a mere three and a half years old, but already demonstrating worrisome tendencies. This particular night, we tucked our children into separate upstairs bedrooms. Q, as usual, dropped to sleep like a rock. Spy, as usual, didn’t understand the need for sleep.

Nevertheless, we baby-gated him in, crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.

For a while, there was the usual noise overhead. Then silence. We figured he’d fallen asleep after an exhausting day of tramping through the countryside and generally wearing down all the adults.

We figured wrong.

My parents have a downstairs bedroom, connected to the house by a walk-through bathroom. Spy’s grandmother stepped away from the conversation and entered the bathroom. All the lights were off in that section of the house. All was quiet.

Then a red dot appeared on her chest.

And she knew it could mean only one thing.

Walking into her bedroom, she threw on the lights. There was Spy. Seeing no reason to sleep, he’d scaled the baby gate, descended rather steep stairs in the dark, slipped past a room full of adults and into the dark bedroom in search of one of the best toys at Grandpa’ house: a laser pointer.

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The Spy and Q spend most of their free time building and playing with Lego. The other weekend, they built a little Wall-e. And then they went nuts. At peak, 20 robots were counted. An entire army. There were Wall-e transport vehicles, boats, planes… an entire compound.

Meet their leader:

The compound came complete with a night club including a hot tub, a bar (drinks & food), and a dance floor with flashing lights. You know, so the robots can relax after their missions. (Which begs the question: How do my children know about night clubs?)

Where did the flashing light come from? It turns out they pulled apart one of those bouncy balls with a pressure activated light in the middle. Q discovered that the light could be activated by completing the circuit using Spy’s tongue.  Q doesn’t care for the mild shock involved, but Spy doesn’t seem to mind.

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