14 Apr A Time travel challenge to Journee and Barry
DIGITAL CHRONOGRAPH MACHINE – The ASSIGNMENT
My name is Journee and I’ve been coding since I was nine-years-old. I’m eleven now and this whole crazy thing started as a simple class assignment that got way out of hand. BTW, I go to school in Seattle, the same school where Bill Gates went when he was my age, which is a big deal if your an outlier like he and I. Anyway, so there’s no question computers are a big deal here. My computer teacher, Mr. Lutz had given all the kids in my class the hottest new gadget I’d ever seen; a Rasberry Pi Model B. It’s this credit-card sized computer that pugs into your TV and keyboard and you can use it for anything you use a computer for. way cool.
At the moment we are learning new coding languages which is cool and my dad says I’ll for sure have a job in the future.
So the assignment is to use the coding to construct a simple digital clock with as many capabilities as we can think of; the more the higher the points. I build the basics; numbers, led coloring choices, a timing system to count and record the seconds, minutes, hours and stuff. Then I think, how cool would it be to link it to Google and any historical events so if you want to check out what happened a hundred years ago you can. It’s an algorithm and system of links. Done. dad says I’m like gunfighter, quick draw fast when it comes to coding. Whatever that means. But, yeah, I’m really fast.
I launch and see on the monitor I’ve hooked the little device into, the code change into a black screen with a line of numbers and colons delineating year; day:hour:minute:seconds:tenth of seconds in Microsoft blue. I type in the command; What happened today, at this time one hundred and thirty three years ago?
The year numbers in my beautiful, digital chronograph begin to spin backwards so fast they’re a blur of electric blue. When suddenly, I start to notice my entire room taking on the same glowy, melty, drippy affects as the numbers on the monitor. The walls are gone. I’m sitting at my desk, but outside. The Rasberry Pi, my keyboard and monitor and my desk and chair are in the middle of field surrounded by trees. It’s like whatever I and the Rasberry Pi are touching have slipped into this… I don’t know what. Well, so, okay, maybe I fell a sleep and it’s a dream. Right? Right?
The year numbers stops to exactly one hundred and thirty years ago and I look around and I’m in the middle of nowhere. I pinch myself.
“Ouch,” I say, thinking how real this crazy dream feels.
That’s when I hear a horse whinny. I look up and see a big, hairy draft horse standing next to a boy my age, staring at me like I’m an alien from another planet.