Chapter 13 — Wind Village Robot Team

Two weeks passed faster than Khanh Dan thought. Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, the whole team adhered to the agreed ninety-minute schedule, never once being late, never once exceeding the allotted time, even though there were days when work was almost done and only a few steps away from the finish line. Nam became the strictest in keeping time, often the first to remind the group to clean up when the clock hands hit the mark, a change that surprised even himself.

The new L298N chip was bought with Khanh Dan's breakfast savings for two weeks. This time it was installed correctly according to the cross-checking process: Phong connected the wires, Gia Han compared each connection point according to the diagram drawn by Uyen Nhi, and only when all three people nodded in confirmation, Khanh Dan allowed the power to be plugged in. There were no more "squeaks" during those two weeks, although not everything went smoothly - one day the engine rotated in the opposite direction because Gia Han mistakenly wrote a minus sign in the command, another day the left wheel slipped off the axle because the screw was not tightened tightly, but each time, it only took the whole team a few minutes to find the error and fix it, no one panicked or blamed each other like the night of the first chip fire.

One evening, when the whole team was exhausted after three consecutive failed attempts because the robot kept going off the line at the second turn, Uyen Nhi suddenly suggested redrawing the entire racetrack map to an exact scale instead of estimating by eye as before, measuring each corner with a protractor borrowed from the Math toolbox. Thanks to that precise drawing, Gia Han recalculated the right time to slow down before entering the corner, and on the next try, the robot passed the most difficult corner without derailing. That was the first time the team realized that Uyen Nhi's contribution did not just stop at beautiful illustrations, but actually directly affected whether the robot ran correctly or not.

By the end of the second week, the robot had run stably for three consecutive tries without error, and Khanh Dan decided this was the right time to invite Ms. Xuyen to come see it, just as she promised two weeks ago.

***

"Three, two, one." Gia Han counted down, her finger placed on the power switch. The whole team surrounded the cardboard sheet stretching nearly three meters, drawing a zigzag black line with two sharp turns and a simulated slope by tilting a board.

She pressed the switch. The robot - now much more spacious than the rudimentary wooden version two weeks ago, the frame was reinforced by Nam with aluminum cut from an old TV, the wheels covered with rubber cut from broken bicycle inner tubes to grip the road better - rolls smoothly along the black line, handles the first turn without stopping like in previous tests, climbs the simulated slope with an automatic slowing speed thanks to a new command Gia Han wrote to increase traction when detecting tilt through an acceleration sensor. Temporarily borrowed from Mr. Toan's old phone.

Ms. Xuyen stood at the warehouse door, her hand still clutching her other elbow, a familiar defensive posture of someone who did not completely trust her but had come to see what she had promised two weeks ago. Next to her is Ms. Hien, carrying a piece of paper with Gia Han's scores for the past two weeks.

The robot completed the entire race, stopped at the finish line, the small LED light mounted on the front - Uyen Nhi's initiative to signal when the task was completed - flashed three times.

No one in the team cheered loudly like the previous successful tests. All four children stood still, eyes watching Ms. Xuyen, waiting for her reaction more than celebrating their technical victory.

Ms. Xuyen stepped closer, bent down to look at the stationary robot, and gently touched the aluminum shell with her hand, as if she needed to verify with her own fingers that what was running in front of her eyes was real, not some magic trick.

"You did this?" She asked, looking at no one in particular, the question hanging between all four children.

"The whole team is mom." Gia Han replied, her voice cautious. "I wrote the control command, Phong and Nam made the frame and motor, Uyen Nhi drew the design."

Ms. Xuyen nodded slowly, stood up straight, and turned to Ms. Hien. "How have his grades been in the past two weeks?"

Ms. Hien brought out the score sheet. "Look here, Math increased by half a point, Literature remained the same, and Computer Science was almost perfect. None of the subjects decreased, Ms. Xuyen. I followed closely as I promised you."

Ms. Xuyen held the paper, looked at each line of scores, and was silent for a long time. Khanh Dan stood a few steps away, not daring to speak up to break the silence, because she understood that this was the moment when her words would have no weight compared to a real score sheet and a robot that had just run the entire race before her eyes.

"Can I take this to the exam?" Ms. Xuyen asked, looking up. The question surprised the whole team because they didn't think she would ask the right question.

"That's exactly what we're aiming for." Khanh Dan replied, trying to keep his voice calm even though a new hope rose in his heart. "There is a regional robotics competition held in Yen Binh city at the end of the semester, we are considering registering."

"Compete with whom?" Ms. Xuyen continued to ask, her voice completely different from when she entered the warehouse two weeks ago.

"Other schools in the area, including schools in the city, have much more complete equipment than us." Khanh Dan said honestly.

Ms. Xuyen was silent for a moment, her eyes never leaving the robot standing still on the cardboard. "So I guess I'll lose."

That sentence could have made the whole team feel down, but Ms. Xuyen's tone when she said it was not one of denial or ridicule - it was the voice of someone who was used to assessing reality before hoping, the kind of reality of a farmer who was used to looking at rice fields and predicting which crop will fail.

"It's possible." Khanh Dan did not avoid it. "But we want to try."

Ms. Xuyen nodded, put the score sheet back in Ms. Hien's hand, then turned to look at her daughter for a long moment, her eyes softened a lot compared to the anger of the evening two weeks ago.

"To take the exam, you must prepare properly." She said, her tone suddenly turning pragmatic. "When you're going away, I'll pack some food to take with you. Don't let yourself be hungry and not be able to concentrate on your homework. With—" She hesitated for a moment, as if considering whether to say the next sentence or not. "If you need any additional electrical items, we have an old fan with a broken motor from last year and haven't thrown it away yet. I'll see if I can use it."

Gia Han stood still for a second, then burst out laughing, a laugh that was both relieved and emotional, and ran to hug her mother. Ms. Xuyen was a bit embarrassed by the unexpected hug, but still reached out to pat her daughter's back, looking over Gia Han's shoulder at the robot still standing still on the finish line, the small LED light still blinking slowly like a heartbeat just beating the first beats of a long journey ahead.

After Ms. Xuyen and Ms. Hien left, the whole team sat around the robot, no one said anything for a while, only the sound of LED lights ticking and flashing steadily in the middle of the warehouse was gradually getting dark because it was getting late.

"So are you really registering for the exam?" Phong spoke first, breaking the silence.

"I think I should register." Khanh Dan replied, opening her laptop to find the contest information she had saved a few weeks ago but did not dare mention it because she was not sure whether the team could pass the two-week testing period or not. "But I want the whole team to decide for themselves, not for me to decide for them. This is no longer just a test for fun. If we register, we have to prepare seriously, maybe we have to sacrifice more time than now."

Nam was the first to raise his hand, decisively without hesitation. "I signed up."

Gia Han nodded immediately afterward, her eyes still shining with joy from the hug she had just shared with her mother. "Me too."

Phong nodded more slowly, but no less firmly. "This robot is ours, it would be a waste to let it lie idle in the warehouse."

Only Uyen Nhi did not say anything, her hand still clutching the sketchbook in her heart. When the group turned to look, the girl was a little startled, then nodded, her voice small but clear. "I want to go too, even though I'm afraid of standing in front of a crowd of people."

"That's four yes votes." Khanh Dan smiled, typing on his laptop the first line of an unfinished online registration form. "You will complete your registration this week. From now on, it is no longer a test club. We are officially a competition team."

Outside, the afternoon wind began to rise through the crack in the warehouse door, making the oil lamp on the table slightly sway, the light swaying back and forth on four children's faces bending over the laptop screen, watching each information box Khanh Dan typed into the registration form as if witnessing an important ceremony. None of them knew exactly what lay ahead in Yen Binh city, but for the first time since the start, all four children looked at each other with a much clearer confidence, a confidence that did not come from empty words of encouragement, but from the robot itself that was still standing on the finish line, its LED lights flashing as a living testament to what they had accomplished together.