Designing the Blueprint

"Lee Stein, you're late!"

Carrying his newly bought laptop, Li Si hurried into the classroom and immediately spotted Pierce, looking stern.

"Sorry, Mr. Pierce. I studied too late last night. I promise it won't happen again!"

Li Si promptly admitted fault. As a bona fide academic underachiever from China, he had plenty of experience dealing with this sort of thing.

After a couple of mild warnings, the classroom settled down again.

Li Si had to put his plan to keep designing the Transformers during class on hold for the time being. Pierce was still in a bad mood, and walking right into the line of fire wouldn't be a wise move.

At long last, class ended. Li Si eagerly opened his laptop and used the drafting software he'd installed to begin sketching out the structural model he'd come up with the night before.

He ignored both the second-period social studies class and the third-period science class, living up to the old saying: "Hear nothing beyond your own affairs; see nothing beyond your own work."

Thanks to his last monthly exam results, none of the teachers came looking for trouble with the top student in the class.

In fact, the classes at school weren't much help to him anymore. With the knowledge he had now, even a university couldn't teach him much. If not for the experience from his daily quests, he wouldn't have been sitting here at all.

Time always flew when he was absorbed in something. With all distractions set aside, Li Si was brimming with inspiration. Before long, he'd built a rough model and was ready to refine it.

But just then, someone who couldn't read the room interrupted him.

"Hey, Li, what are you doing?"

Bored out of his mind in class, Peter Parker spun his ballpoint pen, his eyes unfocused.

He happened to glance over at Li Si, who'd been busy for ages with something he couldn't make out. The image on the laptop screen immediately caught his attention, and he leaned closer in surprise.

"Whoa, that's awesome! Are you designing a robot?"

Looking at the bright yellow robot model rotating on the screen, Peter Parker whispered in amazement.

Li Si gave him a helpless look, then sighed and clarified, "More accurately, it's a car that can transform into a robot."

"Oh, that's so cool! What a genius idea. If you actually make it, it'll be a huge hit!"

Peter Parker's eyes lit up as he stared at the robot on the screen. "Are you planning to sell it to a toy company or make it yourself? Buddy, you have to sell me the very first one you make!"

"..."

I guess it's no surprise that one of Marvel's three great motormouths and sharp-tongued wiseacres is still a shameless wiseacre, even without the Spider-Man suit...

Li Si glanced at Peter Parker speechlessly, only to be met with a baffled expression.

"Fine, this is actually a toy for my personal use. It's not for sale."

With a sigh, Li Si decided not to argue with Spider-Man.

After all, he was one of Marvel's three great motormouths and sharp-tongued wiseacres. Even without turning into a tight-suited freak and letting loose, that cheeky, sharp-tongued side of him wouldn't change. Arguing with him definitely wasn't a wise move.

"Oh, no! Buddy, you can't be so selfish. You have to learn to share."

Peter Parker grabbed Li Si's right arm, eyes full of hope. "Just one. I only need one!"

"If you were a beautiful woman with a fortune, maybe I'd consider it. But unfortunately, you're not."

Li Si held back Peter Parker's antics with a deadpan expression. He planted one hand on his head and pushed him back into his seat.

But when he turned around after fending Peter Parker off, he found himself face-to-face with another pair of sparkling eyes.

"Did you design this robot?"

Gwen asked in surprise, apparently having overheard Li Si and Peter Parker's whispered conversation.

"As you can see, it's only a toy model for now."

Li Si shrugged. "I'm working on getting it to move."

Gwen smiled. "I'm sure it won't take long. Remember to bring it in once you've made it so we can all see it, top student."

"It would be my pleasure!"

Li Si grinned and made an exaggerated gesture, hand to his chest.

"Perhaps I should start calling you a perfect gentleman?" Gwen smiled sweetly.

"No. 'Gentleman' has an ambiguous meaning in my country, and it's not a very flattering word. I much prefer 'top student.'"

Li Si's voice turned wistful.

"All right, top student. Don't forget your promise."

"Of course. I never forget a promise to a beautiful woman. You'll see."

Li Si smiled and ended the conversation, but Peter Parker's head popped up behind him again.

"Li, sometimes I really envy you!"

Peter Parker said enviously.

"Envy me? What do you envy?"

Li Si smiled. "That I'm better-looking than you?"

"No, seriously. I envy how easily you can chat and joke with girls."

Peter Parker looked consumed by envy, then his expression sank. "I just can't do that."

"Peter, if you were a little more confident, you could do it too."

Li Si didn't know what to say, so he could only offer some encouragement:

"Maybe you could try asking Mary Jane out. You've been neighbors since you were kids, haven't you? In China, we call that a childhood sweetheart."

"Forget it. We've barely spoken a few words to each other our whole lives."

Peter Parker glanced wistfully at the back of Mary Jane's head in the upper-left corner of the classroom, then slumped in defeat.

"Come on, buddy. You need to learn to be confident!"

Li Si said, "You're good at photography, aren't you? That's a great excuse to strike up a conversation. I heard Mary Jane really wants to be a model."

"No, Li. Can we not talk about this?"

Peter Parker slumped over his desk and buried his head in his arms.

"You're the one who came over to talk to me."

Li Si shrugged and muttered.

With Peter Parker no longer distracting him, he turned his attention back to the laptop. Studying the basic model, he imagined how each part would move and began designing its transformation mechanism.

He tried making a few simple transformation models, but they compromised the robot's agility. After tinkering with them for a long time, he finally decided to start over and try a more complex but more flexible design.

That made things even more complicated. He had to carefully calculate and simulate the position of every armor plate and every component.

The bell rang at the end of the last class, signaling that school was over.

Li Si was right at a crucial point in his thinking. To avoid breaking his train of thought, he picked up his schoolbag and laptop and headed to the library. He also needed to look up some information, and aside from the computer lab, it was the only place in the school with an internet connection.

The students hurriedly packed up and left, while the elderly librarian was, as usual, lost in his own musical world. That made the library a rare haven of quiet.

After searching through reference materials for a long time, Li Si began reworking his model.

He really missed Earth, where he'd come from. There'd been an endless supply of realistic model toys to use as references. If he'd bought a few to play with back then, he wouldn't have to go to so much trouble now.

Unfortunately, there was no cure for regret. Having only seen the movies, all he could do now was piece together and simulate the design from the scattered images in his mind.

Night was falling.

"Finally done. Next, I just need to check what parts are available on the market and settle on the exact structure of each section... Never mind, I'll leave that for tomorrow."

After nearly two hours of repeatedly recalling scenes from the movies, Li Si had finally settled on a basic dynamic model for the transformation mechanism.

The overall model was based mainly on the Transformers movies. In car mode, the mechanical arms that formed the limbs folded inward on either side of the torso's load-bearing axis to make up the chassis. The chest plate tilted upward ninety degrees to cover the head and joined with the back plate to form the vehicle body.

Once the vehicle body was roughly shaped, the rest was simple. The doors and rear wheels were placed on the back. The tires could serve as shock-absorbing protection for the shoulders, while the doors, arranged like wings on either side of the back, could stabilize the vehicle at high speeds.

Like in the movies, the front wheels were placed at the feet of the lower mechanical arms. That would increase the surface area of the feet for better stability, while also letting them function like rollers and provide greater mobility on flat ground.

After refining the design in this way, the basic structure was more or less complete.

Of course, it was only a rough design. It was good enough to make a plastic toy, but if he really wanted to turn it into a robot, he still had to design the internal components and the precise construction of the mechanical arms.

Still, he'd at least worked out the general framework. All that remained was to finish the most important part—the mechanical arms. Everything else was a minor issue; he just had to consider where to place the power source and weapons.