4 - Do it Yourself

The new Elizabeth returned to school on Wednesday, re-energized and happy once more. She even seemed to be looking forward to her extra lesson at the end of the day, because Mr. Riggs heard her tell her peers about it several times during the group work part of the day's lesson. Soon enough, the class ended, bringing the school day to a close as well, and Elizabeth was the only student left in Mr. Riggs' classroom.

She approached her teacher's desk confidently, carrying her textbook and note binder with her.

"You won't need those." Mr. Riggs said, pointing at her books. "We're going to be doing something a bit more interesting today."

Elizabeth, who had just opened her mouth to ask what lessons they were going to review, quickly shut it again in confusion. She set her books down on Mr. Riggs desk, then looked up at him questioningly.

"Come into the back, and I'll show you what you'll be doing. I think you'll find it much less dry than balancing chemistry reactions." Mr. Riggs said, as he turned to unlocked the door to the classroom's back room.

Elizabeth looked around curiously as her teacher led her into the back room. She had been there before, briefly, on several occasions to help carry out equipment or supplies that would be needed for lessons or labs, as had most of the students in her class. Mr. Riggs' office desk was just opposite the door. To the left of the door was a separate small storage room with shelves chock full of bottles, bags, and boxes, all marked with chemical and hazard symbols of one kind or another. To the right of and along the same wall as the door were more shelves packed with scales and glassware and other such accouterments necessary to the teaching and learning of chemistry. Along the opposite wall, to the right of Mr. Riggs's office desk, was a long, somewhat cluttered, broad work bench. The workbench had shelves, full of odd electronic and mechanical bits and pieces, both underneath it and on top of it back against the wall. At the very end of the long, narrow room, against the short wall to the far right, was a lab station with chemical fume hood atop it. In front of the lab station, protruding from the ceiling, was a wide shower head with a thin metal chain dangling from it. Beneath the emergency shower was a tiled area of the floor, slightly sloped inwards towards a large drain.

"You'll be working here, at the workbench." said Mr. Riggs, pointing to a chair that seemed to be centered amidst the clutter. "Your task will be to assemble a few simple machines I've been designing. I studied mechanical engineering for a few years in college, before I switched over to a teaching major. I've never really lost my fascination with machines, though, and I have dabbled with them occasionally ever since. Mr. Grey over in the shop class has been helping me machine out the parts, and I'd like you to put them together for me."

"Umm, I'm not sure I know how to do that, Mr. Riggs." said Elizabeth, who was clearly a little taken aback and unsure of the task in front of her.

"Oh, don't worry. It's the simplest thing in the world." Mr. Riggs replied. "Did you ever play with Legos as a child?"

"Yeah, of course." answered Elizabeth, who was a little embarrassed about the fact that she still sometimes played with her childhood Legos when no one was looking.

"It's very much the same. You just have a pile of parts." Mr. Riggs said, pointing to what Elizabeth had thought was just clutter on the surface of the workbench.

"And an instruction sheet." he continued, picking up a sheaf of papers from the bench and waving at her. "So all you have to do is find the right parts and fit them together in the right order. They're all labeled, so you shouldn't have any difficulty. If you do run into any problems, just ask me. I'll be at my desk working on something else."

"Um, what will you be doing?" inquired Elizabeth.

"I," said Mr. Riggs, with a theatrical sigh, "will be grading over two hundred individual pieces of chemistry homework that my classes turned in today. My students, you included, will be expecting the graded homework back tomorrow."

"We can trade jobs, if you like." he added, smiling at her sardonically.

"Ah.. No thank you, Mr. Riggs. I think I'll stick with whatever this thing is." replied Elizabeth, suddenly much more sure about what she wanted to be doing for the rest of the afternoon. The stack of papers on Mr. Riggs' office desk was frighteningly tall, and she wanted nothing to do with them.

Elizabeth sat down at the work bench and picked up the sheaf of papers Mr. Riggs had shown her. Each page looked like a bunch of wire frame drawings of parts that seemed to have burst out from the center. As Elizabeth followed the lines connecting the pieces though, she began to understand what she was seeing. The parts were arranged in an order along the lines, almost as if someone had taken whatever it was they all came together to make apart and lined up each piece in turn as they did so. Each piece was labeled in small block text, and Elizabeth glanced down at the jumble of parts in front of her to see similar labels affixed to each.

This might not be so bad, she thought to herself. Her chemistry homework might not make much sense, but this.. this really was quite similar to Legos. She could see how everything fit together on the pages before her, so she just had to try to make the parts on the bench match the plans Mr. Riggs had provided. There was even a small set of tools lined up along the edge of the bench, ready for her use.

She worked on the machine for nearly two hours, quickly growing absorbed in the project. Each page in the sheaf of papers was another layer of the thing taking shape in front of her, and she just had to assemble each depicted component then connect it to the rest of the slowly forming machine.

Elizabeth was so engrossed in her task that it came as a surprise when Mr. Riggs spoke up from behind her, startling her slightly.

"That's very good. I think that it is coming along nicely. Why don't you leave off for today, and go on home. You live within walking distance, yes?" said Mr. Riggs.

"Uh.. Yeah. My house is less than a mile from the school." replied Elizabeth, taking a moment to collect her thoughts.

"Good. You can come back tomorrow afternoon. I think you might be able to finish it up then." said Mr. Riggs, smiling down at her.

Elizabeth left, a bit confused about how what she had been asked to do related to chemistry, but happy none the less that Mr. Riggs had seemed pleased with her progress. As she walked home, she began to look forward to her next extra credit session. Elizabeth was very interested to know just what the thing she was building actually did.