Super Sheep II

The time is half past twelve. Three students are huddling in a room, bent over some strange creation. "It doesn't fit," one says, frustrated, leaning over from the bed to see what his teammates are working on. "Bubbles!" swears the second. The camera spirals slowly in, zooming in on the apparatus underneath their fingertips. Slowly, the hand moves away, revealing--

Welcome to the web page of Team 17: Super Sheep II @ 6.270, an annual competition held at MIT over its Independent Activities Period.

--a LEGO piece. "Quick, get a red two-by-four plate, T-bone!" the kid in the black sweatshirt says urgently. "There aren't any left!" exclaims T-bone. "What?" roars the pupil who is precariously perched on the edge of the bed. "We had plenty just this afternoon!"

For all of IAP, we have toiled industriously, depositing our blood, sweat, and tears into a robot made of legos. The result: failure.

"There must be a thief afoot," Black Sweatshirt mutters angrily. "I suspect foul play." Precarious looks up suddenly. "You know what? I know who it must be. It MUST be--"

Well, maybe "failure" is a bit of a harsh word. After all, we did win the seeding tournament, gaining us an automatic placebo to play against in the first round of the competition. (To be fair, our blood/sweat/tears didn't really go into the robot, either.)

"Well?" Black Sweatshirt prompts insistently. "It 'MUST' be whom?"
T-bone is still hunched over the robot, furiously trying the remaining pieces to see if any of them will do. "Hey T-bone," Precarious says, ignoring Black Sweatshirt's question, "Has your roommate--you know--been in here since this morning?"
T-bone's eyes widens as he realizes the magnitude of their folly. "Oh, no!" he cries, instantly contrite. "He hasn't--but his cat sure has! I never realized that my roommate would be capable of such a thing!"
"Well, apparently he is," Black Sweatshirt snaps. "You told us this room would be safe to work in! Instead, your roommate (who is, as you know, a member of Team 48) has employed his cat to SABOTAGE our ROBOT!"
"I didn't know!" T-bone protests, backing away from Black Sweatshirt's penetrating glare. "I--really, you gotta believe me!"

All in all, through the good times and the bad, 6.270 was a real experience. At the end of the month, we had made ourselves a well-designed, simple, efficient robot (if nothing more than that.)
If Precariously Perched had just made the finishing touches to the code that Black Sweatshirt had told him to do, perhaps our robot would have been better. Perhaps it would even have won. But as it stands, bygones are bygones (just like a spade is a spade), and we are immensely proud of our progeny.

"It's okay, guys," Precarious says. He has been thinking hard, rather than letting his emotions get the better of him. "I've got a solution."
"Yea?" snarls Black Sweatshirt. "What's your brilliant idea, Mr. Edisonfranklinstein?"
"Nice neologism," T-bone says appreciatively. "I agree--what's the plan?
"Simple," Precarious says. "All we have to do is employ the forces of--the Super Sheep!"
"I've got an even better idea!" T-bone breathes excitedly. "Not just Super Sheep--Super Sheep 2!"
And so it went.