GENERAL UPDATES
The officers had been working hard on this case for four weeks. Sadly, they had to work even harder as time was running out. Week 0 was approaching.
To make things worse, working with a 2015 Control System and a 2014 FMS System (FMS-Lite or 3rd party equivalent) wasn’t really all that easy.
As if on cue, a man entered the room with a deus ex machinegun.
“Sir!” said one officer when she looked up from the laptop. “Weapons are not allowed in this establishment!”
“No time to talk! I have a delivery.”
With that he walked to their desk and put down a single piece of paper with the link: http://wpilib.screenstepslive.
As he turned to walk away he said over his shoulder, “It’s from the Author(s). You’ll be needing that link to help you with the Controls System.”
“Wait.” Straws had pulled her gun out and pointed it at the man. “Who are you? Who do work for?’
The man stopped. “I thought you said weapons weren’t allowed.”
Straws said nothing and just nodded at the gun in her hand.
“If you must know, I am X.A. Nder. I work for the Author(s). There, happy?”
“Wait,” Speedy said, standing up, “How did you say your name? En-der?”
Straws looked over at her partner. “He obviously said Nay-der.”
“Uh-” The agent tried to interrupt them, say it didn’t matter, but he couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
The officers batted various pronunciations back and forth.
“Ni-durr.”
“Ned-urr.”
“One word! Der. Silent N.”
“I’ve gotta get going-”
Bang!
Thud.
The room smelled of gunpowder and only two people were left standing.
“What’d you do that for!” Straws yelled at her partner, who was still holding her gun.
Speedy lowered the gun. “He was making my head hurt.”
Straws just sighed at that. She grabbed a marker and stepped around the corpse to erase the board and wrote, “0 days without an accident.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Inspection Checklist
“Ze name iz Inspector Chèqueliste,” said the mysterious mustachioed figure. “And zere is a bumb in zis room!”
The intrepid investigators exchanged incredulous looks. “A.. bum?” Speedy inquired.
“Not a bum, a bumb!” the inspector insisted.
“Well by the looks of it there’s three,” said Straws, doing a quick head count. “Unless someone in here is missing their–”
“No, you fools! BUMB! B-O-M-B! Do I have to zpell it out for you like children?!”
“Oh, a bomb!” the investigators chorused in unison, nodding their heads and smiling. “Wait, bomb?”
“BOMB! BOMB! BOMB!” Speedy yelled, panicked.
A trumpet started to play in the distance. Somewhere out there, a shirtless man painted entirely in blue is flexing and smiling in a semi-disturbing fashion.#bombombom2k15
“So how do we turn off that awful thing?” Straws asked, leaving it conveniently ambiguous whether she was referring to the song or the explosive.
“There iz an inspection checklist!” He then was able to say the entire link: http://www.usfirst.org/sites/
Quite an impressive memory that man has, the officers thought. “But we don’t have a computer!” Speedy said.
“But doesn’t the increasingly meta and self aware nature of our universe allow us to click on hyperlinks in real life?” Straws asked.
Just then, an explosion rocked the house.
The explosion was a party.
The party was rocking in the house tonight. Everybody just had a good time. And we gonna make them lose their minds. We just wanna make them
(electronic background noises)
Shake that.
Two Weeks Later
Inspector Chèqueliste kept his head low as he approached the room of the Author(s). The girls were bent over their laptops typing away at the next installment at 8:30 PM.
“It iz done.” He said. “One more for ze death tally of zose horrible officers.” The Inspector was glad they were gone. More business for him.
“Too bad we lost Agent X.A. Nder.” One of the girls said. “He had so much potential.”
“He knew what would happen.” The other, slightly older one said. “We warned him. All supporting characters must die.” At this, they turned to the Inspector.
“Speaking of which… it would seem we have a loose end to tie up.”
BANG.
MXP BOARDS
The intrepid investigators arrived at the scene of the crime– or at least, they had thought it was a crime.
The power distribution guy was once again on the wrong side of the law, but this time he was attempting to argue his way out.
“You were caught using an MXP port to control motors and servos!” Straws exclaimed.
“Well yes, but they were connected via passive conductors,” the man protested.
Speedy squinted. “No,” she said. “Some of them were connected via passive conductors, but you had a device capable of dynamically controlling and/or converting a source of electrical energy by the application of external stimulus connected to one of your servos, and the rules clearly state that the motors and servos must be connected only to passive conductors!”
“Assuming the motors and servos are being controlled via the MXP port on the RoboRIO,” Straws added.
The man began to sweat. “Wait, what?” he asked. “Could you… say that again? Slower?”
Straws rolled her eyes. “If the MXP Port is in use, then it’s illegal unless there are no servos or motors connected to t, unless the servos and motors are connected to passive conductors only or unless they’re connected only active devices approved under R58, of which there are three. It’s really not that hard. What are you, five years old?”
The man blinked, uncomprehending.
Speedy sighed heavily and pulled down a massive roll-up world map from the ceiling, on top of which a flow chart had been crudely pasted.
***********************
“See?” Speedy said, pulling a laser pointer out of her pocket. “It’s easy. Were you using an MXP Port?”
“Well yes, but-”
“Yes. Next. Were there any motors/servos connected?”
“Yeah, there were, but-”
“Were the motors and servos connected to passive conductors?”
“YES! I had a motor and a servo connected to passive conductors, I swear, see I told you I was innoc-”
“Only passive conductors?”
“…no.”
Speedy leaned forward menacingly. “Don’t suppose your active devices were one of the three listed as approved in section R58?”
The man sweated nervously. “…maybe?”
With a scowl, Straws pulled out her gun and aimed it at his chest. “Well maybe this gun is loaded,” she said scathingly. “We’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”
“No! I-”
Speedy rolled her eyes, pulled out her own gun, and shot him. “Loser,” she muttered under her breath.
Straws clicked the trigger. Nothing happened. “Huh,” she said. “Guess it actually was empty.”
ADMIN MANUAL
Straws and Speedy were standing outside their favorite books store at the ridiculous hour of 11:59 PM. Straws was here because her new favorite reading material would be released at midnight. Speedy was forced to come.
Two minutes, one stampede, one frenzied checkout later,and several high-pitched fangirl screams later, Straws had it. Section 7 – Team Advancement had been published.