Robofootball: Doublespin

After deliberating between the University of Michigan and Kettering University, Reynolds spent his first million on favor of the latter. Kettering was further ahead in the field of robotics and was basically a tech school, a good one at that. Kettering had once been named GMI EMI for the General Motors Institute and the EMI was more of an afterthought representing the Engineering and Management Institute namesake. General Motors once used the school to train its own engineers and managers in a 5-year program for the students, half in the classroom, and half in an internship directly in the company’s one-time much broader factory network. When the name was changed to Kettering in 1998, after the brilliant engineer Charles Kettering, best known for inventing the electric starter motor; thus, saving countless broken arms in history from the tension built-up in hand starter cranks, students could gain sponsorships and internships from a wide variety of industries, not just automotive. General Motors would still fund some students, but not at all like it had in the past.

It was arguably Michigan’s best engineering and design school, the MIT of the Midwest. Kettering had a reputation as a national leader in engineering, including robotics, and all Reynolds had to do was shower them with a bit of money which was plenty of incentive in its own right. When the professors and students learned that they would be building football players to rival the Japanese, it was nothing less than grand party time. A cool million down payment just for starters added a wing to one of the classrooms with new labs, new equipment, new materials, research fellowships for a couple of professors, and 10 partial scholarship sponsors for students. A few more million would see the full design and actual development of players. With that kind of money, Reynolds demanded not only accountability, but a viable team by the start of the 2020 or 2nd season. If the Texas Tin Cans could drop 2 mil for a prototype Gen 3 quarterback, Reynolds figured that a top university could do just as good a job with the regular players for a heckuva lot less. He just might have enough left over to fund a special project or two, one with a certain private company led by a slightly less than ethical genius; another perhaps with some of the Verlucci Family connections.

“Here’s another present Holliday,” Reynolds was on hand personally for the delivery of a large crate from Japan. “Cost me a quarter mil and couple thousand more just to ship the damn thing.” A couple of students were going at it with crow bars.

“It’s a Gen 3 right?” Dr. Edward Holliday inquired. He had a PhD in engineering from Michigan Tech and had spent much of his career designing and developing automated mining machinery. Going by “Doc Holliday” never seemed to get old for him as he often used his thumb and forefinger like a trigger to make a point to his students. He even claimed some distant relationship to the famous gunfighter who had fought with the Earp Brothers at the OK Corral.

“Yup, it’s just a basic lineman, but study it, take it apart, but make damn sure you put it back together when you’re done. I’m going to need every player I can get. And one more thing,” Reynolds added.

“Yes?”

“Make ours better.”

“We’ll do our best,” answered Holliday brightly. It was a great opportunity for him. With the help of his students and another assistant professor, they had already disassembled and studied the Gen 1 and Gen 2 models provided by Reynolds. He had permission to totally destroy the Gen 1’s, but the few Gen 2’s Reynolds had acquired would be needed as backups. If Reynolds had his way, any Gens 2’s would see little duty with the Robocats anyhow. He expected nothing less than brand new superior Kettering models to rival the best of the Japanese.

“Tougher too,” went on Reynolds, “Think of those Jap models as Accords and Camry’s.”

Holliday winced at the use of “Jap” especially since there were a good number of brilliant students of Asian descent at the college. If he said something like that, he’d likely be out of a job.

“I want good old American muscle, Camaros, Mustangs, and Challengers.”

“I see,” said Holliday thinking. He was a car guy himself like most mechanical engineers and had a ’67 GTO along with a ’69 Buick GS in his pole barn at home. His favorite though was a ’63 green Chevy C15 long bed pickup that was once a Vernor’s soda delivery truck in Detroit back in the day. He had restored it and added several decals and lettering. His every day car happened to be a 2016 Mustang Boss 302.

“Go to it, I need a team in place by Labor Day at the latest, but I need your final designs at least two months before that so I can arrange the actual parts production and assembly.”

“We’ll do our best,” Holliday repeated.

“Good, your future funding depends on it,” Reynolds added as he left.

“Isn’t that how it always is,” Holliday said to himself. Ordinarily, he didn’t think it could be done; however, the project had generated so much interest and excitement that there was a waiting list of students chomping at the bit to join the project along with new courses associated with it. In an attempt to accommodate them, Holliday set up committees and teams led by graduate assistants. A nice competition with 7 or 8 teams could really get the ball rolling in Holliday’s estimation, and he was right, not to mention that there was a promising young Japanese exchange student, high school age no less, who would win a separate competition in the field of robotics sponsored by Kettering. Holliday would do his best to recruit the young genius and bring him in to the fold.

“I fear the Greeks when they offer gifts.”

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)