The following are selected entries from the great inventor Javelin Blake's personal diaries.
I
June 24, 1874
I was born Javelin Lee Blake on February 14, 1862. Since the day I was old enough to walk I have been working in the family business at my father's scrapyard. Our family has been scraping for four generations now and has always been considered lower class. We had no say in whether we wanted to be scrappers or not since our family did not have the money to pay for anything more than the most basic education. Despite my lack of education I have always had a fascination with mechanics and engineering and ever since I was about six years old I have been building myself little mechanical toys from old gears and scrap metal.
When I first started creating these toys my mother was very encouraging, happy to see that her son had a special gift. My father on the other hand told me I should not bother with such hobbies since without the proper education my hobby could never amount to anything. Despite this my father let me continue with my tinkering so long as I did it on my free time so that it would not interfere with my work.
By the time I was ten I had nearly perfected my little clockwork soldiers that I had by that time been building for a couple of years and found that I could make a little bit of money by selling them to the upper class children for a low price. I was soon making more money selling these toys then I was scrapping metal and my father began to take notice. He began to encourage my hobby and let me spend more time with my hobby but he still kept me working the scrapyard because, as he said “Without a proper education you won't get much farther than making little toys.” He kept drilling that little wisdom into my head until I started to believe it myself.
Despite believing that my hobby may never amount to anything I continue to tinker, now building even larger toys and incorporating steam power into some of them with miniature steam engines I build myself. I continue working in the scrapyard now mainly because it allows me easy access to the parts I need to make my contraptions. In the back of my mind I guess I am still dreaming of the possibility I could someday make a career out of this hobby and move out of the lower class. I think everyone has a dream like this and I don't know if it will amount to anything more than a dream. When was the last time you heard about someone moving from a lower class position to a position in the ruling class elite.
December 13, 1874
I've decided I am going to start work on a slightly larger toy. Everyday I pass large horseless carriages powered by steam and gears. I myself have never ridden in one being of a lowly class. Nevertheless I've decided to build my own steam carriage of sorts only slightly smaller. Right now I'm currently building a small working model of my own personal steam carriage. It is almost finished and the results look very promising. This small carriage has only three wheels. Two in the back to help support the weight of the engine and one in the front which will allow me to steer the machine.
I've shown the model to my father and he was really supportive of the idea. He said having a small machine like that may be able to increase efficiency at the scrap yard because it may be able to help lessen the burden of carrying heavy loads. This isn't exactly what I had in mind for the device but any enthusiasm from my father is a good thing. When father isn't around me and mother talk secretly about the possibility of my devices. She hopes that someday I can build a machine that will allow me to travel the world and gain renown and riches.
The device is almost finished and if it works properly perhaps father will allow me more time to work on the full scale device and maybe even help me gather the supplies I need to build it.
December 27, 1874
Success. I finished the model just in time for Boxing Day. I showed my father the completed model and he seemed to be mesmerized by the device for almost an hour. For Boxing Day this year my father promised to help me get some of the supplies I am in need of as a present. Of course the main reason for his enthusiasm is the possibilities the full scale device would have around the scrap yard.
January 3, 1875
It appears that this year is going to be a great year indeed. Today I began work on a full scale version of my personal steam carriage. I estimate the project should take about two months to complete as long as I am able to get all of the supplies I need. My father, though now somewhat supportive, still thinks that my inventions are worthless other than to help out around the scrap yard. He constantly is telling me that I will never make a living on my inventions alone. He wants me to keep scraping my first priority and leave my tinkering to my free time and only as a means of making our scrapping business more profitable.
March 24, 1875
Despite a few minor delays I have finished my personal steam carriage at last. My father has already found a use for it around the scrap yard but I am allowed to ride around on it freely during my free time. Many of the upper class are annoyed with my invention and believe a child should not be allowed to drive such a contraption let alone a child of lower class. A few upperclassman however thought my invention was genius and wanted to know more about it so I talked with them for a while. My father could not believe that some aristocrats would want to talk to some dirt covered street child.
II
April 5, 1875
I can't believe it! The Aristocrats whom I had spoken to are back and they brought with them a professor from the Royal Faroth University. The professor was actually interested in my work and want to see all of the designs I had made. He talked to me about the possibility of going to the university on a special scholarship that would allow me to create new things for the university in order to help people and make Faroth the greatest nation that has ever been.
The idea of me creating things that could help end the suffering of the world. Me, a lower class scrapper helping to change the word. The professor said he would be back again with some colleagues in about a week to talk with me about this matter more
April 11, 1875
I can't wait Professor Garth sent a letter saying he will be arriving tomorrow morning with one of the deans of the university. He told me he needed to talk with my parents as well. He knew that father would be unable to skip a days work for this so he sent us a check to pay for my fathers time. Father believes there must be some great news coming or they would not have went so far out of the way to do this. Father finally has said how proud of me he is. He said that he would never have imagined that one of his kids would be able to attend college someday especially not such a prestigious university and at such a young age.
April 12, 1875
Everything has been arranged. Tomorrow I leave for the capital of Faroth to attend university. Professor Garth even told me the scholarship would cover my family and pay for my lost wages. I'm not going to pay a dime as long as I agree to help the university work on some projects and help them design new devices. The professor says that by the time I'm eighteen I may be one of the greatest inventors of this generation.
April 16, 1875
We have just arrived to the university a couple of hours ago and I have been given a tour of campus. Everything here is so beautiful. They showed me to my housing which I have all to myself complete with an indoor bathroom and its own library and study. I also have a workshop which I can use at any time and all materials that I need will be provided by the university. My mind is overflowing with ideas for new inventions which I could have never dreamed of building with the limited supplies back home. I can't wait to get over to my workshop but first I have to go to a small meet and greet being held in my honor. I can't wait to taste the foods of upper class society.
May 20, 1875
I have been at the university about a month now and after a ton of time tinkering around in my workshop I have been givin my first assignment. They want me to build a fully functioning automaton. They said that they want the device to be able to follow orders so that it can be used to help people who need assistence around the house. They told me my budget for the project has been set up to allow for any expenses I will have including support from the entire engineering department at the university. I can't wait to get to work on the project. I am sure this project will take me some time since I have never even thought about mechanisms as complex as this automaton will require but I am glad that my work will finally be used to help the general public.
III
February 21, 1876
I feel like I've been working on this project forever. I have recently had many breakthroughs in the automaton's design. First I figured out how to get the device to carry out basic tasks. I found a way to make the device carry out hundreds of preset tasks. The one problem I had with the automaton carrying out task is that the device could not "see". To fix the problem of sight I installed a camera that takes pictures every second the picture then goes to a device I installed that interprets the pictures and lets the automaton know what the surrounding dimensions are so it can navigate itself properly. Although there is about a two second delay between when the picture is taken and then interpretted the automaton is fairly slow moving so it doesn't cause many problems.
After I gave the automaton the power of sight I gave him a "voice", my voice to be exact. I used miniaturized phonograph technology and recorded over nine hundred common words which the automaton can peice together to create simple sentences. The problem that I still face is giving the automaton the power to "hear". Without the ability to hear the automaton will not be able to follow instructions without being manually controlled. This is the one problem stopping me from completing the project.
