22 January 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2625: speed control

Image by Emamul Andalib from Pixabay

“So, what you do for speed control on Legos is what you do anywhere when you don't have brakes and stuff – how high the ramp is makes it go faster or slower.”

“Bro, this explains a lot of things that have gone wrong.”

Brothers six-year-old Grayson and and ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow were sitting and discussing physics by means of an accident that was in the newspaper.

“If you have it going slow enough,” Grayson was saying as he adjusted the ramp, “the ground and he grass can brake it, but if you are going too fast, your car is probably going to bounce or flip over.”

“That really makes a difference, when you see it – can you do a spiral, like at the skyscraper parking garage?”

“Yeah, there's a blueprint for that,” Grayson said, and built it in about ten minutes.

“What I was trying to understand was how the car crashed before they even got to the bottom,” Andrew said.

“Well, that happens too, because you really gotta use speed control on curves,” Grayson said. “Fast cars think every road is straight.”

“Oh, they don't really do turns well,” Andrew said.

“Because they think every road is straight,” Grayson said. “The problem is that the road doesn't care, and curves, and leaves the car right there.”

Sure enough, the Lego car put at the top of the spiral reached a certain speed and flew right off before reaching the bottom.

“Yep, that's it – if your brakes go out in there, you are toast,” Andrew said. “That's basically what happened, Grayson. If you look at the picture and see where it landed, that's basically what it looks like.”

Elder brother showed younger brother the Big Loft Bulletin, and younger brother shook his head.

“That's just bad engineering,” Grayson said as he went back to his spiral and looked at it. “You can have it this tall, but you gotta have more loops so it doesn't get too fast. I'll be right back.”

Meanwhile, 16-year-old Tom Stepforth came to look.

“Y'all talking about the Skyscraper Garage accident?” he said to Andrew.

“Yeah – Grayson figured it out.”

When Grayson got back with more ramp pieces, he showed Tom what happened, and then Tom looked at the pictures in the Big Loft Bulletin.

“That thing is a death trap – that's just what happened!” Tom said.

“Bad engineering,” Grayson said, and then took the ramp down and rebuilt it with more loops before putting the car back on it.

“Well, I'll be,” Tom said as the car made it safely to the bottom. “It was a design flaw!”

“What you gotta find out,” Andrew said, “is who built the first one, and how much money they shoulda spent on the other loops, and where they are hiding it. Grayson is six. These are Legos. If his stuff is safer than what adults are building, we have a problem in Lofton County.”

“Darn straight!” Tom said. “I gotta call my editor – thanks, y'all, for real.”

“I mean, I stand by my work and stuff,” Grayson said. “They need to start hiring me if this is what they are doing out there.”

“I agree,” Andrew said. “When we get big, I'll figure out what is going wrong, and bring you in to rebuild it.”

“Deal,” Grayson said, and the two brothers shook before Andrew went to take the newspaper back to the papier-mache pile and the two sat down to build things that belong to the happier realms of boyhood.