[PRP] Project Prizewinning Panic (Polair + Engrav)

[Buzzwulf]

Who will win the science fair? Better yet, who will survive?

 

[Buzzwulf]

Bright lights, red carpets, hundreds of trolls milling about. Engrav hated it at the Chitentown science fair. Too many angles to make sure no one was looking at him, too many trolls with their own agendas, too much everything. Plus, he'd never made it to the finals before, so that was stressful. Morrimom didn't seem to think so. In fact, she didn't seem to see the point of any of this. She'd spent the last few days sleeping behind his desk in his booth, pretending the other trolls were invisible or maybe just really annoying.

After the original dregs had been winnowed to just four contestants, Engrave and the other finalists had been taken aside and interviewed. The yellowblood wasn't quite sure why the television announcer cared about all this, but he knew he didn't like being in the spotlight. He didn't like it at all.

"So, Engrav, right? Why are you at the Chitentown science fair this cycle? You hoping to win some beetles or just prove yellowbloods aren't all useless trash?"

Engrav looked into the camera, unsure what to do with his hands. He went with holding them up in front of his chest, like paws, but that didn't feel right somehow. Being on the other side of the camera was hard. "Er, not really. Either of those things? I'm, um. I'm, I mean, I was mostly just curious about who would be here? I uh. Yellow? What?"

The Announcer gave him a pitying look. Engrav responded by wringing his hands a little. "Look, what should I be doing with my hands? I'm not sure... is this right?" He asked, gesturing towards the camera.

"OOOOOOK, then, let's move on to the other contestants. Obviously some of our finalists made it here by dumb luck, but surely there's some great contestants here tonight!"

Well, drat. He could hear Morrimom cackling in the booth. Lets see. a blue, a green, and a purpleblood left?

Engrav started sweating a little. Alright, sweating a lot. Why were his eyes so itchy?

ImaginationsParadise

what is this red carpet thing? I wore my best clothes! cause I haven't slept in these ones...

 

[ImaginationsParadise]

Polair couldn't believe she was actually one of the finalists at this sweeps Chittentown sciencefair. She wore one of her special dresses for this special occasion and her wild hair was tamed, showing off her fins. Part of her hoped a certain troll watched the show tonight. After all, she was going to talk about her experience with Buffel the night after. When the TV announcer asked a yellowblood a stereotypical question, Polair did her best not to frown. They certainly weren't useless trash. She felt sorry for the yellowblood, as he seemed terribly nervous.

"OOOOOOK, then, let's move on to the other contestants. Obviously some of our finalists made it here by dumb luck, but surely there's some great contestants here tonight!" They looked at her with a smile, taking notice of her fins and golden jewelry, and approached her.

"Looks like I was right! Polair isn't it? Why, it's an honor to have you here tonight along with our other contestants. Surely your project this the best one-"

"I assure you, my project is as good as the rest." She simply said and looked at the camera nonchalantly. She could hear Claud growling in the back- she could be so disappointing sometimes. "If mine was, in fact the best, then we wouldn't be all here tonight." She looked at the announcer, then at the camera, and back at the announcer again. She forced out a chuckle and the rest did so as well.

"Why, isn't she charming?"

She looked at the yellowblood once more and noticed he seemed too... nervous. "Everything will be alright." She whispered to him and paid attention back to the announcer.

"ANYWAYS, let's look at our other contestants..."

Buzzwulf

hope you can work with this! biggrin

 

[Buzzwulf]

The announcer continued to the other two contestants, but Engrav wasn't really paying attention. He felt ill, like he'd eaten some week-old slime or been punched in the goop-box. He'd blown it completely! All that practice and he was still useless in front of other trolls, and now they all thought he was an idiot.

The purpleblood next to him leaned over and whispered quietly, "Everything will be alright." And for a second, he kind of felt like it would be. Palare, he thought her name was? Engrav hadn't really been paying attention. That probably wasn't right. He forced out something that he was pretty sure looked like a grin. Yeah, that felt about right.

"Thanks, Parale! Er, that was just part of my strategy! Yup. I've got a contest-winning strategy that is definitely not me making stuff up as I go along or anything resembling that and hey look at that I'm still talking. I should stop doing that." The yellowblood whispered back. "Definitely not nervous at all why would I be it's not like I'm on live trollian TV or anything and everyone can see my face oh gog this was such a bad idea. Hey, do you think I can still duck out of the contest if I want?"

Engrav knew he couldn't forfeit the contest.

The announcer was finishing up with the last contestant now, but Engrav had COMPLETELY missed their interviews. He just knew that the greenblood looked mostly bored and the blueblood looked... excited? Hungry? He wasn't so good at this reading emotion stuff. Probably hungry.

"Alright, now that we've met our contestants, let's go to a quick break! Remember, the Chitentown Science Fair is brought to you by Squiddy-Os! Squiddy-Os, a deliciously fishy part of this complete breakfast! After the break, we'll show you what you've all been waiting for: the projects!"

There was a pause as the station went to commercial.

"Alright folks, take five! We're back on starting with you, mister hands! And if you mess up our ratings I SWEAR I will have you culled." Engrav just glared at the announcer.

ImaginationsParadise

Oh man, I LOVE working with it biggrin

 

[ImaginationsParadise]

Polair listened to the lowblood while the announcer interviewed the remaining contestants. It was weird to see how being interviewed made some trolls suffer the so-called stage fright. It was her first time too, and she didn't seem to care much. Was that because of his high levels of emotional impulses? Afraid so and that grin the other gave her, prove her theories. "It's... Polair." She corrected him. "If you forfeit, then your chances of coming back here will be minimized. Try to enjoy it alright? And I recommend you to change strategies, this one clearly isn't working." She whispered back and focused on the competitors.

Once they announced the five minute break, the seadweller approached the yellowblood again. He didn't seemed to be the blueblood's favorite contestant which was pretty understandable at some extent. After they gave each other the stink-eye, she lightly tapped on the yellowblood's shoulder and tilted her head slightly. "They seem to like your strategy... Still think it might work?” Polair gave Engrav an incredulous look as she folded her arms and shook her head. Clearly she had to help this kid out, otherwise stereotypical attitudes would keep on reigning Alternia. She couldn't allow that, and clearly he needed a little push to obtain perfection. Luckily for him, she had an idea.

“Hey Engrav, would you mind if we practice our lines together? Let me rephrase in case I'm not being clear-- Do you want to go over your lines with me? I do need to rehearse mine so I’d figure we could help each other out, while we look for another strategy that might work.” She said nonchalantly. "It's ok if you don't want to, I'm giving you a choice. So I ask you to answer me honestly." She looked at him straight into his eyes and said,

"Do you want to practice with me?"

Buzzwulf

juuust having a little chat before CATASTROPHE. hope you dont mind! :3

 

[Buzzwulf]

Engrav stared sidelong at Polair for a second. What was she up to? He would have thought she was trying to wheedle his invention out of him, but there obviously wasn't enough time before they were going to show it off. What was her goal then? Could she be... simply curious? The yellowblood narrowed his eyes a little, trying to discern her highblood games. Perhaps Polair was just looking for some support as well? After all, if he was to share his ingenious inventions with her, it only followed that she would be looking for input of a similar kind. And if that was the case, it was exactly the kind of input Engrav had been interested in the the first place!

"Well", said Engrav with a grin. "After careful consideration, I've decided that you can have the first look at my invention, with the condition that you take care not to touch anything." He lead the purpleblood over to his booth, which had been draped in yellow. "Behold! The adhesive of the future!" And whipped away the curtain.

Well, he tried to whip away the curtain. It was fastened at the ends instead of the center, so he mostly just tugged at the edge a bit and it didn't really move. That was fine though, the theater of it was still there. "Is what I would say if we were actually showing our project right now! instead you'll just have to be content with the theory behind it until we actually reveal our inventions." Engrav could see the other two contestants sniggering near their own booths, but ignored them as best he could with a smoldering glare. Morrimom croaked from across the room at him.

"I do NOT look like I need to use the load gaper! Quiet, bird-brain!" the youngster shouted back, indignant.

"Anyway, as I was saying," Engrav continued. "my project is a binary mixture of chlorine cuprochloride and magnesium manganate, which creates a quick-forming chemical bond and rapidly both expands and locks into a cage-like structure. This creates a quickly expanding and locking chemical structure that hardens in a matter of seconds. The resulting material has a tensile strength approaching- well, maybe not steel, but definitely aluminum, which is pretty good for an adhesive!"

He could tell she was looking impressed now. That face was definitely what being impressed looked like. He could tell by the... eye... bits. Engrav turned back to the closed curtain with a flourish.

"The adhesive is inherently unstable, and decays after a few hours into an acrid, tangy goo, but until then is very difficult to remove. It's also semi-conductive, and flame resistant!this kind of material has all kinds of applications from riot control to fire suppression!" Engrav paused for a second and thought. "Actually, what it tastes like probably isn't important. Forget i said that! Anyway, the delivery system is really what makes it ingenious! But enough about my rampant, boundless intelligence. I'm interested in seeing your project as well."

He looked back at Polair expectantly. "What do you think? I think I might need to have a little more showmanship. Don't want my presentation to be dull!"

ImaginationsParadise

feel free to not be suitably impressed by mindless bluster :/

 

[ImaginationsParadise]

It was good to see Engrav act more confident than his apparent nervous self as she had hypothesized. She agreed to his terms, after all every project could be sensible one way or another. Polair followed him and tried not to chuckle when he failed to remove the curtains over his booth. Though when the yellowblooded boy began to speak, that's when her got a full grasp on her attention. His invention was innovative and showed so much potential into being industrialized.

"I think it's impressive experiment! Such a shame I have to wait to see it in action. But from what you've explained, using such a compound could improve the ways we capture living specimens and possibly even trolls." She flipped her hair and walked him to her purple and gold booth. "Well, I wouldn't call your genius thinkpan rampant, but admiring. You should act more like so when we go live and so you can leave everyone awestricken. If you explain it with that certainty, then the moments of adding flair might become more accesible and fluid for you to manage."

It was time for her to show off her project. It was nothing impressive to be honest and it wasn't her first choice either but Claud forbade her from buying anymore compounds until she was older. "Since you've been so considerate, I'll tell you what I've done." She said with a small smirk and took a control and pressed the button to take off her curtain.

"It's nothing grand to be honest, at first I wished to conduct various experiments which stabilized Alternia's most dangerous substances, however bringing dimethylcadmium, dimethylmercury or azidoazide azide would probably get many of us culled." Polair said as a matter-of-fact while Claud growled, from the other side of the stage, and nagged her about speaking of those substances in public. Once the curtains were off, her experiment was revealed. One fairly large and meduim-sized biospheres made to withstand the aquatic world.

"So instead, my project consists on growing plants underwater. What if one night, Alternia's soils became infertile? Not only would it cause world-wide hunger, but it would also affect the water cycle, and carbon cycle... even the planet's biodiversity. Going underwater to harvest might sound a bit ludicrous, but what if we could make a garden or even preserve a forest? With this biosphere... we could make this happen. The big biosphere, dubbed the Preserver, keeps the specimen inside it and tends its every need. While the smaller biosphere, the Scavenger, looks for a place for the plant to grow and later injects sand with biologically-based conditioners tailored to rectify their deficiencies until the plant can thrive." She motioned him to get a closer look of her machine. "I am also conditioning you not to touch it, but admire it as a fellow scientist." Polair cleared her throat and resumed.

"The pods are able to float beneath the surface, made mostly by a non toxic steel coated with a substance that prevents the metal from rusting. All of its components have been recycled and tested for being biodegradable. The Preserver floats where the sun ray beams refract, guaranteeing the plant specimen to produce their own oxygen and food. As for the water, since the pod changes temperature, it slightly heats up inside, thus creating sweet water for them to drink. No extra thermal energy required. While the plant adjusts to its new environment, the Scavenger does it's job. Inside it, there are multiple tanks with my components main ingredients... These are residue-digesting fungi and nitrogen-fixing bacteria, including strains of Azotobacter, Bacilus, Pseudomonas, and Trichoderma. We add nutrients, carbohydrate and minerals to enable the bacteria and fungi to multiply inside the aquaculture tanks. After the scavenger finds the perfect place, it proceeds to turn the sand into soil and by the time the process it completed, the Preserver proceeds to latch itself to the modified sand, plants the specimen on it and protects it as a shield-- it later resumes giving it water and enough sunlight for it to keep growing on it's own until the plant dies."

It was a simple experiment, which somehow got her here in the first place. "What do you think? Probably I should stick to a much simpler vocabulary? Then again we are being broadcasted directly into the scientific community." She asked, her voice a bit hoarse from her explanation. The seadweller pushed the button again, lowering her curtain back where it belonged to and waited for the other to give her some feedback.

Quote:

pol is impressed and now she tires to impress him. you brought this on yourself : D

 

[Buzzwulf]

Oh. Oh wow. Well, ok. Two things were immediately apparant to Engrav.

First of all, it was VERY clear that Polair would not be winning this contest, purpleblood or not. Her project was amazing, inspired even. It was well-researched, well-realized, and economically feasible. And it was incredibly altruistic, and helpful for all of Alternia.

That was sort of the problem.

She hadn't brought a death-ray, or a flamethrower-tank, or anything that caused death and destruction on a massive scale. And while Engrav immediately understood both how important her project was and exactly how much time she had invested in it, he also knew that absolutely no one that was interested in the science fair was going to care. It made him sad to see her brilliance wasted just because she hadn't made a horrible death-experiment, but it also meant that he was more likely to win.

The second thing was that Polair REALLY liked to talk. Or at least, she talked a lot when she was excited.

All of this brought a huge grin to his face. The smile wasn't because he knew she would lose. It was because she was brilliant.

Polair was one of those trolls that got it. Really got it. She didn't just complaining about a problem - she was fixing it. But she was losing a little something in the execution if this was how she was going to explain all of her projects. She clearly had a grasp on her science - Engrav was staggered by just a few minutes of her speech, and he had caught maybe half of what she was talking about - but she was going WAY over the heads of anyone who might actually care about her design. And it was gonna hurt her in the contest.

Engrav shook his head. "I think it's an amazing piece of work. Honestly. But if you talk at that length and at that level, you're going to get some snores. I'd probably try to explain in easier terms, or the judges are going to think your entire sphere is something they're supposed to eat." He pointed at the judging table at the head of the hall. One of the trolls was asleep. Another was picking his nose. "I mean, this is all broadcast live, and I'm sure that those of us that love science will think you have a great idea here. But everyone who came to see cool inventions is gonna fall asleep. Mostly 'cause they're infected in the thinkpan."

"HEY!" interrupted a loud, cocky voice. "What are you wigglers doing over there?" The blueblood inventor had sauntered over, lookholes boring into the two young trolls. "You two showing off your dumb inventions? Don't you know this is the advanced bracket? Does it look like any of the rest of us are playing a game here?"

ImaginationsParadise

Aaaaand after a VERY VERY
LONG commercial break, we're back! OMG I'm SO SORRY