Page 32 of Puck Shots
It started out as a way to deal with my anxiety, a way to channel the energy building up into something tangible, but since then it’s evolved, like me, into a task my fingers do almost as easily as breathing, and sometimes as subconsciously, too.
The front door opens with a groan and slams shut a second later as heavy footsteps drudge up the stairs. Lenny is back from wrestling training. He’ll be in the shower for at least half an hour, and Gavin and Bronte should be done with their shift at The Coffee Bean by now and headed home, too. The house will be loud again before I know it.
I load up the video I took at the rink, snip out the section of Cosmo’s failed super-speed slap shot and figure out the angles and measurements of his body’s movements. Finally, once that’s done, I run it through the program I’ve been developing. I started on it the first time I watched him play, more out of a desire to figure out how he can be so impossibly faster than the rest of them. Using it to help him dominate in the other areas too, is a way better use. I learned coding for fun back in high school. I’ve always liked understanding how things work, and given coding is how computers know what to do, its instructions, the how to everything it does, I was more than a little interested. Plus, it’s kind of needed if I want to be a physicist, because I’ll need it for stuff like this. To simulate, model and solve complex physical systems that are way too complicated to solve by hand. I’ve had to make a few adjustments with the program, and it’s still super basic by any professional standards. I thought about asking if Professor Darlings, my computer sciences professor, can check my code, but I’m hoping this can also double as my class project there as well, so working out the code myself is kind of important. As basic as it is, though, it’s finally picking up on Cosmo’s movements and the angles, speed, and force behind them.
I pick at the back label of the water bottle as it cycles through the video still by still. Please let this work. Cosmo’s been so good at helping me to sort of fit in here, or at least how to not stand out too much for the wrong reasons, if I can do this one thing for him, it will be less pathetic, I guess. Like we’re trading instead ofhim just taking pity on me and doing his brother a favor. Who was just doing my brother a favor. See, pathetic, right?
Plus, it would be nice for him to be able to release some of the pressure he’s putting on himself. It’s weird how he changes on the ice. At first, it’s like he’s free, happy, at home, but then the more he gets into the game, the pressure builds and his body gets all tense and hyper-focused on every single move he makes. Maybe this can help him stay longer in his happy place.
The video finally uploads, and I type in the run code and hit enter. The program is designed to capture the actions in the video, then feed them into a 3D modeling program that recreates Cosmo’s moves, after that, it can automatically run simulations either based on manual adjustments I input to any of the given factors or if I allocate an outcome, it can then give me the adjustments needed to get that outcome. I slow the speed down until his swing results in actually hitting the puck, but the idea is that he doesn’t have to slow down, so I use the data from the hit, amp the whole speed back up and let the program run the simulations. Who knows how long this will take.
I set the tiny duck I just folded with the back label on the bench beside the water bottle and grab out my notebook. May as well see what I can figure out on my own while it does its thing.
It’s fine having a program to figure stuff out, but it only gives you answers based on the selected measurements for each body part’s action. It doesn’t replace real human analytical thinking. This is the part I love most. The figuring stuff out part. The “how it works” and the why it doesn’t. I already had a fairly promising idea of why his slap shot wasn’t working. It was obvious; he was going too fast. Sure, as long as he keeps the stick connected to the puck as he skates, it maintains the same speed as him, but as soon as he lifts the stick, the puck keeps moving, but it won’t maintain the same speed, the friction with the ice and air resistance means it slows down quickly. But Cosmo slowingdown isn’t an option. And he can’t lift the stick less because he won’t get enough force behind the swing to make the shot worth it. At least to him.
I get up and pace the room, downing the last of my water and tossing the bottle into the recycling. It hits the edge of the cupboard and is about to bounce short of the trashcan when I reach out and give it a final tap, sending it straight in. My brain ticks over, my gaze locked on the bottle as my mind’s eye replays what just happened over and over. Like a movie playing in my head, the bottle becomes a hockey puck, and my hand is Cosmo’s stick. Okay, so he already gives the puck a nudge before lifting his stick, but what if instead of nudging it, he actually hits the puck, so he would technically be hitting it twice? He could maintain speed and the force behind the second hit, which would be the slapshot thing. Fuck, I really should study the terminology.
I dash back to my notebook and quickly run through the calculations.
“Holy shit, this could totally work,” I say, standing and running my fingers through my hair. The curls are a mess, and sticking out at all angles, which probably makes me look way more mad scientist than I would like to admit.
I hate that analogy, like the scientist had to be mad because he just happened to think differently to everyone else. Maybe that’s why I hate it. Because it basically describes me. Only I don’t want to be seen as mad or be singled out as totally different to everyone else. I want to belong. I want friends who really get me, and who I can just be myself around. Maybe this place isn’t the right fit for me.
“What are you working on there?” Magnus, another pledge, asks as he picks up the folded duck.
“Just a program that analyses movement and predicts changes to enhance the end result.”
His eyes go a little wide. This is the part where he laughs and calls me weird. Thee. Two…
“Wow, that’s cool. Did you do the programming?”
Okay, not what I expected.
“Yeah, I, umm, did the calculations and then wrote the code. It’s not perfect, but it looks like it might work.”
He leans over the screen watching as the 3D model runs through simulation after simulation.
“Looks like it’s working pretty well. If Pres finds out you can do this, you can bet he’ll be asking for your help figuring out what’s wrong with my left side flip pass. No matter what I do, I just can’t seem to get it.”
“I didn’t know you play lacrosse.”
“Yeah, but don’t hold that against me. I’m not one of those guys who thinks he can make a career out of playing a game. Except I kind of want to, but not lacrosse. I want to do this, what you’re doing. I mean, not this exactly, but creating programs, games. I want to be a game designer. I’m rambling. Sorry, I do that sometimes. I’m just going to go now.”
“You don’t have to go. What kind of games do you want to design?” I ask, and he sits beside me, a big smile on his face, like I just asked about his favorite thing in the world. Maybe I did.
“I love immersive games, like the ones that you have to wear a VR headset for. VR is the future of everything, after all, and I grew up on games like Zelda, Fallout and Kenshi, and being able to actually look around and feel like I was in those worlds would be so cool. Did you see that old movie with the guy and the like rotating trackpad thing he stood on when in the VR game?”
I nod.
“I want that. I want to make the real-life version of that experience, the suit for the tactile feeling of everything, the helmet that completely immerses you in the world and the trackpad, so you don’t go crashing into things or people whenyou play. I know it’s a long shot that I can even get through college before some tech giant has already created what I want to create, but the video game world is so huge that I’ll hopefully still be able to develop games that use that tech.”
“Sounds really cool.”
Magnus and I haven’t really talked before now, but the conversation is coming pretty easily, even for me.
“Let me know if you ever need any help with the code, or if you want to, you know, play video games,” he says, standing.
“Cool, I will, thanks.”
