Pip’s world
An animated, narrated page from Amara and Pip: the garden Pip lives in, Gran’s three rules, and what coders call the environment. Turn your sound on.
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Amara had one morning to get Gran’s garden ready for the Maple Street Garden Show. The judges would arrive at noon. Her only helper was a robot the size of a lunchbox.
“Before Pip can help,” said Gran, “you need to know the world Pip lives in. A robot can’t do anything smart until it knows where it is.”
Amara looked around. The garden was paved with square stepping stones, like a giant checkerboard. Each stone was exactly one Pip-step wide.
The green shed sat in the top corner, and that’s where Pip slept at night. Just below it stood a potting table with a tray of seeds. Along the far side grew five tomato plants in a straight row, their tomatoes as red as fire trucks.
In the bottom corner was the pond, round and green and full of lily pads. It belonged to a grumpy frog named Sir Croaks-a-Lot. Right next to the pond was the sunniest stone in the whole garden.
“Three rules,” said Gran, holding up three fingers. “One: Pip can’t swim. Two: Pip can’t roll through the fence. Three: the sunny square charges Pip’s battery.”
“That’s it?” asked Amara.
“That’s the whole world,” said Gran. “Every program happens somewhere, and every somewhere has rules. Coders call it the environment.”