Technology can be really intimidating. Most of us have never built our own computers or been to robotics camp, and we often feel left out of the high-tech world around us. Enter Hebocon: a competition for the rest of us. Hebocon celebrates those who turn egg cartons into battering rams. Who see that if it's round, it's a wheel. Who understand there's no such thing as too much hot glue.

We challenged our students to root through piles of junk and gave them 30 minutes to create heboi robots to compete in our battle arena (a card table with cardboard ramps). The Hebocon rules were thus:

• Must roll
• Must go further over the centerline than your opponent
• Must not leave the battle arena

As always we were impressed by the wild creativity of our students. Every robot was uniquely wonderful; CD wheels, pencil axles, skewers jammed into styrofoam, severed Barbie heads, broken electronics...you name it. Some of the simplest designs were the most effective, to the surprise and delight of their creators.