End of Year Project

Concept

 
Cuan has been working on his Steel Defender since third year, and at this point has a fully functional construct. However, the Steel Defender is big and bulky, and he doesn’t want it following him around all the time, so his project is to make it both modular and self-assembling ​— the advantages being that it could be deployed much more stealthily and into/past spaces that medium sized creatures wouldn’t otherwise be able to access initially, as well as being easier to repair/replicate.
 

Step 1

 
Strip the construct down to its absolute bare bones components and divide them amongst multiple matrices. May require casting and milling replacement parts for improved efficiency.
 
Backup: If the design as is doesn't work, Cuan might take inspiration for a modular design from swarm class creatures (aka going the nanobot route).
 
Final result: 9
 
Working with modular parts triggers his arithmomania even worse than the whole Grove river pebble incident. Ends up spiraling into a multi-day bender of developing a different infinite series technique for calculating π, which leads to him scrawling hundreds of thousands of digits of π all over his existing schematics, rendering them useless. This continues for nearly four days. Eventually jolted out of his mania (literally) by Hilde, and immediately passes out, having not eaten, drank, or slept the entire time. Loses several more days to recovery and several weeks playing catchup.
 
This happens more than once.
 

Step 2

 
Retool the core of the matrix that controls the defender (essentially its brain) with new runes. May require redoing the whole thing from scratch depending on how much adjustment the program needs.
 
Backup: Ask Hilde for help — he may have missed a semicolon somewhere in there...
 
Final result: 21
 
Runic Alphabets comes in clutch. Recovers a good amount of lost time by making excellent use of his boolean die stamps. Does not have to resort to asking Hilde for help beyond the occasional little shock to keep him focused.
 

Step 3

 
Combat test the new design in Broxwerth Hall against Hilde and/or Buta.
 
Backup: High possibility that the modular design is too brittle in its initial iteration compared to the standard build. May have to seek advice from a teacher with actual combat experience like Untermauler or Elnao to shore up weaknesses.
 
Final result: 2o
 
Initial testing reveals that the new Steel Defender performs decently, but is indeed brittle compared to the original build. Ends up going to Elnao over Untermauler (does not feel like being vibe checked by a 400 lb minotaur). Advised to make up the lack of armor with the ability to close distances faster, leading to better subsequent tests.
 

Final Grade: B

 
Probably not good enough to maintain his Codex rank of Academic, but it's not like Cuan knew what that meant in the first place.