The house was completely dark when I reached under my son’s bed and touched something that made me stop cold. A few minutes earlier the power had gone out, and I was walking through the rooms looking for candles and a flashlight. My son was already in bed, the faint glow from a streetlamp barely reaching his room. I crouched d

wn expecting to find the flashlight I had been searching for earlier, but my fingers brushed against a strange plastic object covered with pointed shapes. I pulled it into the hallway where the emergency light gave me a better look. There was no label, switch, logo, or instruction. It looked part mechanical and part futuristic, and I could not understand why something so unusual was hidden beneath his bed.

Curiosity took over. I knew my son enjoyed gaming and creative projects, so I considered putting the object back and asking him about it in the morning. Something about its design kept bothering me. I returned to his room, gently woke him, and held the mysterious object where he could see it. At first he looked confused. Then a huge grin spread across his face, followed by a burst of laughter so loud I wondered if I had missed an obvious joke. He pointed at the object, laughed again, and finally explained.