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  Computers as Spies. 

spacestory7.1.mp3

As Mark and his new friends were sitting talking the computer spoke again, "Hurry up boys! You have 15 minutes to get ready and go down to breakfast."

"Oh Dear! said Richard, "I cannot get my fleece fastened."

"Let’s have a look," said Mark. I think someone has been playing a trick on you. Someone has demagnetised the magnetic fastenings. They will not stick together"

"Who was it ?" said Richard. 

He looked round at the others. No one said anything but they could see that Calum was laughing and could not stop.

"So it was you, wasn’t it?" said Richard. "Ha! Ha! yes, Ha!" said Calum.

"Well get it put right! said Richard. " But, I’ll be late!" said Calum.

 Mark

spacestory 7.2.mp3

Blue vegetables 

 "Well you will only have yourself to blame," said Mark. I do not know what Mr Jones will say when you tell him why you are late. Come on! I’ll help. Bring the coat over here and we can put the buttons into this electric coil. There! That one works. It will only take us about five minutes."

 

There was no time to spare. The boys just got in for breakfast in time.

The breakfast was already out. There was bread and a vegetable which looked like a tomato, except that it looked blue.  When they started eating it they were surprised to find that it tasted just like bacon.

 

spacestory7.3.mp3

When breakfast was over Mr Rockingham said, "The blue vegetable was grown in a special greenhouse here on earth but we grow huge amounts of it on Mars. If you spend time on Mars you will have to eat a lot of it so I hope you like it."

"Now, you will divide into groups for your first lesson. Mark, Calum, James, Richard and John will come with me. We are going to look at how we keep this school safe from spies. Now, I have something interesting to show you." He switched on the computer. It showed a picture of Calum moving a magnet over the fastenings in Richard’s coat so they lost their magnetism. Calum’s face turned bright red. Mark wanted to laugh but he was afraid his friend was going to get into trouble.

"It’s all right, Calum," said Mr Rockingham, " You are not going to get into trouble. I just wanted to let you see how a computer can be used to spy on someone. Can anyone see the camera? It is actually a piece of wallpaper which is sensitive to the light.

When you get up in the morning tell the computer to erase what has been recorded. We only need the video if something has happened in the room during the night."

spacestory7.4.mp3

 Now let’s see what else we have here. This box detects vibrations. If anyone crawled across the roof, then the roof would shake a little bit and this alarm would go off." The next minute the alarm did go off.

"I wonder what can have happened", said Mr Rockingham. "Perhaps it is a cat. We will launch our model aeroplane. It has a television camera on the front. I will switch this on."

model aeroplane 

spacestory7.5.mp3

Alarm 

"Wow!" said John. "There is someone on the roof." "We will bring the plane a little closer," said Mr Rockingham. The picture was bigger now and Mark could see who it was. It was his cousin Philip, and he was just climbing down from the roof. What had he been doing? 

Philip's picture on computer 

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