SOLVED. YA Mystery. Encyclopedia Brown-esque MC solves mysteries with computer science knowledge, mid 1980s. Spoilers. [s]

[John]

Very much an encyclopedia brown style book (possibly a collection of short stories, possibly a series of short books?) where the main character used factual computer science principles to solve mysteries. His best friend had a somewhat realistic transforming robot (a boombox that, through multiple steps, could be turned into a basic walking robot that was made by his electrical engineer parents - you knew it was advanced as they worked for "some big Japanese technology company"!), he had a crush on the popular girl in his school, and his nemesis was a hacker girl who often was involved in the mysteries.

I read this around 1987 or so (I believe).

The book was likely a legitimate attempt by the author to introduce actual computer science knowledge to readers.

{SPOILERS} an early mystery was decoding images of caterpillars whos stripes matched to ASCII character codes, there was a section on how binary trees store and organize information (with the MC figuring out how data could "fall out" of a leaf node after seeing someone jump from a tree on the walk to school), knowledge of circuits in the robot helped one of the solutions, and the hacker girl nemesis altered the reservation system at the amusement park to put herself in the Ferris Wheel ride (if I recall correctly) the MC had managed to secure with his crush, presumably to reveal her feelings that they were a better match.

[Capn]

There's a MicroKids series:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/3199...
(Ricky and his computer pal ALEC)

There's also the Chip Mitchell series:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/1036...
First book: "The reader is asked to supply the answers to ten more cases which are solved by young computer whiz Chip Mitchell"

...and I'd just like to include this book, purely for visual merit:

[John]

chip mitchell might be it? I found a copy of the first book for sale online for $4; I'll know if its the one in a week or two. Thanks much! Not going to mark this solved yet but thats a solid lead!

EDIT: OK, so I found cover art for the three books in the Chip Mitchell series. Book three has a robot boombox walker that looks *extremely* like my faded memory of the books... this is looking quite promising. Thanks much!

https://www.paperbackdetectives.com/b...

[Capn]

Oh cool, glad to be of help! They're on OpenLibrary, too!

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL49896... - ah, sadly, not yet scanned in. The other two are there.
Chip Mitchell: The Case of the Chocolate-Covered Bugs

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL49896...
Chip Mitchell:The Case of the Stolen Computer Brains

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15819...
Chip Mitchell: The Case Of The Robot Warriors *has runaway roller coaster

Can do keyword searches - didn't find 'leaf node' in either of the last two, or 'ferris' (ferris wheel), FYI. So might be the one missing book (of course).

[John]

page 40 in the stolen computer brains has an ascii code on worms; It has to be this series. Thanks for identifying the books!

[John]

SOLVED - Chip Mitchell series of books (The Case of the Stolen Computer Brains, The Case of teh Robot Warriors, and The Case of the Chocolate-Covered Bugs) by Fred D'Ignazio.

[Capn]

John wrote: "page 40 in the stolen computer brains has an ascii code on worms; It has to be this series. Thanks for identifying the books!"

Pleasure. :) I hope the books are fun to re-visit!

[Capn]

Just an update (for any future visitors to this thread): I started a list for:

Computers in 20th Century Juvenile Fiction
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

And while I was doing that, I found another computer detective kid's series, which I thought I ought to mention:

https://www.goodreads.com/series/2882...