Human beings are passionate creators. Every day of our lives we create something new for ourselves and others. We can’t help it. We make the bed. We make breakfast. We write a letter or eMail or a text. We make friends. These are all creations of our own making. To live is to make.
When I entered the seventh grade in 1962, a big change in schooling format, I also discovered my passion for electronics. I started looking for anything I could find about the subject. I wanted to know how electronic equipment worked and I wanted to know how to make electronic things.
My mother had a coworker that was into electronics. When she told him about my interest he gave her a tall stack of Popular Electronics magazines. I read every one of those magazines several times. One of the biggest influences in those pages were the Carl & Jerry stories.
These were actual narrative fictional stories about a couple of young guys making and using electronic gadgets and having adventures. Long story short, in the eighth grade I made a robot that kind of worked based on one of the Carl & Jerry stories. If you want details about this, I wrote a little story about this on my blog here, Inspiration to Become an Engineer, which includes a picture of the robot.
I went on to build a light-beam transmitter and receiver that would send my voice about two inches. I built a three foot tall Tesla coil in the eleventh grade that created three foot long electric arcs. After graduating high school I joined the US Air Force and became an Avionics Technician. After discharge, thanks to the Gi Bill, I got a degree in electronics engineering at California State University at San Luis Obispo. This led me to have adventures designing electronics with embedded micro-controllers, programming them and many other electronic/computer/Internet things for about forty five years.
Then I retired. Now what?
THE QUESTION: WHAT TO DO WITH MY LIFE IN RETIREMENT
What are the things I’m most passionate about; most want to do?
- Consume stories by reading, watching movies and TV series. Now I want to create stories.
- Make things; electronics, software and machines as a hobby.
- Making movies has been a hobby since college. Now it’s easier than ever with YouTube as distributor.
- Sharing my passions with others who are interested.
THE ANSWER: MAKE SOMETHING AND PAY-IT-FORWARD
It seems logical to combine all of the above and create some stories/videos about making stuff. There are hundreds of videos on YouTube about how to make things using any technology you can think of. But none I’ve seen do this with a narrative story, so that’s what I propose to do. Make a STEM video series using narrative stories that ignite our innate passion to create new things; to give back what I received way back in the seventh grade. To pay-it-forward so others can discover their passion to make.
THE ADVENTURES OF CARLA & GERI
TWELVE NARRATIVE EPISODES PER YEAR
The first season will consist of a twelve episode series about two thirteen year old teenagers with a passion for making electronic projects, gadgets and devices that amaze their friends and sometimes get them into and out of trouble. One narrative story episode will be released each month. In those stories at least one device will be created and/or modified. Each story will have an unanticipated twist. After the device works as planned, it will reveal something surprising and unexpected.
ADDITIONAL BONUS FEATURES
The other weeks of each month will have non-narrative videos that are created separately from the theatrical stories. Some of these will be videos with details about how to build the device from the story, something that was not present in the Carl & Jerry stories I read as a kid. Also behind-the-scenes stories about the cast and crew and other video production bonus features.
CARLA
Carla is a 13 year old Hispanic girl in middle school. She is a skilled maker with a passion for photography, videography, painting, sculpture, cosplay and other arts. She is also interested in science, mathematics as well as technology. She’s a good student but prefers subjects where you can make something beautiful that has never existed before.
GERI
Geri is a 13 year old black girl in middle school. She is a skilled maker with a passion for electronics, computers, computer programming and mathematics. She can take apart and rebuild any computer. She knows the big three computer operating systems backwards and forwards. She is conversant with digital communications standards and practices. She is a wiz on the Internet and IOT (Internet-Of-Things).
WRITING & SCREENWRITERS
My plan is to write twelve short stories. So far I’ve written only one. It was harder than I thought it would be. I’ve always been a procrastinator but I am pushing ahead now. I’m even experimenting with AI to help getting the work done … and I love tech.
Sincerely, Rob:-]
