Hey there! Did you know that your subconscious brain doesn't understand "Don't"? Here's a strange little fact about your brain: it can't process a negative image. Try it. Don't think about a pink elephant. Too late. You just saw one. I've been writing about visualization for my upcoming book, Choose, Fail, Grow, and this quirk of the brain keeps showing up everywhere I look — in tennis, in swim meets, in dog training, in just about anything where performance matters. Here's the science in a...
13 days ago • 4 min read
Hey there! The Top 3 Lessons I (Re-)Learned from My Great-Nephews I love STEM, art, and summer projects. And I love spending time with my great-nephews — ages 8, 10, and 12 are genuinely magical. (The eldest at 14 is too cool to associate with the rest of us.) Last week I told you about the cardboard boat — built same-day before raft night, surfed by Dutch and Finn at the pool. This week: the rest of the experiment lineup, and three lessons I thought I already knew. Slime — The Unexpected...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Hey there! In 2014, our fourth-quarter budget cuts meant the GE Aviation holiday party got pushed to February. We needed a team-building activity. I found a "Build-A-Boat" event, but it cost thousands of dollars. So I did what any self-respecting engineer would do. I built my own version. Cardboard from the office move. Duct tape. Plastic tablecloths. Four lanes in the GE Fitness Center pool. Four hours on a Friday afternoon. The Float-A-Boat Regatta was born. I had a hypothesis: instead of...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey there! If you've been following along, you know Mooney and I have been working on solving the CRV puzzle — how do you turn a Honda CRV into a comfortable, safe, functional travel setup for a large golden retriever? Well — we figured it out. At least for now. Here's what the finished solution looks like: Mooney gets the entire back seat area — bridged all the way across to the front seats with a custom-built platform. The key elements came together like this: Two custom storage containers...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey there! His name was Tizer — and he nearly destroyed our marriage. Not literally. But in 1987, when Stephen and I brought home our first golden retriever, we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. We tried confining him to the downstairs family room with a baby gate. He jumped it and chewed the vertical blinds. Every day we tried to move things out of his way. Every day he found something new. Then one day I came home to find my tube watercolors chewed up, paint smeared all over a...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Here's the thing — kids don't resist science. They resist boring science. That's exactly why I wrote the companion guide to The Secret of the Magic eyePadthe way I did. Every experiment connects to a moment in the story, a character choice, a problem worth solving. When kids care about what happens next, they want to ask questions, make predictions, and yes — even redo the experiment when their first try doesn't work out. Here's a peek at what makes this guide tick: Curiosity as a habit —...
5 months ago • 1 min read
Ethical Use of AI "I apologize for the length of this letter. If I had had more time, it would have been shorter."— Mark Twain (Note to self: AI could have shortened this. But would it have gotten the gist right?) It's remarkable how far AI has come in just a few years. It's touching every aspect of our lives—often in ways we don't even see. But here's the question I keep coming back to: Is it doing the right work? The Cheating Problem A friend of mine—a fellow engineer who now teaches at a...
5 months ago • 2 min read
Exciting news! My first audiobook, The Secret of the Magic eyePad: Putney Hicks Inventor Adventures–Book 1, was just announced as a Wishing Shelf Book Awards FINALIST in the Children / YA Audiobook Category. Winners will be announced next month. This is a perfect way to celebrate Engineers Week! Just announced! Wishing Shelf Book Awards FINALIST in the Children / YA Audiobook category! Check out my audiobook here! Check out the other Wishing Shelf Book Awards FINALISTS here! And while we're...
6 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, Have you ever made something but forgot a key ingredient? I think we've all had that moment when we tried really hard to make something special... and in the bustle of putting it together, forgot the one thing that makes it work. One memorable occasion for me was making a coffee cake for a special celebration in 9th grade. My grandmother was living with us at the time, and well... too many cooks in the kitchen, you know? I forgot the baking powder. It still tasted fine. It was just...
8 months ago • 2 min read