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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · South Bend, IN

Why I love electronics

Technicians in clean-room gear install guidance, navigation and control electronics boxes into the Juno spacecraft. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Electronics" page — read by families in South Bend, IN.
Technicians in clean-room gear install guidance, navigation and control electronics boxes into the Juno spacecraft. NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domain
  • Tiny parts doing exact jobs.
  • If one wire is loose, nothing works.
  • I can follow the path with my finger.

You can love electronics in South Bend.

What it really is

Electronics routes small electric currents through parts that each do one job.

Three things to try today

  1. Open something broken and look inside.
  2. Find where the power comes in.
  3. Trace the path with your finger.
Technicians in clean-room gear install guidance, navigation and control electronics boxes into the Juno spacecraft. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Electronics" page — read by families in South Bend, IN.
Technicians in clean-room gear install guidance, navigation and control electronics boxes into the Juno spacecraft. NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

The South Bend–Mishawaka, IN-MI metro area has about 324,538 residents, ranking 164th in the country. Somewhere in that number is a kid who lights up about electronics and has never met another one.

Tracing the power path is circuit reading. Do it on something already broken.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — South Bend, IN →

Love something else too

A technician sets up wiring and monitoring equipment at Launch Pad 39A for a shuttle tanking test. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Electricity" page — read by families in South Bend, IN.Why I love electricityTwo rocket engine tests fire at once on the test stands at Stennis Space Center, throwing huge white exhaust plumes into the air. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Energy" page — read by families in South Bend, IN.Why I love energyThe two-bladed Mod-1 wind turbine standing on its lattice tower on a hilltop at Boone, North Carolina. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Wind Power" page — read by families in South Bend, IN.Why I love windAn orange-and-white Saildrone autonomous research vessel under sail on the water near San Francisco Bay. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Oceans" page — read by families in South Bend, IN.Why I love the oceanA USGS cartographer bends over a light table, scribing contour lines by hand onto a topographic map separation. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Maps" page — read by families in South Bend, IN.Why I love mapsA worker checks a replacement distillation assembly for the space station's water recycling system in a processing facility. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Recycling" page — read by families in South Bend, IN.Why I love recyclingAn aerial photograph of the Vehicle Assembly Building under construction at Kennedy Space Center, its steel frame still open to the sky. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Building" page — read by families in South Bend, IN.Why I love buildingAn aerial view of construction crews and barges working to complete the westbound span of the Indian River causeway bridge. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Bridges" page — read by families in South Bend, IN.Why I love bridges

Near South Bend

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