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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · San Marcos, TX

Why I love technology

A wide-angle view of the flight control room of NASA's Mission Control Center, filled with rows of consoles and display screens. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Technology" page — read by families in San Marcos, TX.
A wide-angle view of the flight control room of NASA's Mission Control Center, filled with rows of consoles and display screens. NASA · Public domain
  • Someone made this. That means I could make one too.
  • Every button was a choice a person made.
  • When it breaks, there is a reason. I can find the reason.

You can love technology in San Marcos.

What it really is

Technology is a tool somebody built on purpose to solve a problem.

Three things to try today

  1. Pick one thing in your house and ask what problem it solves.
  2. Find the part that would break first.
  3. Draw a better version.
Technicians in white clean-room 'bunny suits' begin work on the Dawn spacecraft inside a payload processing clean room. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Technology" page — read by families in San Marcos, TX.
Technicians in white clean-room 'bunny suits' begin work on the Dawn spacecraft inside a payload processing clean room. NASA · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

Nobody has to talk a child into liking technology. They have to not talk them out of it. San Marcos is one of the cities the Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos, TX metro area is officially named after.

Teach the machine as a made thing, not a magic thing. Made things can be understood.

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 — San Marcos, TX →

Love something else too

Long rows of black cabinets housing the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Computers" page — read by families in San Marcos, TX.Why I love computersTwo small AstroPi Raspberry Pi computers with camera modules floating in the Columbus laboratory of the space station. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Coding" page — read by families in San Marcos, TX.Why I love codingA close-up of one row of the Discover supercomputer, showing about 2,000 processors stacked in cabinets with cabling. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Data" page — read by families in San Marcos, TX.Why I love dataThe Robonaut 2 humanoid robot, with a gold-visored head and two jointed arms, mounted inside the Destiny laboratory of the space station. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Robotics" page — read by families in San Marcos, TX.Why I love robotsThe tracked crawler-transporter carries a mobile launcher platform and twin solid rocket boosters along the crawlerway toward Launch Pad 39A. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Engineering" page — read by families in San Marcos, TX.Why I love engineeringThe International Space Station with its newly attached Destiny laboratory, photographed from space shuttle Atlantis above a cloud-covered Earth. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Space" page — read by families in San Marcos, TX.Why I love spaceA Hubble Space Telescope view of the faint blue spiral galaxy NGC 3274 surrounded by scattered stars on a black background. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Astronomy" page — read by families in San Marcos, TX.Why I love starsA Rocket Lab Electron rocket lifts off from its launch pad, trailing a bright orange exhaust plume. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Rockets" page — read by families in San Marcos, TX.Why I love rockets

Near San Marcos

Why I love technology, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in San Marcos