Mukund (Muki) A.
Interests: AIRPLANES, SOCCER, DRUMS, MUSIC, READING
BLOG POSTS
2020-07-28: Futuristic 5-Booster Rocket Invention
2020-07-28: Futuristic 5-Booster Rocket Invention
After we finished the ARCA logo, Muki came to me with another idea. He wanted to create a 5-booster rocket for his ARCA space company. Now what I like to do as a facilitator is follow the child’s enthusiasm so we went full force in this direction.
A thought passed through my mind to teach Muki different root words because I wanted him to get to the core of what things meant so he could piece them back together in whatever way made sense to him. They of course were all related to travel or space. Some of these root words included: - port - cor - sol - equ - naut - fin - astro / aster - am / phil - cosm.
Then came the magic. He invented a new word for the travelers of ARCA and it had a great meaning.
INFINAUTS
Fin means to finish. When you put “in” in front of it, that makes it the opposite. Naut meant to travel. So essentially it means a person who travels limitlessly to infinity and beyond (channeling buzz light year here 😂).
It was brilliant. Muki invented his own word for the people who in the future would fearlessly travel on what he was calling the “Futuristic” 5-booster rocket. It was the first invention his ARCA space company would build and it all came about from a few sessions of playing with legos and brain flakes.
Next, he took to the drawing board. I needed him to come up with a drawing for this new rocket so we could then digitize it and get the materials to build a model.
Muki’s Original Drawing
Digital file we created together in Illustrator
Model I built with aluminum bottles, velcro, and acrylic paint. Then I sent it to Muki as a birthday present.
When Muki got his gift, he was so excited we had an almost two hour session of him pretending his “Futuristic” rocket was having its first trial run to the ISS. I played the enthusiastic news announcer. (Pictured right)
We also wrote out a mission statement.
“Designs, manufactures, & launches futuristic transportation to INFINITY AND BEYOND.”
Gotta love it. Go ARCA! Way to dream big.
Lastly, Muki wanted to see his rocket actually take off. Because I wasn’t there with him in person, I didn’t feel comfortable having Muki try out different science experiments to see what mixtures could get his rocket to launch off the ground. Instead I used my creative brain and put together an animation in Adobe After Effects (Thank goodness for all the youtube tutorials on how to make rocket smoke! 🚀 ). It was as close as we could get to bring his desire into fruition. View our animation video below.
2020-07-02: Airplane, Rocket, Car Aeronautics Idea
During our homeschooling days, it was very apparent that Muki was wise beyond his years and would be more of a teacher to me than I was to him. He showed me overtime that he had everything he needed to know already inside of him and I was to simply help him pull it out.
Our bond grew over a 1.5 year period as we learned together in person, but then I had to resume my work in a different state and COVID-19 hit, so we started taking our classes online. What I gathered during our calls was this young boy was ready for a creative challenge. Muki had a deep interest in anything that could fly so I decided to develop an invention project to expand his thinking further.
We began by reading about Albert Einstein and talking about the characteristic traits he had that many other inventors we knew also had developed. Traits like perseverance, grit, strong will, good habits, and kindness.
Then the idea of combining an airplane, rocket, and car started to take shape. This idea wasn’t completely new because there were already people out there trying to put wings on cars so they could fly, but what was new was adding a rocket into the mix.
I asked Muki to start brainstorming for me and he created a drawing with the acronym, ARCA to stand for airplane, rocket, car aeronautics (pictured right).
It wasn’t only going to be an invention, but a future space company with a pretty cool tagline, courage to take flight.
The name was solid so we brought his original drawing into photoshop and designed the logo (pictured left).
2019-01-30: Supersonic Book Nook
Muki is an avid reader so his mom, Divya came up with this great idea to build a book nook. We had started homeschooling in June of 2018 and this was going to be our fun summer project. They found a pallet and had a carpenter come over to saw it in half
so it would fit nicely into a corner. Then he cut a piece of plywood to cover the front so Muki and I could create some kind of design. We weren’t sure what it was going to be, but would allow time to let this unfold.
Our days incorporated a little bit of sanding of the pallet to prepare for painting, brainstorming our design ideas, playing, our assigned curriculum work, and creative writing. The creative writing piece came about naturally as Muki and I were doing some of his language arts assignments and our imaginations went to far out places to develop our own mini stories.
I facilitated Muki to keep taking this ideas further and write them down each day to practice his penmanship while also including a drawing. When you facilitate these type of sessions, one part I always try to remember is to allow whatever comes through the child to not be praised or criticized. Simply let it be and know that it’s him learning how to connect with this greater creative intelligence that brings forth innovation.
Once we got to a good place with the sanding, Muki and I painted the pallet a nice forest green color and the front a mustard yellow. Both were paints I had been using to renovate the farmhouse so I figured we’d be resourceful and use up what we already had. Then we brought our brainstorming ideas to Arjun, Muki’s dad, so he could help us finalize our design for the front.
More to come…
Request Support
MY OFFERING
