Can we fix it? Part 1 - The Early Years

Xavier, my son, is fascinated with cars in nearly all regards. From an early age, racing video games have been his favorite and it was not uncommon to hear a tiny little elf voice coming from the back seat giving me advice on how to drive.

"Faster, daddy!"

"Pass him!" (in reference to a state trooper)

"Crash into him!"

All followed with a giggle as he knew how bad this bit of advice was and that there was no way I would follow it.

As he grew older, this fascination didn't end but became more and more an occupation with him watching an endless number of crash tests, fervently expressing his dream job to work at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), filming home crash tests using a collection of Crash Test Dummy toys from the 1990s and endless lectures on the value of side curtain airbags and how my 2002 Tacoma was behind the times in so many ways; only TWO airbags(!!), how it didn't have proper traction control systems, etc.

 Quick tangent on how much I LOVE "mah truck":

C'mon, it's a 21 year old truck! I'm still incredibly proud about how Toyota knocked it out of the park with their TRD Off-Road package, how it had solid skid plates under the front end, > 12" clearance and locking rear differentials.

Did I know what any of this stuff meant? No, not before I found myself having to discuss them with my 6 year-old car-obsessed son! I found myself googling these terms . . . then watching videos of the difference between 4WD/AWD/FWD/RWD, the values of a straight axle vs independent suspension, what locking differentials actually do so that I could discuss them with my son and wasn't filling his head up with nonsense I was making up. Don't get me wrong, I fill his head with all kinds of other made up stories and delight when he gets all squinty eyed with me wondering when I'm telling him the truth or just making stuff up, but when it comes to cars I'd better know what I was talking about or he'd call me out on it. All this before he was 10 years old. It was about this time that he started showing me YouTube videos about BeamNG Drive, a physics simulator video game designed by a team in Germany that were seriously devoted to virtual replication of vehicle physics (as only Germans can do), environmental conditions (snow, wind, ice, underwater and airborne physics, etc.) and, after months of talking about this game, I put together my first desktop PC in over a decade just so that he could get in there and experience it himself.

His YouTube channel is filled with videos capturing his gameplay studying all kinds of esoteric detail on how cars work. Here's some examples:

• different differentials in BeamNG.Drive

• BeamNG drive AWD power distribution

• And, How to go 500+ mph with force field in BeamNG.drive

With a force field.

Just a few months into his playing BeamNG Drive at every opportunity, he downloaded their partner application Automation.

OMG, look at these screenshots from a car that Xavier designed, built and iterated upon from scratch!!

Check out the Torque and HP on this beast!

See the list of Car & Engine Suggestions? This car has some serious issues!

Designed as a drag monster, Xavier chose the most aerodynamic skin possible and called it done so he could then drive this abomination in the BeamNG engine.

This "game" has all of the appeal of a spreadsheet but, as a former Engineering student, this is what convinced me that his interest (at 12!!!) is the kind of thing that could lead to a real passion in the future and I should find whatever ways I could to encourage his interests.

Besides, I was tired of paying $150/hour to my mechanic to keep my fleet running and could definitely use an in house mechanic! As he wrapped up his 8th grade year, I was eager to find a way for him to feed this obsession when I learned of SVVSD's Career Elevation and Technology Center (CETC) and made sure that Xavier and I would be able to attend their open house to see what they had to offer for mechanics classes. How did that go? Well read on for my next blog post.