Here are four D i Y stories that will inspire you to dream big e build models, sometimes with weird materials, and I've always found aviation to just be really kind of magical just because our planes are engineering marvels and I wanted Thio marry that with the unconventional building technique for my day job.

I work in I t and management, but I've just always been creatively minded.

I've always been drawn to those kinds of projects.

I've been making things since I could figure out what tape and string were.

I was super young.

I probably drove my parents crazy.

I'm best known for the paper airplane models that I make.

What I used to build the models is Manila folder, glue on Exacto and a straight edge.

Essentially, it's hard to know exactly how Maney folders have gone through, but I would say it's in the hundreds for this project, and there's a lot of scrap.

Leftover E kept it to a minimal set of materials just because I like the challenge of building something from Onley one thing and having to figure out how to make that serve many purposes.

The model began on a much less detailed scale, but I did overtime realized that I could start building in mawr, articulating functions, more details in the interior and inside their tissues in the bathroom, their lights on the seats.

Nothing actually moves in the cabin, but all the detail is there.

I've always just found the Triple seven to be a really elegant, nicely proportioned plane.

And so it was partly an issue of aesthetics.

I've always just been a fan of that particular model.

I studied pictures online.

Some technical drawings on actually create my own plans, and there's just no guide for how to do that.

So I'm basically learning along the way.

It's simultaneously kind of freeing and also really frustrating, not toe have plans.

I could really take it in any direction, but you have to be incredibly inventive about how you solve problems because it really hasn't been done.

A lot of people probably think that my endgame was absolute perfection of the model, but in fact it was more just about the process of making it.

It's the thought of the completed product that inspires me and just being able to solve such a complex problem.

It's just what I drive a lot of satisfaction from.

No, no idea.

What, like in Kenya connected?

Most of rural Kenya doesn't have access to electricity.

This means the evenings are full of darkness.

Here, families rely on kerosene lamps, which are expensive and produce harmful fumes.

John Wangari wanted to change that.

My name is John Magee, hero, and Gary.

I am the founder of McGeer um, in hydro electricity.

Who on the funding of fundament best imma by our now we're going to see a lot, too.

FISA FEMA attack When you become a kilometer to another, the project and bio area.

And here's the money Come America, Cumia Buying Me, Peter Julian's and Katica Story.

I'm singing Bop Oh Mamba, estimated recorded Onyango, inspired by the Dynamo on his brother's bicycle that generated light whilst the wheel turned.

John had an idea.

What if that simple mechanism could be made bigger on what could turn that wheel?

This is what we call the liver Rhonda and the economy, because you can buy From there.

John started to make his power plant with pieces of scrap, using the river John was able to move the turbine, thus generating electricity.

Slowly but surely, Migiro power started to produce clean energy.

This is my power station powerhouse in produce.

About 250 throughout.

In a play about 250 Household.

They're connected.

It may prove commercially, our to a condition.

You up as a man.

You are required to me.

I'm off data.

So I wanted to meet me when his Missouri Standard.

You know, one of you wanna say eczema When technology Cuba.

I'm away.

You have 10 degrees where they could Still and then you scared You continue on bio highways.

Cattle?

Yeah.

Welcome to the world of backyard science.

Once a year, 50 or 60 amateur scientists gathered my home from all over the United States.

And every year, they have new inventions to share.

We have lasers, vacuum pumps, 20,000 volt transformers.

This might just be the best place to learn about high level science.

Outside oven.

Mitt Lab, tucked away in Lakeside Virginia is a man who's dedicated his life to science.

I've always looked at eating and sleeping as a waste of life.

E could have been reading in physics, doing something in chemistry.

Something with my hands.

My name is Richard Hull.

I am a retired electron ICS engineer.

I was an amateur scientists from about eight years of age.

Growing up during the space race, Richard became fascinated with nuclear science.

Eisenhower gave a speech before the U.

N.

He urged the American people and the world in general who come deeply involved in what was going to be our atomic future.

And that initial spark lead Richard to become the first amateur scientists in the United States to build his own fusion reactor.

The first time I ever did fusion, I was elated.

Fusion is the complex nuclear reaction that powers the sun, and Richard recreated it in a shed behind his house.

The Fuser, as such, requires no general license to make because it's not considered a dangerous technology.

A lot of people look at it as the ultimate D.

I y would be nice if you've welded before you're gonna be handling flammable gasses in gas lines.

You're gonna have to do some wiring because the Fuser needs 30 and 40 0 volts and those intense X rays, they'll certainly go through use.

This is the indication that we're doing fusion.

Despite fusions complexity, serious amateur scientists like Richard are working through their own backyard projects.

So I formed H E A s High Energy Amateur Science Group local group here in Richmond.

Have people from all walks of life people like myself electron ICS engineers, the chair of chemistry at a local university, a janitor, another one that works for Greyhound bus rebuilding engines.

We are a community collaborating with amateur scientists and working with your hands is what the group is all about.

That's a little bit of the nitrogen interacting with the Zen on.

I'm constantly searching for something that will amaze me and that I can carry forward.

So did that grow as you pulled it out?

It was already under there, and I lifted it out just like I was saying, the High energy Amateur Science group allowed me to teach or to transfer some of my knowledge to other people who were thirsty for it and wanted more pressure.

You have more fusion, Theo.

Effort itself is part of the thrill, the challenge, and each time, no matter what happens, you wind up learning something The very first time I left the ground in the general plane.

I knew it was over.

My life was done.

It was all gonna be about general planes.

And it was not just because I was in the air, but I was depending upon myself.

So my safety was in my own hands.

It was one of the most exhilarating sensations that I've ever received in my life.

My name is George Jacob and I'm known as Gyro Jake.

I build Gerald planes from scratch.

What a gyro plane is, basically, Ah, hybrid airplane helicopter.

But it's neither of the two.

How Maney Gerald planes.

I would say I built close to 20.

I lost count around 13 a few years back.

I imagine what I want and what components should fit together.

Then I machine out on welled up the parts that are necessary to get the job completed.

Well, sometimes it could take two months.

Sometimes it could take a year.

There's times I look at it and I go, man, I did that and it works, and I'm gonna fly it inside a go.

When I first started, it was a pretty small click in Florida.

And so we get together on the weekends.

Today, gyro community is probably increased by 100 fold, especially with the new revolution of the factory built Charles to do it yourself.

Builders air kind of like the dinosaurs.

They're on their way to being extinct.

There aren't many people that spend most of their free time building a general playing one after the other after the other.

There's no incentive like money, that compels me to do this.

It's just because this is my pleasure.

This is my joy.

This is my passion.

Mhm.

Hey, everybody.

My name is Drew BB, and I'm here in my terrible home studio that I've made during quarantine, and I wanted to tell you about our new podcast called Great Big Story.

It's got Mawr surprising and delightful stories just like this one.