Stephen’s New Stuff

This past October Stephen rented his own little booth at a local boutique.

Just like any kid, Stephen changes ideas and what he wants to do. His newest “thing” is 3D printing and he loves it.
For him it isn’t just pushing a button and starting the machine. He researches the filament, and tries to make earth friendly choices.

He found that the printing requires lots of fiddling with settings, etc. But he loves it so much that at Christmas time he designed his own shadow box frame for small ornaments.

And now he is trying to build a new, faster 3D printer from scratch. He has been slowly ordering in the parts as he makes sales, and to be honest, he’s been selling pretty good! The local store is called Merchant Square-Kansas City. The store is building a young entrepreneurs section so Stephen’s merch will be moving to that part of the store soon. As many of you know, he has been doing his own business since he was 9. Here is is at 13, making cooler things than ever!

The store asked us to send some info about him and really that is the reason for this blog post.
Over time Stephen has changed his activity focus. When he first began his business, he used the funds to get SCUBA certified at age 10. He loved diving so much, and we took several trips to Arkansas for his diving adventures.

Sadly, Stephen’s instructor passed away in a diving accident, and being in the midwest not near the ocean, Stephen had to refocus. He’s always been drawn to airplanes from a very young age. One of our favorite photos of all time is this one of he and his dad before Stephen’s father passed away. Even when Jerry was at his worst, he would try to go to the air show with his boy.

For Stephen to transition from Scuba to flying was a natural transition for him. He loves both equally. He spends time in the Civil Air Patrol and his goal is to have a pilots license before a drivers license.

This coming summer Stephen has been given a scholarship to attend EAA’s Air Academy which is a week long camp in Oshkosh this next summer. So his current goals are to help pay for our expenses of going to the camp (although his time at camp is paid for… we are going to use the dolls to pay for my expenses for the week.). We also hope to set enough funds aside to explore a bit as we travel.

The other thing Stephen is currently spending his funds on is his 3D printer that he is building. He says it will run much faster than the printer his has, plus he really is building it from scratch, even down to 3D printing his own parts for it!

Below are some Civil Air Patrol photos: an event at the Liberty memorial, Stephen prepping the plane before flying, and he getting ready to be ranked up.

Keep working hard to fly high Stephen!