About Us
From nerdy beginnings...
Hey there!
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We're Kara and Quinn, the nerdy duo behind Joyful Genius Labs. Nice to meet you!
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So, picture this:
a little girl and her dad, huddled together on evening walks, imagining themselves as Star Trek's captains and crew as they concocted wild schemes to save far-off worlds from collapsing stars and other cosmic calamities;
a boy tinkering with homemade rockets, model airplanes, and anything that needed to be fixed alongside his engineer father.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and you've got us – a cybersecurity analyst (that's me, Kara) and a mechanical engineer (Quinn) with a shared passion for learning, problem solving, and teaching.
Our Story
​​​​Now, when we say passion, we mean PASSION. Like, reading-technical-manuals-for-fun kind of passion. Our parents were pretty awesome about feeding our curiosity, even when it meant finding us buried in manuals thicker than dictionaries instead of comic books.
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My mom, a teacher, had me helping out in her GED classes, showing me early on how knowledge can change lives. Quinn's dad, meanwhile, had more patents than a kid has LEGOs, always challenging him to think outside the box. We were those kids who'd rather get books or calculators than toys for birthdays.
And proud of it!
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This love for learning followed us into our careers. I ended up with a pretty cool gig, keeping hackers away from the stuff that keeps our country running – you know, power grids, water systems, that kind of thing. Meanwhile, Quinn was off designing and building everything from giant batteries to 3D-printed marvels. We thought we had this whole "learning" thing figured out.
Then came the plot twist...
Our kids arrived and turned everything up to eleven! Our oldest was like a little Einstein on steroids. We're talking about a kid who, at age two, was reading chemistry books to put himself to sleep. No, seriously! And it didn't stop there.
I'll never forget the time when he was three, sitting with Quinn and my brother as they discussed microbiology and its effects on healthy gardening. This toddler listened attentively and then piped in, "A nematode is a cute, tiny little microorganism!" We were floored.
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But the real kicker? One day, I found him curled up on the floor, looking a bit off. When I asked if he was alright, he replied, "Um, I just really need to do some math, mama." He got up and resumed writing and solving multiplication problems. An hour later, he was throwing up from a stomach bug (apparently, math wasn't the cure he thought it would be!). We knew we had a true learning enthusiast on our hands.
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This little genius started asking questions that had us diving into books, scouring the internet, and maybe pulling out a few hairs. We found ourselves on this wild ride of discovery, learning everything from child psychology to quantum physics, just to keep up with our pint-sized prodigy. And let me tell you, nothing makes you question your own smarts quite like a 3-year-old correcting your science facts!
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This experience wasn't just about keeping up, though. It ignited a whole new level of wonder in us. We were rediscovering the world through our child's eyes, and it was incredible. Every day brought new challenges, new questions, and new opportunities to learn together.
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Our friends started asking us what we did to foster and nurture that thirst for knowledge. We explained our countless experiments, building projects, our electronics and programming, but we found most people assume they can't do those things.
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That's when we had our lightbulb moment – why not share this joy of learning with other families? And voila, Joyful Genius Labs was born!
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We're taking all the cool stuff we've learned and Quinn's knack for building anything with... well, anything – and turning it into awesome activities for kids.
Our mission?
To help raise a generation of curious, problem-solving, out-of-the-box thinkers who see learning as an adventure.
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Don't worry, we're not about creating mini-adults or pushing kids too hard. We're all about nurturing that natural curiosity and showing kiddos how exciting the world can be when you understand how it works. We're talking 'aha!' moments, eureka yells, and yes, maybe a few controlled explosions (kidding... mostly).
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So, that's us – just a couple of learning enthusiasts who turned their obsession into something we hope will help kids (& parents!) everywhere discover their inner genius. Because let's face it, seeing a child's face light up when they figure something out? We think it's pretty much the best thing ever.
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Want to join us on this crazy, fun, sometimes messy adventure in learning? We'd love to have you along for the ride! Let's raise a generation of joyful geniuses together!