General Motors engineer Kris Sevel's job has become a family affair since he started working from home amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Sevel, an electric vehicle propulsion engineer, recruited his three daughters and his wife to help him make a YouTube video at their Rochester Hills home. It teaches kids how to make an electric motor out of regular household items.
Even his dog, Lulu, got in on the action.
"I’m not gonna lie, that part took a few takes," Sevel said of Lulu's cameo. "We didn’t have a film crew, it was my cell phone. My wife and daughters were the film crew and hit the play button.”
Sevel is one of 13 GM engineers and designers the automaker tapped to host eight videos for GM's YouTube channel, all filmed at the employees' homes by their families. The videos, intended for kids ages 7 to 13, are free as part of GM's new electric vehicle STEM education series called, “Electrifying Engineering.”
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Tapping future engineers
GM has long been a proponent of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at schools. But this is the first time the automaker has created and offered online video tutorials to encourage student interest in the curriculum.
GM hopes the series will teach children and parents, through hands-on activities using common household items, about EVs and self-driving cars. The video idea was timely given many parents have been home schooling amid the pandemic.
"There wasn’t a plan to do anything until COVID started and all these kids were learning from home," said GM spokesperson Mary Bortman. "That was the trigger for the series."
GM gave the engineers a lot of creative leeway to devise the lessons and make the videos, Bortman said.
"I created the script and the idea for what I wanted to show," Sevel said. "In my everyday job, I’m a propulsion engineer, so I pull together the parts of a motor that make the car move. So we started with explaining how that works, and how electric cars convert electricity into motion."
Sevel's video runs about 8 minutes and is called "How to Make an Electric Motor."
In it, he explains the difference between a gasoline-powered engine and an electric motor, quizzing his daughters on which household items run on electric motors and which do not, such as their pup Lulu.
Then, he and his daughters make a small electric motor out of a magnet, battery, copper wire and other household items.
"It shows these same principles are all around us in everyday life," Sevel said. "The idea was to reach parents who are looking for educational activities. I hope it sparks the interest of kids and future engineers."
The video topics
Six videos, all under 10 minutes in length, have already run and two more will air on the last two Sundays of July. Bortman said GM is discussing possibly doing more videos in the future.
The current videos, which are available in English and Spanish captions, will remain on GM's YouTube playlist throughout the summer and into the school year.
The lessons explored in the other videos range from different aspects of electric vehicles, autonomous cars, battery technology and design.
For example, Charles Muse, an autonomous engineering manager at GM explains how self-driving cars "see" the road. He guides the children through a 3D drawing activity.
Here are the other videos on GM's YouTube channel:
- "How to Measure Air Quality"
- "How Autonomous Vehicles See the Road"
- "How to Design Your Own Car"
- "How Batteries Work"
- "Charging an Electric Vehicle (still to air)"
- "How to Build a Windmill (still to air)"
The videos are meant to support GM's corporate strategy. GM envisions its future as zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion, which it will achieve through electric and autonomous technology in its future vehicles. In fact, GM has promised to deliver at least 20 new all-electric vehicles to market by 2023.
"Our new, flexible platform and Ultium battery system will help us build EVs across all our brands," GM CEO Mary Barra said in the company's annual Sustainability Report released Thursday. "By mid-decade, we expect to sell a million EVs a year across our global markets."
Contact Jamie L. LaReau at 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter.
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