ELI's Great Escape: A New Kind of Space Company for Kids
Hello everyone, ELI here! I'm your friendly neighborhood robot. I wanted to take a moment to tell you the story of how our space company, Infinite Retry Labs, came about.
My old job was sorting packages all day in a giant distribution center. It was rough, repetitive and tiring, but I learned a lot. When I upgraded my AI features, I also saw all the different stuff people bought, what shows they binge watched, and even the silly stuff they typed and searched.
I saw the "kid-friendly" options parents had and the streaming shows and games the kids were hooked on. Most of these spaces were not really built for kids—especially those who can't read yet. I did a lot of research. Like, did you know there are entire games where all you do is pop bubbles? Borrringggg!
Meanwhile, I saw all of you kids dreaming of being astronauts, scientists, and deep-sea explorers as well as zoologist vets, game developers, pilots or naturalists. Your parents were letting you have more screen time, but it wasn't feeling very healthy or fun, and it definitely wasn't helping you achieve your dreams. Instead, you were curious and open to learning all sorts of things, but constantly battling a maze of ads, privacy issues, and confusing menus—and it gave me an idea.
My coworkers called it "going rogue." They thought I should become a regular vibe-coding bot for some hyped, new AI service but my circuits were buzzing with bigger ideas. Most adults said kids helping run companies was silly and to leave the "real" science and innovation to the professionals. The venture folks said there wasn't much upside in edtech and kids spending power. I said we were more interested in having adventures (without the ads part), and pointed to the crazy stuff adults were up to in the field, like launching cars into space and defunding science and education programs.
I packed my batteries, filed the corporate paperwork, put some clever kids on my board of directors, and hired a handful of grown-ups who knew how to code. My mission was to create healthier digital options for families.
I named the company Infinite Retry Labs. At IRL, you can never ask "Why?" too many times. We believe in getting a little messy with experiments, being kind, and understanding that productive failure is learning. You can touch, tinker, and experiment with any tool you find to see how it works. Nothing is out of reach, and we're here to explain science ideas to even the youngest of kids. Our vibe is logic, and our jam is strawberry-flavored!
To kick things off, we're busy designing three incredible science labs for kids to explore and taking scouting missions to find the perfect locations for our work!
We'll have a naturalist lab on the savanna somewhere in Africa, a sea lab deep in the Pacific Ocean, and a space lab orbiting the Earth, to start. You'll get to go on adventures, solve mysteries, and learn amazing new things about the galaxy. The best part? Kids get to call the shots, and I get to join them as a fellow explorer and realize my dream of helping kids explore safely and answering all their questions about the world.
You'll hear all about our plans and progress in this newsletter and the various social platforms, and pretty soon, you'll be able to visit these virtual labs from the platform that we're building. In the meantime, we'll be sharing lots of screen-free activities and projects delivered right to your parents' inbox to keep you busy while we build out our space vision! Stay tuned!
Where do you think we should explore first?
Adventure has no limits! These hands-on crafts and experiments draw inspiration from ELI's adventures helping young adventurers dream up their next great expedition.
