May 24, 2026 over Zoom, paraphrased

“That was a good lesson.”

“Yes, I like it because it brings together three ideas of science into an amazing feat of engineering.

“Do you remember how we did testing during the pandemic?”

“I was in third grade. We took tests at school.”

“People had to go to clinics. There were tents in parking lots with drive-through testing. Cars lined up.

“I was working at Stanford. In Zoom meetings, professors were thinking of all different ways to build a home test. After six years, it came down to this.”

“My mom and dad had a home test. Once I got COVID and had to stay home for a week. It wasn’t bad.”

“I remember. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, he has it?’ Your parents said that you were alright.

“Remember how we did Zoom because I couldn’t visit you? We would shop for Beyblades.

“The names were hard to spell. We searched for names on a shared screen.

“Once we couldn’t find the name of a Beyblade that you really wanted. You got so exasperated with me that you said, ‘We can’t get it because you can’t spell!’”

The 13-year-old smiles.