Helicopter Boy

Summary

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Radiolab – "Helicopter Boy"

Date: November 3, 2009
Hosts: Jad Abumrad & Robert Krulwich
Guests: Jennifer Babbage & her son, Blake

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the story of Blake, a curious and inventive seven-and-a-half-year-old who, after attempting flight with his homemade helicopter contraption, finds himself injured and comforted by an episode of Radiolab. The narrative unfolds through interviews with Blake and his mother, Jennifer Babbage, revealing the powerful ways stories can comfort, educate, and mesmerize—even amid crisis.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Making of a Young Inventor (03:04–06:41)

• Blake's Passion for Flight:
  Jennifer introduces her son Blake, “When he grows up, he's going to be an inventor. And what he likes to build most of all is airplanes. Airplanes and helicopters.” (03:04)
• Early Experiments:
  Blake starts by arranging Tupperware in the shape of airplanes, later advancing to cutting propeller blades from cardboard and duct taping them together.
• Prototype Testing:
  The propeller manages to hover momentarily when tossed from the balcony, but attempts to power it with toy motors fail due to lack of strength. Blake improvises by making a duct tape harness, intending to use his own strength to spin the blades (04:52).

2. The Great Leap—and Its Consequences (06:41–08:03)

• Escalation:
  Blake dons his harness and ventures outside. “...he walks through the... doors to go into the backyard... For whatever reason, this did not arouse our suspicion.” – Jennifer (06:41)
• The Accident:
  After a crash from a tree, Jennifer and her husband rush out to find Blake tangled and bleeding, his leg bearing a “foot long gash.” Jennifer and Blake’s father free him from the duct tape harness and bring him inside (07:24–08:03).

3. Radiolab as First Aid (08:09–11:09)

• Distraction & Comfort via Radio:
  Struggling to get a look at Blake's wound due to his squirming, Jennifer puts on Radiolab to distract him. “I put on Radiolab and he can listen to the bit about parasites. ...He was instantly fascinated.” – Jennifer (08:29, 08:44)

• Enhanced Attention:
  The show calms Blake so Jennifer can clean his wound, and he listens to an entire 45-minute episode without fidgeting.

• Amazing Recall:
  When Jennifer pauses the show to ask if he understood, Blake repeats the segment (about parasitic wasps) nearly verbatim (09:28–10:49).

  “The parasitic wasp is flying around, then it finds the cockroach.... And it lays eggs inside the cockroach. And then the eggs hatch.” – Blake (09:44–10:40)

• Quote:
  “But I don't understand when people are talking to me.” – Blake (11:01)

4. Audio Storytelling vs. Everyday Lectures (11:09–12:25)

• Jennifer’s Reflection:
  She jokes about wishing she could deliver parental lessons with the same captivating power as Radiolab.
• Host’s Response:
  “Maybe we should put Blake on, huh?” – Robert (09:32) Jad suggests producing a “radiolabified” sticky lesson about thinking things through to the end for Blake.

5. Crafting a “Sticky” Lesson about Caution (12:25–15:13)

• Parental Wisdom Remixed:
  Using music and sound, the hosts repeat Jennifer’s mantra: “You have to think things all the way through to the end.” (12:37)

• Inventorship & Risk:
  Jennifer encourages experimentation, referencing Thomas Edison and stressing both learning from failure and imagining best/worst-case scenarios (13:34–14:28).

• Practical Application:
  Jad narrates imaginative outcomes—Blake soaring or crashing—highlighting the importance of considering consequences (14:23–15:00).

  “In both cases, what you do is you make up a little movie in your head and you play it all the way through...” – Jad (14:47)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|----------------------|-------| | 03:04 | Jennifer Babbage | “When he grows up, he's gonna be an inventor. And what he likes to build most of all is airplanes. Airplanes and helicopters.” | | 08:44 | Jennifer Babbage | “He was instantly fascinated. He listened to the whole entire podcast... and I was able—I got his wound cleaned off. To get a child like that to stop moving... you had his attention from the first moment.” | | 09:44 | Blake | “The parasitic wasp is flying around, then it finds the cockroach…” | | 11:01 | Jennifer/Blake | Jennifer: “You do understand what you hear?” Blake: “Yes, but I don't understand when people are talking to me.” | | 12:18 | Jennifer Babbage | “You have to think things all the way through to the end.” | | 14:47 | Jad Abumrad | “In both cases, what you do is you make up a little movie in your head and you play it all the way through, and hopefully the good one will happen… but just in case, you'll now be prepared...” |

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Blake describes his inventions – 03:04–04:52
• Accident, injury & rescue – 06:41–08:03
• Radiolab as comfort & distraction – 08:09–09:44
• Blake recites parasitic wasp story – 09:44–10:49
• Discussion about learning & 'sticky' lectures – 11:01–12:25
• Radiolab remixes parental advice – 12:25–15:13

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Episode Tone and Takeaway

Energetic, playful, and deeply empathetic, the episode beautifully showcases the blend of curiosity, risk, and learning inherent in childhood. Through Blake’s story, Radiolab emphasizes the power of audio storytelling to both captivate and comfort, illustrating how a well-told tale can soothe pain, foster learning, and perhaps even enhance parenting.

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Summary by: [Radiolab Podcast Summarizer]

Transcript

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Jad Abumrad]

Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right.

[Blake]

Okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

All right.

[Jennifer Babbage]

You're listening to Radiolab.

[Jad Abumrad]

Rad Sharks from WNYC.

[Commercial Announcer]

And npr.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay. Ready? Yeah. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

And I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab, our Fun Drive edition. We're trying to prevail upon you, give you all the reasons we can think of to support public radio and Radiolab in particular. You know what, Robert? Why should we even say anything when I think it's more powerful when somebody who uses Radiolab, who uses public radio, can say it for us?

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, you have someone in mind?

[Jad Abumrad]

I do. I have a story here that came into our inbox. This is a true story where public radio. Are you ready for this?

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

Literally saved a boy's life.

[Robert Krulwich]

What?

[Jad Abumrad]

All right, so I'm exaggerating a little, but it helped out in a pretty dire situation. And if saving lives, healing wounds doesn't make you want to support this service, then, well, frankly, I don't know what will. So, anyhow, the woman who wrote this we're just going to call her right now. Her name is Jennifer Babbage.

[Robert Krulwich]

And how would we be spelling Babs?

[Jad Abumrad]

Bab. Babs with an s or bab? Jennifer Babb, as in B, A double.

[Robert Krulwich]

B, D, A double bab.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yep. And it involves her and her son Blake. Blake.

[Blake]

Hello.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hi. Is this Jennifer?

[Jennifer Babbage]

Yes.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hey.

[Robert Krulwich]

This is Jad, and this is Robert here on the other microphone.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Hi, guys. Nice to meet you.

[Jad Abumrad]

Nice to meet you telephonically. Now, Jennifer, I understand you have. You have a son, right?

[Jennifer Babbage]

Yes, I have two children. My son is my oldest. He's seven and a half.

[Blake]

Blake.

[Jad Abumrad]

Blake. And so can you set the scene for the story you're gonna tell? Like what?

[Jennifer Babbage]

Well, let's see. So, Blake, he says when he grows up, he's gonna be an inventor. And what he likes to build most of all is airplanes. Airplanes and helicopters.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Jennifer Babbage]

So the first ones he built were just, you know, he'd take a couple of pieces of Tupperware and lay them out on the floor in the shape of a plane. But lately he's been trying to build planes that actually fly. And so he made this airplane. He's sitting next to me now, and he's telling me it's more like a helicopter. He took a big cardboard box, cut out two long propeller blades that he duct taped together in the shape of an X. And the propeller, I have to say, the propeller is really cool. The propeller actually flies. So we have kind of a balcony on our house, and he stood up on the balcony and, like, flung it off, and it hovered in the air.

[Jad Abumrad]

Really?

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, wow.

[Jennifer Babbage]

For a moment before falling to the ground.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, so you've done a bunch of tests with this propeller. You see that it can fly. And then, I'm assuming at a certain point, he takes it to the next step.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Yeah. So he's been learning about electricity and about motors and things, and he's got a couple of toys that have motors on them. So he's been trying to build an airplane that'll hook up to the motor. And he tried to attach his propeller, and it just fell over. Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

So the motor wasn't powerful enough.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Right. And so there's only one thing that we've got that's strong enough to power a propeller of this size, and that's a human being.

[Blake]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Babbage]

So what he did was, since the motor didn't work, he made out of duct tape, a harness system so that he could kind of climb inside the harness and hold on to the propeller.

[Jad Abumrad]

And is he going to twist the propellers Himself while he's flying.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Exactly. Grab onto it with his hands and just kind of like spin to make it fly. And so we have this rock wall that's about, I don't know, three feet high. And so he climbed up on the rock wall and spun it and jumped. And he said he hovered for a second.

[Robert Krulwich]

Really?

[Jennifer Babbage]

He felt it. He's saying he felt it. So it felt kind of weird.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hi. Hi, Blake.

[Blake]

Hi.

[Jad Abumrad]

So you felt like. So where did you jump from? You jumped from the wall. Hello? Hello, Blake, are you there?

[Jennifer Babbage]

Blake is. He's not a really big talker.

[Jad Abumrad]

Did you mom know any of this was happening at this point?

[Jennifer Babbage]

Yeah, I made a movie of it.

[Jad Abumrad]

So you were aware of his experiments in flight?

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Well, it's fascinating to watch, you know, to see how his mind works. He's learning, like I said, you know, every time, every iteration, he learned something from the way the one before failed. So that was, that was in the evening, that was like 8 o' clock at night. And the next day he's. Was it Saturday or Sunday? And he's fussing around in the garage and my husband and I were in the kitchen talking about whatever and Blake comes walking past with his harness system on and he walks through the, the doors to go into the backyard.

[Robert Krulwich]

Just walks right through.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Right.

[Robert Krulwich]

There's something slightly Calvin and Hobbesy about this.

[Jennifer Babbage]

So for whatever reason, this did not arouse our suspicion.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh dear.

[Jennifer Babbage]

As it should have. You know, I don't know what we were talking about. And then, you know, two, three minutes later, we hear the cry. You know, the kind of cry that's not I'm scared or wham, hungry. It's the cry that means I'm hurt.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, now just to jump in here, Jennifer rings outside to the backyard where there's this maple tree. And she looks up and she sees.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Her son completely entangled in the tree.

[Jad Abumrad]

Looked to her like he'd climbed up to the top branch with the harness.

[Jennifer Babbage]

System on and then jumped and got.

[Jad Abumrad]

Twisted up and he was really, really bloody.

[Jennifer Babbage]

He had scrap the whole back of his leg this big like foot long gash and just like, oh my God.

[Blake]

Oh my God.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Just bleeding all down his leg. And my husband had to like push him up so that I could untangle the like ropey bits of the duct tape harness system to get him off and pull him down. So I, you know, carried him through the kitchen and put him on the couch in the living room.

[Jad Abumrad]

And she says she tried to turn him over so she could get a look at the cut. But he kept squirming and wouldn't let her see it.

[Jennifer Babbage]

And that was the moment it occurred to me to put on Radio Labs for something for him to listen to that would kind of capture his imagination. So he'd lie still, forget that his leg hurt him, and then I could look at it while he was distracted.

[Jad Abumrad]

What gave you that idea?

[Jennifer Babbage]

I don't know. The ipod was kind of sitting there, and I was like, okay, I'll put on Radiolab and he can listen to the bit about parasites.

[Robert Krulwich]

Parasites? Yeah. So when you press go or begin on your ipod, what happened?

[Jennifer Babbage]

Oh, he was instantly fascinated. He listened to the whole entire podcast, the whole 45 minutes or whatever it is. And, yeah, and I was able. I got his wound cleaned off. To get a child like that to stop moving, to stop twitching in some degree. Like, you should see him right now. He's sitting here, like, tapping his feet and playing with his spork. And you had his attention from the first moment.

[Jad Abumrad]

But it goes beyond that. According to Jennifer, after she'd been playing him the show for a few minutes, she paused it just shortly after a segment we made about a parasitic wasp.

[Narrator]

What it does is it flies around and it looks for a cockroach.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's the one. And she asked him, did you understand any of that?

[Jennifer Babbage]

And he repeated it back to me.

[Robert Krulwich]

Really?

[Jennifer Babbage]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Almost word for word.

[Robert Krulwich]

Maybe we should put Blake on, huh?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Okay. Let me go get him. They are ready to talk to you, young man.

[Blake]

Hi.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hi.

[Robert Krulwich]

So we want to hear, like, what can you remember about the radio show?

[Blake]

The one about parasitic wasps?

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Blake]

The parasitic wasp is flying around, then it finds the cockroach.

[Narrator]

Once it finds that cockroach, they fight.

[Commercial Announcer]

They tumble back and forth around and.

[Blake]

Around until the parasitic wasps mention a Stab it in the stomach, right in the belly.

[Commercial Announcer]

The cockroach twitches for a second, and.

[Blake]

Then it just falls over and it stings it.

[Narrator]

The stinger actually sort of threads its.

[Blake]

Way somewhere in the brain to a.

[Narrator]

Particular spot in the brain in a.

[Blake]

Way that it can control the cockroach. So when it recovers, it just stands up.

[Narrator]

And so now the wasp pulls it by the antenna, the cockroach's antenna, and.

[Blake]

Start pulling on it over till it is dead.

[Jad Abumrad]

Down, down, down, down.

[Blake]

And it lays eggs inside the cockroach. And then the eggs hatch.

[Jad Abumrad]

You remember the entire story?

[Blake]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Jennifer, too, is flabbergasted. She says she turned to him and was like, wow, Blake, what excellent listening comprehension you have. You do understand what you hear?

[Jennifer Babbage]

And he said, yes, but I don't understand when people are talking to me.

[Jad Abumrad]

You mean, like, he doesn't understand it when people talk at him or lecture him?

[Jennifer Babbage]

Yeah, and he's like. Right. Like, when I'm in trouble, I never understand what you're talking about. So I did have the thought that if only I had the means, I could record some of my lectures so that I could play them back, you know, with the right sound effects, so that he would have that same, like, intensity of listening to what I was trying to say. Oh, God.

[Robert Krulwich]

We could sell ourselves to mothers everywhere when they want their children to.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Mothers across America will be paying millions of dollars for these lectures.

[Jad Abumrad]

Which brings me to a really quick pitch. Public radio is all about making stories stick. That's what we try and do at Radiolab and all the shows try and do. Do you have lectures off the top of your head? Because if you give them to us, we could give them back to you in radiolabified version.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Well, let's see. There's. I guess there is. There's one thing, and this is. You know, this kind of gets at the whole climbing up into a tree with, like. You have to think things all the way through to the end.

[Jad Abumrad]

Jennifer says she said that to Blake millions of times. She's not sure if it ever gets through.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Think things through to the end.

[Jad Abumrad]

So we thought we would try and give her a new spin on it. I don't know if this is gonna work, but, hey, let's give it a shot. Here is our attempt to make a sticky lecture for Blake.

[Jennifer Babbage]

We have to think things all the way through. You have to think, think, think thing to think thing all the way Think, think, think all the way Think through, think, sing all the way to think, think stink all the way think stink.

[Jad Abumrad]

Blake, what your mom is saying is that when you want to have an adventure or invent something, don't just think about the beginning of it or what you think might happen in the middle in your mind. Take it all the way through to the end.

[Jennifer Babbage]

To the end. You know, it's okay to test your theories. You know, I encourage experimentation. The only way you're gonna learn is if you fail.

[Jad Abumrad]

She's not just saying that. I mean, take Thomas Edison, the king inventor. He tried to invent a battery, and.

[Jennifer Babbage]

He failed 10,000 times. But you need to think about the degree of failure. So you have to kind of consider what's kind of the best outcome and what's the worst outcome, and imagine that both of those things have happened. Like Imagine the scenario in your mind and what you would.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, let's do that. Scenario one, you're in the tree. This is a good one. And you spin the blade round, round, round and round and round and round, round and round. And it works. You're flying all through the neighborhood. So here's the question you gotta answer. What happens next?

[Jennifer Babbage]

What he hasn't thought is, for example, how's he going to land?

[Jad Abumrad]

So you gotta take it all the way through to the landing part. Now, let's play out the other scenario, the one where things don't go well. Let's say you jump out of the tree and you crash and you really hurt yourself. Well, think of how sad your mom would be, and your dad and your sister. In both cases, what you do is you make up a little movie in your head and you play it all the way through, and hopefully the good one will happen. The best outcome. But just in case, you'll now be.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Prepared so that you can mitigate the effects of the worst outcome. And I probably wouldn't say mitigate to my child, but.

[Jad Abumrad]

So we're going to do something with this lecture and send it to you. No, seriously.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Well, thanks, you guys.

[Jad Abumrad]

Thank you.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yes. And we have no, absolutely no connection to any kind of further experimentation of this kind.

[Jennifer Babbage]

You absolve yourself of responsibility.

[Robert Krulwich]

Blake is on his own. All right, Bye.

[Marie Callender's Advertiser]

Bye.

[Jennifer Babbage]

Bye.

[Jad Abumrad]

Bye, bye, bye. Now, I don't exactly know what to say here, but there is something about this story that just kind of like, gets to the whole point of why we do this. Yeah. That here you've got this kid who's obviously in a lot of pain, and he just sits still and listens to a story about parasites. You know, what we're trying to do here is tell stories that move you or keep you still in this case, but stories that draw you in and make you think differently about the world, even just a little bit, help us to do that. Here's how. Go to our website, Radiolab.org, click on the support button, and whatever you give, it goes right into the making of this show, and we really, really appreciate it. The Radiolab is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Sloan foundation, and the National Science Foundation.

[Blake]

Thanks for listening, Sam.

[Commercial Announcer]

Hey, crafters. You're invited to visit the new knit and sew shop at Michael's. Find hundreds of fabrics in over 800 stores and over 100,000 styles on michaels.com Shop your favorite yarn brands, including Big Twist Caron cakes and Bernat in multiple styles and colors. You'll also find all the machines, tools and notions you need with top brands like Singer Brother and Pellon, plus essential thread and floss. It's all new at Michaels.

[Jad Abumrad]

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[Lowe's Advertiser]

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[Jennifer Babbage]

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[Marie Callender's Advertiser]

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