A short story about us
TheEngineeringFamily is designed by a husband and wife duo...Mr. Engineer is an experienced engineer who loves exploring new things. Mrs. Engineer is an award-winning teacher with a focus on math and counseling. Finally, we have our Assistant who loves to make videos and create fun stories that make children laugh.
We focus on three things
Educational Fun - As parents we try to infuse elements of learning into everything that we do.
The Coolest Toys - Not necessarily the most popular but the toys that we like the best
Fun Stories and surprises - We create original stories using some of your favorite characters to help inspire imaginative play.
You can rest assured that we take the "Family" in "TheEngineeringFamily" very seriously. Our channel focuses on fun, safe, and educational play while avoiding anything that hints of innuendo or borderline content.
Your Friends, TheEngineeringFamily
About Us!!!
Questions and Answers!
Why is TheEngineeringFamily Still Making videos?
Well, the truth is - we still enjoy making them. Every 3 months or so we ask the Assistant if she wants to keep going, quit, or greatly reduce the amount of content that we make. She has always said she wants to keep making videos.
Do you feel that it is ok to make your livelihood on filming your child?
This is a pretty common misconception. The fact is, for us, it's more of a hobby than a job. Due to changes made in 2020 to ads and the rise of the YouTube Kids App, our ad revenue has dropped by about 90-95%. In fact, we actually lose money on about 95% of the videos that we make. This is why soooo many Kids and Family channels have stopped making content. We continue because it is more of a hobby - if we can break even on the cost... all the better. To be clear, "TheEngineeringFamily" is NOT our primary income.
Is TheEngineeringFamily safe and worthy of my 6-year-old's attention?
We think so! Our videos are unscripted, family-made, and centered on imaginative play, pets, travel, and learning. We try to make learning fun, albeit every video isn't solely focused on learning. And... we aren't trying to make commercials to try to influence your buying decisions.
What is the Assistant's real name on TheEngineeringFamily?
She does have a real name, I promise! The truth is, at this time, we just don't want people to know her real name. Sure, we wouldn't mind if most people knew her real name... but unfortunately... some of the people who ***TRY THE HARDEST*** to figure out her real name are adults. So if your 4-year-old daughter wants to know her name, we would love to tell her, and if you ever see us publicly, we would probably tell her... but if it's some 43-year-old man? Nah, they don't need to know.
Does the Assistant on TheEngineeringFamily have a real childhood?
Yes, she does, although a bit different than most. She is not homeschooled, and for most of her life she attended Public Schools. She plays High School Softball and participates in a very competitive travel softball schedule (she spends 5x more time on softball than she does filming videos). She is an excellent student and takes her classes very seriously (I often tell her... too seriously). She volunteers at the local science museum (she spends at least 2x as much time volunteering as she spends in front of the camera filming videos!). She has friends that she hangs out with like a typical teenager.
How can the Assistant from TheEngineeringFamily have a real childhood if she's always filming videos?
Our goal is for her to have three lanes in life (not counting her church and family life), and to try to keep them from overlapping and interfering with each other. Her life as a student (first), her life as an athlete (second), and her life as a YouTuber (third). The ability to keep these things separate requires lots of planning on our part. During Softball season, we usually only film on the occasional Sunday afternoon. In fact, many of our videos are pre-filmed and then used when her schedule gets busy. We film many of the videos during Spring/Summer/Winter break and/or while we are on vacation. Our goal is to allow her to continue making videos (if she chooses), have fun, and not interfere with the other parts of her life. When we do film during the school year, we plan out the video and have everything ready by the time she gets to our studio. We explain the video and almost immediately begin filming (remember all of our content is unscripted). The goal is to have every video filmed in less than an hour - often we are done filming in less than 45 minutes.
Why does the Assistant and TheEngineeringFamily make videos for kids much younger than her?
Well, in a very real way, we have to. Our attempts to pivot into content for older kids and teens haven't been successful (for us or any channel really). I tell people it is like a Venn diagram (I included it in the photos!). The content we make for YouTube Shorts is definitely for older kids/teens/adults.
Why is Mr Engineer always telling the Assistant what to do in videos.
The truth is... these videos are unscripted, so when Mr Engineer is telling her what to do, he is actually working as the Director. If the videos were scripted, or even semi-scripted, this level of direction wouldn't be needed. However, since the Assistant usually spends less than 10 minutes getting ready for the video, it does require some direction to ensure that the video follows some sort of narrative.
Why has TheEngineeringFamily steered away from "Vlogging" or "Family Drama" types of content?
Since the beginning, our guiding goal was to make content that was perfectly acceptable for 98% of the families out there. You will never satisfy everyone, but if you can manage to keep it clean enough for 98% of the families, I feel you are doing ok. What is the standard that we use? Well, are we 100% ok with our church pastor watching our videos? That takes into the "Vlogging" or "Family Drama" - the truth is our life (and frankly most people's lives) are way too boring to vlog. It causes people to create drama and conflict, and that's just not us.
Why did you stop doing unboxing and review videos?
I am sorry, but this is a long one, but we think the backstory is important :)
The channel actually started as a tech review channel! Mr. Engineer always felt that reviews were a critical part of the decision to buy something. He used reviews to decide what to buy and wanted to pay it forward by offering feedback on the items he purchased.
Once the Assistant was born, doing toy reviews was the next natural progression. Parents have limited time (and money) to buy toys that might just sit around and not be played with. So the original toy reviews (and unboxings) were meant to show the toy, how to assemble it, and whether it would hold a kid's interest. Early on, these videos were always meant for parents.
However, to the surprise of... everyone on the planet... these parent-focused videos started being mass-watched by kids (it became a "Sears Catalog phenomenon"). This began circa 2013/2014. It was very new, and at the time mostly harmless... again, it was reminiscent of kids circling what they wanted for Christmas in the yearly Sears Catalog. We received comments from parents asking us how to put toys together and help their kids learn how to play with them, etc.
Now we move into 2015ish.... That innocent "Toy Review" era started to fade. Other channels noticed the success we and other OG channels were having and wanted to duplicate it. I don't blame them; it was pretty easy to start a channel and have success! However, some of these channels were much less concerned with providing information/value to parents and more focused on tantalizing kids with a massive number of toys. Since there was a limited number of new toys to review, the idea became to have more toys in each video... bigger... costlier... more chaotic than the simple toy reviews of 2012/2013/2014.
We followed along that path - to some extent. Instead of reviewing one toy, we would have a tent filled with 8 toys. We would then explain the toy, how it was used, and etc... but at a faster pace. However, by late-2016 or so...we noticed something... in the comments (back when comments were still on for every video... and yes, we read all of them) we noticed that kids were watching the videos mostly for entertainment... free entertainment... and many of them had limited means to buy the things in our videos. So showing them a tent of 8 new toys seemed more cruel than helpful. The Assistant wasn't being viewed as a kid demonstrating toys... but as a kid who GOT a lot of toys (what they didn't know was that, after the video, the toys were put back in the box and usually donated). We could see how viewers would think we were flaunting all of these toys in front of kids. We worried that they might receive 2 or 3 presents at Christmas/Birthday and be disappointed that they didn't get as many toys as The Assistant might receive in a video. That's not ok.
So we pivoted - we would still feature toys - but more organically. Yes, we would still feature new toys, but when we did, we wanted to show how parents can use the toys to play/interact at the level that their children would enjoy. How families can take the toys they may get for a birthday, combine them with toys already sitting in the toy box, and create a fun, imaginative experience. We realized kids watched our videos because they wanted the experience of a parent interacting with them at their level and with things that were important to them. The philosophy of the video went from being informative to parents... to entertainment for kids... to trying to create a template for how parents and kids can interact and relate to one another.... and frankly... they weren't going to do that with traditional unboxings.
We still did an occasional unboxing moving forward (not en masse in a video), but always tried to weave it into a story and how it could be used to create imaginative stories for the family. Eventually, we dropped unboxing altogether and focused fully on imaginative play, parent-child role play, and STEM content.
Where can we buy TheEngineeringFamily Merch?
This is a bit of a trick question. In response to some fans wanting t-shirts and basic merch for birthdays, Christmas, and such, we created a basic design that was sold on Amazon.com. Please note that we do NOT actively update the merchandise. Honestly, we have never been comfortable selling stuff to kids. It just isn't in our nature to ask kids for money.. it just feels wrong (for us - we are not judging anyone who does). That is the main reason why we have never had a robust merchandise or a line of toys (and yes, we were approached by manufacturers, but we always said no). Another weird aspect of having a toy line is that it puts pressure on the kids being featured. We never wanted to create the pressure of having our daughter be responsible for the profits of a toy company.
What do you do with all the free toys you get from companies?
He is something that will surprise you... we almost never get free toys from toy companies. We may get something sent to us once every year (or two), but it is pretty rare. Usually when we do it is because we visited a trade event. However, we still have a warehouse full of toys, and we frequently purge what we have and donate it to various kid-based charities!
YouTube has changed so much since you began. What are your thoughts?
It's been interesting (and at times, sad) to see it evolve. 10 years ago the Family and Kids space was thriving, and there were so many families making content. Many of these families were good people and our friends, but unfortunately, some of the channels were bad eggs (and in some cases VERY BAD eggs). It gave the whole genre of "Family and Kids" channels a bad name. This caused Federal regulation.. which caused YouTube to significantly change the rules on what we can post (fun fact... a child under 13 is not allowed to be seen eating anything in a video). The rise of inappropriate content caused many of the advertisers to flee due to both bad press and federal regulations. The result was the collapse of most of the channels. A few of us remain, but it feels like working in an office building where 90% of the staff were laid off. We are not asking for any sympathy, but it is a bit sad during our more nostalgic moments.
Does TheEngineeringFamily actually watch YouTube?
More than ever! We probably watch as much YouTube as traditional television. Our favorite channels include Ryan Trahan, Mr Beast, SideProjects, StuffMadeHere, Smarter Everyday, Mark Rober, Dude Perfect, That's Amazing, Rhetty For History, and most of the Disney related content!
If the name of your channel is "TheEngineeringFamily" why don't all of your videos contain engineering/science experiments!?!
Early on, science and engineering content was a much harder sell than character-driven, play-based storytelling — so a lot of the catalog leans toward imaginative play, not formal experiments. We mixed in science experiments and scientific lessons wherever possible, but pure "science videos" just weren't as well received as imaginative play.
Over the last 2-3 years, that has shifted! As The Assistant's gotten older, her own curiosity has pulled things back toward the name on the channel — she's especially into biology and life sciences these days, and she has logged many hours volunteering at local science museum for kids. That interest shows up directly in what we're making now: a sealed-ecosystem biology demonstration, physics experiments with pressurized systems, STEM electronics content, and more. We've made tons of shorts on using UV light for color-changing crafts, fun at-home (and inexpensive) science experiments, and the science behind some of the crafts we make (yes — there's real science behind soap making!).
These days, I suspect the pendulum has swung, and the channel is now more science and engineering than pure imaginative play! These videos are hard to come up with, but the Assistant does a great job coming up with ideas and explaining the science.
What's the deal with "The Evil Assistant"?
Lol... we have a limited number of people who appear in our videos, so we had to invent one! The "Evil Assistant" isn't especially evil, and is mostly based on Romeo from PJ Masks, and a few other preschooler-type "bad guys." For what it's worth... we think "the Evil Assistant" has now been fully reformed :)
One strange but very cool fact....
Our views are always the lowest on Christmas Day! They begin to drop throughout Christmas Eve, and they are at their absolute lowest at around midnight PST. We looooove watching the views drop on Christmas Eve - it reminds us of the magic of being a child.