Helicopter Parent Builds Squadron of Quadrocopters to Protect Son
By Mark Boykin
Dec. 17, 2012
Some parents may have a tendency to be protective of their children, but most have nothing on Samantha Korrin, a parent who makes her living as a computer systems engineer in Chicago. Mrs. Korrin built a squadron of quadrocopter drones to protect and escort her son to and from the bus stop, en route to school.
Mrs. Korrin, a former contractor for the United States Department of Justice where she helped design head claws, automated sentry turrets, and Furbies that could double as face clingers, gave up that lucrative work to “make sure her 11-year old son doesn’t become a filthy gangster like the other kids on the block.” She now works at a nearby Best Buy, from which she culled the materials to build her “Alpha-Bet Squadron.” ” You’d be surprised what you can do with a little scrap, a few busted Dell desktops, and a Blu-Ray player.”
The cautious parent explained to Dealer staff that the inspiration for her squadron of death-safety machines came when her child returned home from school with a black eye: a nightmare situation for any concerned parent. ”After I demanded that he let me into his life for what must have been the hundredth time, he finally told me that he had been jumped by some street toughs on the way to the bus stop. That was the first and last straw.” The school bus stop in question is located about two blocks from Mrs. Korrin’s home, which is a distance that Mrs. Korrin said must be “practically a gauntlet for my boy. I swear, there’s a gang every five feet here. Evanston isn’t safe! Now that he has Alpha-Bet Squadron to hover over him, I can sleep knowing any potential threats to my family will be swarmed.”
She hopes to bring her innovative defense system to her son’s schools next PTA meeting, with the hopes of integrating her machines into the school’s security system. First the school, then the district, then all of America, said Mrs. Korrin, except Louisiana. ” It’s too muggy in that hellhole for the sedative mini-guns targeting lens to achieve optimal targeting efficiency. Maybe if I give them eight light sensors, like a quadro-copter-spider, and eight mini-guns too ”
Her husband, Carl Korrin, largely declined to comment during a short visit to the Korrin home, saying with a whisper only that, “If I say anything negative about my sweet peach of a wife’s machinations, the mounted turret to your left will detect it and tranquilize me. Yes, in the sofa. You might want to run; it detects fear, too.”
