The Baby Tamer

While fully engaged with launching my startup, I embarked on another life-changing journey: fatherhood. My son had a robust set of lungs and used them liberally.

I noticed that a combination of holding and gentle shaking brought him comfort quickly. Beyond pacing with him in my arms, I used a yoga ball to create a soothing rhythm by bouncing gently.

At some point I realized I was essentially performing a vertical oscillation. My background in physics became unexpectedly useful.

I crunched the numbers, drafted a blueprint, gathered the components, and assembled what I affectionately called the Baby Tamer. Rather than fixing the oscillation frequency, I used a variable capacitor to tune it manually.

After experiments with springs and oscillatory patterns, I found a combination that worked remarkably well.