Chip Thompson (aka Aubrey Katz)

Eccentric Tinkerer, Maker of Wonderful Wattzigigs

The name isn’t well known, a signature scrawled at the bottom of blueprints and etched into the metal plates of oddball creations. No one knows exactly why he chose it, and he’s not inclined to explain. What people do know is that Chip is a man of brilliant ideas, boundless curiosity, and an ever-present streak of chaos.

As a wee lad, he had an insatiable need to take things apart—radios, alarm clocks, even the family vacuum (which never quite recovered). But rather than destruction, his goal was understanding. He wasn’t just a builder; he was a questioner, a dreamer, a collector of strange thoughts that became even stranger, fantastical inventions.

Now, his hidden workshop is a maze of wires, half-assembled gizmos, and doodles on multicolored scraps of paper. His machines are as quirky as their maker—some helpful, like a robotic dog that delivers pencils on command, others utterly impractical, like a toaster that sings folk tunes while it burns bagels.

His most famous creation, WattBoy, was never meant to be a hero, but then again, neither was Chip.

His inventions don’t always function as intended (the self-tying shoe disaster is still talked about in whispers), but that’s never stopped him. Mistakes, he insists, are just blueprints for something better.

Elusive yet unforgettable, Chip Thompson is the kind of inventor who prefers to let his creations do the talking—though if you ever meet him, he might just share a wild idea or two before disappearing back into his world of gears and imagination. Just don’t touch any exposed wires…they talk back…with vigor.

Dale Jennings

Keeper of Secrets, Master of Margins

Dale has a name scribbled in the margins of forgotten books, a whisper behind the great inventors and mad geniuses of the world. No one is quite sure where he came from—some say he emerged fully formed from a stack of yellowed paperbacks, others insist he was once a ghostwriter for an eccentric billionaire who vanished under mysterious circumstances. Dale, of course, neither confirms nor denies.

A lifelong recluse, Dale’s obsession with knowledge borders on the unnatural. He reads with a hunger that cannot be sated—physics textbooks for breakfast, medieval manuscripts for lunch, and obscure technical manuals for midnight snacks. He speaks several languages but prefers silence, knowing that the best ideas arrive when the world is quiet.

Though he shuns the spotlight, his fingerprints are everywhere. Theories refined in the margins of Chip’s blueprints. Half-muttered suggestions that turn into brilliant designs. A single scribbled note—try reversing the polarity—that averted an electrical disaster no one ever knew was coming. While Chip builds, Dale watches, waiting for the perfect moment to nudge an idea from good to extraordinary.

Some claim he has a hidden library, a labyrinth of bookshelves so vast that one could get lost for weeks. Others swear he once corrected a quantum physicist mid-lecture without looking up from his novel. Dale never confirms these rumors, but he does smile faintly whenever they’re mentioned.

A mind like his is both a blessing and a burden. He has seen too much, read too deeply, and knows secrets that should never be spoken aloud. But every great creator needs a quiet genius in the background, a mind that moves unseen yet shapes the world. That is Dale Jennings—keeper of knowledge, architect of whispers, and the unseen force behind ideas that change everything.