Aleksei Kapustin

Lives in Krasnokamsk. Designs and constructs toys for kids at the Krasnokamsk factory of wooden toys.

Quotes

• If you want to do something, do it yourself.
• I am inspired by the smiles of other people.
• I like to repair things: something is broken, then you restore it, and its owner smiles. The thing came back to life, and you made someone's day.
• Krasnokamsk is the nature itself: the river, the forest, the tranquility, I am glad to be here.
• Each person is good in his own way and can always help another.

My story

I was born in Moscow. Dad is from the Caucasus, mom from Krasnokamsk, and they met at the institute where they studied. In Krasnokamsk, dad was offered an excellent job, and we moved here. Here I grew up, but I summers I spent in the Caucasus. I have many relatives in Moscow, in the Caucasus, in the Urals and abroad, I can move anywhere, but I do not want to.

As a child, I lived in the neighboring village of Overyata. It was surrounded by forest, where we ran with friends, knocked up tree houses... I was always interested in building and crafting. I tried to find new solutions myself and put them into life. Dad usually didn't allow me to help him, he said: «Look and learn.» I always kept an eye on this work.

At school, I was into track and field, and also from the age of 16, I started working in a club of Overyata. After graduating from school I entered the university, but soon I had to repay my homeland. At first, I was a bit afraid of the army, but then I liked it very much, especially since I was sent to Kolomna to serve in the artillery troops. I studied up caterpillar military reconnaissance vehicles, and over the year I learned to put the vehicle on full alert, although this routinely requires five people. It was an exciting experience, I don't regret this year of my life. However, I do not regret anything: you can make a good thing from anything.

After the army, I got a job at a machine-building plant in Krasnokamsk. While working, I realized that everything in life can be useful: I remember, at school, I wondered why I should learn German when there was only English around, and then the German delegation came to the factory to set up the equipment, and I urgently had to refresh my school knowledge.

After the plant was closed, I was invited to the Krasnokamsk toy factory as an operator of CNC machines. I didn't have to change a lot: we built metal constructions at the former plant, and here at the bottom were the same details, only of wood. I repaired the old equipment, especially since I had mastered the skills of radio electronics as early as at school — I was a soundman at the local House of Culture and all the time I was soldering something.

At the factory, I gradually moved up in the carrier and tried to facilitate the work not only for myself but also for the staff, because there is always something to be improved. Now I am engaged in technology, I write programs for CNC machines.

We develop many focus areas: for example, we make Braille cubes. This project grew out of cooperation with kindergarten № 12. Children with disabilities also want to play with wooden cubes, and we tried to make this game fascinating for them.

Not so long ago I went to Moscow to study programming, and now we have products with augmented reality. This is our know-how, in principle, there is no such product on the market. We invented the «Encyclopedia of the Perm Territory» — a set of 12 cubes, where on each one the names, significant for the Perm region, objects and events are put. Through the smartphone camera and the application in Russian, English, and German it is possible to read various information about each of these names. We also developed «Space» cubes: you put a picture of the cubes, direct the smartphone screen and learn the facts about space and its exploration. The visual part was done by Moscow designer Yuri Gulitov, the application I wrote myself. All these ideas appear spontaneously: «Let's do it!..»

Most of all I like to invent something new: projects, approaches to work, to optimization. Ideas come constantly, and they need to be implemented. I really love working for children. Children need development, especially the current ones: they are sometimes blown away by the information flow, on the one hand, and on the other, they have only a computer as a toy. In our own childhood, we were happy to run and play football, other pick-up games... You can feel the cubes, you can feel how one letter differs from the other not only visually, but also tactilely. You can collect words, build pyramids... I would like the industrial art lessons to return to school: this is a beneficial and fascinating activity.

We need to cross bridges when we come to them, and these tasks should be solved. If you do not have enough resources for this — then advance yourself. If you do not know how to do it — then learn how and do it. You can learn endlessly, there is always something unknown to you. In my opinion, the spectrum of knowledge should be broad enough in all areas, deeply or formally. When you deal with only one topic, you limit yourself in development.