Edible Engineering

Georgia Southern Engineering Student Brings Unique Skills to Netflix

Georgia Southern mechanical engineering student Hannah Walden has spent years building interesting — sometimes wacky — projects with her father, Chuck. Those unique skills served her well in an equally unique Netflix show that combines engineering and baking.

Hannah began working on projects with her father when she was in seventh grade. She says she not only relished the time with her dad, but found that she understood and enjoyed the building process. So they built more projects together, starting simply so she could learn the basics. As she got older, the projects got more and more complex.

“A lot of our stuff is original because we’re basically lazy and we want something to make our life easier,” said Chuck. “I don’t want to go see if there’s a UPS package out front, I want a light on the wall that
tells me it’s out front, but I don’t want just any light. I want a freaky, crazy, weird light. So we built that.”

With every project, friends and family wanted to know how they made it. “So let’s build it on video,” Hannah suggested.

In August of 2019, Chuck and Hannah launched Atomic Dairy, their YouTube channel featuring how-to projects. To date, they’ve uploaded 102 videos and have garnered 12,400 subscribers and more than 1,080,000 views. They’ve built a variety of projects for their viewers — from an outdoor fire pit and multi-use “techno desk” to a secret door to the laundry room and a pair of giant modular dinosaurs, affectionately named Carl the T. Rex and Trixie the Triceratops, as Christmas decorations. Chuck says their audience runs the gamut from woodworking enthusiasts and technology geeks to gearheads who love to watch the tool roundups.

The channel also caught the attention of Netflix. In February of 2020, they received an email to see if they were interested in a show that combined engineering and baking.

“My first thought was, ‘This is a scam,’” said Hannah. “This is a scam email because we get a bunch of those.’ So then I looked at the sender and he had an IMDB page and I was like, ‘This might not be a scam.’”

After a series of interviews, Netflix flew her out to Los Angeles and paired her with a baker for the competition show “Baking Impossible,” which began streaming in October 2021. Her first project involved creating a “boat cake,” a cake that not only looked like a boat, but could actually float and navigate through a water course.

Though she only made it through two episodes, she says she made incredible friendships and connections on the show. One of the unexpected results has been getting recognized and sought out by its fans.

“It was an absolutely insane experience and it has continued to be insane because different people keep finding me on social media and telling me that they love me on the show, which is weird to me because in my head, the only people who have seen the show are me, my friends and my family, and that is absolutely not the case,” she said. “I don’t know how to be perceived by this many people. It’s weird.”

Her YouTube channel and Netflix experience have also been instrumental in getting her job opportunities. While applying for internships this year, three companies competed for her employment because of her wide range of project experience and problem-solving skills. She is working with Frito-Lay in Perry, Georgia, this summer.

Hannah aspires to use her engineering skills to build roller coasters in the future. Working with her dad inspired her to build things that make people happy. In the meantime, however, she’ll continue to create cool stuff with her dad, working their way down a spreadsheet with more than 70 project ideas.

“All of this stuff is special because I did it with my dad,” she said. “Not that the stuff isn’t cool, but doing it with someone and being able to experience the awesome highs of something working and the terrible lows of something breaking — it’s my favorite part.”

— Doy Cave