Destin Sandlin

Destin Sandlin
Photo of Destin Sandlin taken by his wife, January 2014
Born	Destin Wilson Sandlin[1]
Residence	Huntsville, Alabama
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Alabama University of Alabama, Huntsville[1]
Occupation	Rocket Engineer YouTube Personality
Known for	Educational YouTube videos[2]
Spouse(s)	Tara Sandlin
Children	4

Destin Sandlin, born in 1981, is an American engineer best known for his educational video series, Smarter Every Day (SED),^[3][4] which is hosted on a YouTube channel of the same name launched in 2007.

Sandlin's YouTube channel boasts over four million subscribers, and over 300 million views. In early 2016, Sandlin was one of four YouTube personalities chosen to conduct a one-on-one interview with President Obama^[5] after his final State of the Union address.^[6] The interviews were sponsored by Google and were part of a White House initiative to reach millennial audiences.

On April 28, 2016 Sandlin started a second YouTube channel called The Sound Traveler, in which he employs 3-D audio and Go-Pro footage to capture and convey the experience of visiting the world's most interesting places.

Background

Sandlin received his Bachelors of Science from the University of Alabama, where he studied mechanical engineering. Later he obtained a graduate degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.^[1][7] While an undergraduate, he was awarded the University of Alabama's Outstanding Senior Award.^[1] He is a full-time Missile Flight Test Engineer at Redstone Arsenal.^[8][9]

A resident of Huntsville, Alabama,^[10] Destin is married with four children (two daughters and two sons);^[11] is a practicing Christian^[12] and credits his grandfather for having shaped his world view and for encouraging his love of science. Since 2012 Sandlin has supported and partnered with 'Not Forgotten', a charity that cares for orphaned boys in Peru.

He credits his fascination with the scientific method and his job as a rocket engineer as inspiration for making educational videos.

Smarter Every Day

Sandlin at Skepticon in November 2015.

Sandlin began posting educational videos in 2007, and his first video to reach one million views cleared that milestone on July 10, 2009.^[13] The video was about chicken head tracking using chickens that Destin bought for his father as a demonstration. Because of its popularity that video retroactively had the Smarter Every Day label added to it. Mercedes-Benz capitalized on the popularity of this video with their "MAGIC BODY CONTROL TV commercial Chicken".^[14]

Sandlin formally launched Smarter Every Day (SED) On Apr 24, 2011 with a video titled "Detonation vs Deflagration - Smarter Every Day 1,"^[15] which became the title for subsequent videos and the sole focus of his YouTube channel.

Episodes of Smarter Every Day revolve around scientific exploration and discovery and feature Sandlin as host and narrator. Sandlin is fascinated by flight and space, and his Smarter Every Day video library reflects that. But his videos explore a wide array of other topics including the effects of hypoxia on the human brain, the curiously sturdy Prince Rupert's drop, the physics of potato guns, and a nearly-impossible to ride bicycle that turns the opposite direction of its handle bars.^[16]

As of August 2016, the channel has over four million subscribers and 300 million views.^[17]

Destin closes each episode of Smarter Every Day with a reference to a Bible verse. These verses are usually reflective of the subject matter of the video to which they're attached. One such verse is Psalm 111:2, which adorns the doors of the Cavendish Laboratory at the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge.^[12][18]

Channel Statistics

^[19][20]

References

External links

• Destin Sandlin on Twitter
  
• Smarter Every Day YouTube page