After winning a Miss America pageant, Xyla Foxlin tethered her crown to a space balloon and launched it 112,000 feet into the Earth’s stratosphere.
A mechatronics engineer turned social media creator, Foxlin documented the process in a 17-minute video that’s received nearly 400,000 views and 1,500 comments on her “Xyla Foxlin” YouTube channel.
“Being interested in science and space and crowns and sparkles can all be the same person. That’s part of what I’m trying to prove and share with my channel,” said Foxlin. Along with her list of engineering accomplishments, Foxlin was crowned “Miss Greater Cleveland 2018,” a pageant organized by the Miss America Scholarship Foundation.
“Why I sent my Miss America crown to space” is one of nearly 90 videos Foxlin has produced since launching her YouTube channel in 2020. She’s grown her audience to 450,000 subscribers, with videos that range from building and launching a carbon fiber rocket that traveled 23,143 feet at Mach 2.3, to assembling a bulletproof ball gown.
“My channel is very much a grab bag because it’s genuinely whatever I’m interested in at the time,” said Foxlin, who earned a Bachelor of Science in engineering from Case Western Reserve University. “That’s the joy of having built a skill set like mine. With a broad engineering/maker skill set, you can do all of those things.”
Foxlin is one of three YouTube engineering creators who will present during Illinois State University’s inaugural BuildersSTAGE event, hosted by the new College of Engineering, Wednesday, October 30, starting at 1 p.m. in Braden Auditorium.
Joining Foxlin will be “Smarter Every Day” YouTuber Destin Sandlin (11.6 million subscribers, more than 380 videos) and “Practical Engineering” YouTuber Grady Hillhouse (3.9 million subscribers, more than 200 videos).
“I’m super excited about my co-panelists,” Foxlin said. “I think that we all bring a really unique perspective. Grady and Destin have more traditional engineering backgrounds than I do, and they’re also more on the educational side, where for me, I’m more out there building stuff for every single video. I’ve looked up to both of them for a really long time, and I’m really excited to have an open chat with them.”
Billed as an “immersive media experience,” BuildersSTAGE is free and open to the public, with several middle schools, high schools, Illinois State students, and members of the local maker community expected to attend. Guests are asked to register online in advance.
BuildersSTAGE will also feature organizer Justin McMenamy, host of the Grody & Unprofessional podcast and vice president of disruptive products for Precision Planting, and minimalist composer and electronic musician Bayonne.
“This is an event to launch the college, with our students arriving next year,” said Dr. Tom Keyser, founding dean of the College of Engineering. Illinois State’s newest college will welcome its first students in fall 2025. “These engineering YouTubers are doing really cool stuff, and all three of them embody how engineers can make a difference in the world.”
Foxlin’s interest in engineering can be traced back to building houses, as a child, for her Barbies. Later, with inspiration from her fifth-grade teacher who “was all about engineering challenges,” Foxlin became interested in robots. She was captain of her high school robotics team and worked on the theatre tech crew, although it wasn’t until the final semester of her senior year that she decided to pursue engineering in college.
“I was a spotlight operator, and I helped build the sets with a bunch of girls who loved building things with power tools,” Foxlin said. Motivated by their encouragement, Foxlin pursued a degree in general engineering at Case Western Reserve, with a concentration in mechatronics and creative technology.
As a college student, she invented Parihug, a line of huggable plush teddy bears that use sensors to transmit hugs from one person to another through paired-bear technology.
She also founded and served as executive director of the Beauty and the Bolt nonprofit organization whose #PrincessesWithPowerTools program taught more than 13,000 kids to use their first power tool and reached more than 100,000 students in classrooms.
After her post-graduation plan to work for Disney in spring 2020 fell through because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Foxlin instead launched her own YouTube channel, which took off with rocket-like speed.
“My channel is really fulfilling because I’m excited about every single project that I’m doing,” Foxlin said. “I think these videos can be aspirational to students because they can see, ‘If I study engineering really hard, I can get here.’”
The daughter of a “super fashionable” designer and a self-proclaimed “girly girl,” Foxlin proudly brings her authentic self to each video. She remembers feeling uncomfortable at engineering events where she was told, “If you want to be taken seriously as an engineer, then why don’t you dress like one?”
“The reality is that if we want equality in engineering, then we need to let people in when they are being their authentic selves,” Foxlin said. “And if that is a super feminine person, that doesn’t make her any less of an engineer.”
Foxlin credits social media for changing the narrative around who can become an engineer.
“It’s an open platform where anyone can start making content, and people are choosing who they want to look up to as their educators and their inspirations,” Foxlin said. “That has led to so much more diversity in the people our kids have access to.
“Growing up, part of why I didn’t think I could be an engineer is that I didn’t know any engineers that looked like me. But now kids of all races and genders can see that there is somebody on the internet doing what they want to do who looks like them, and I think that’s so powerful.”
Foxlin, whose favorite creation is the teardrop camper trailer that she built from scratch in three weeks and has taken on several trips, also hopes her YouTube channel inspires engineering educators and students to extend their work beyond theoretical work in the computer lab.
“Engineers need to build stuff with their hands,” Foxlin said. “Engineering is humanity’s way of interacting with the outside world. And hands-on learning, I think, is what makes the best engineers.”
BuildersSTAGE is free to attend thanks to sponsorship by Precision Planting, Rivian, and Cybernautic. Visit the BuildersSTAGE website to register for the event.
