Router

Hello. I’m a Router. You’ve probably seen me sitting quietly in a corner of your house. I’m the little box with the friendly blinking lights. My lights blink green and blue, like tiny stars winking at you. What do I do all day? Well, I have a very important job. I’m like a friendly traffic cop for the internet. Imagine all the fun things you do online, like watching cartoons, playing games, or video-chatting with your grandma. Each of those is like a little car driving on a superhighway. My job is to make sure all the cars go to the right place and don’t crash into each other. I send your brother’s game to his tablet and your movie to the television, all at the same time. Before I was around, it was a big jumble and messages would get lost all the time.

Let’s travel back in time to the year 1980. On October 2nd, a very clever man named William Yeager was working at a big school called Stanford University. He had a problem. There were lots of different groups of computers, but they couldn't talk to each other. It was like one group only spoke Spanish, another only spoke French, and another only spoke Japanese. They all wanted to share ideas and stories, but they couldn't understand one another. William Yeager thought, “What if I create something that can be a translator and a super-fast mail carrier all in one?”. And that’s when he had the big idea to create me. He designed me to be very smart. I could look at any digital message, which is like a tiny letter, and read its special address. Then, I would figure out the quickest and best path to send it to exactly where it needed to go, even if it had to cross many different computer roads, which we call networks.

My ability to connect all those different networks was a very big deal. It was like building bridges between islands that had never been connected before. Because of me, all those separate computer groups started to link together, forming one gigantic web of connections that we now call the internet. At first, I was a big box that lived in a special room in a laboratory. But over the years, I got smaller and learned a new trick. Now, I’m the small box in your home that sends out invisible signals called Wi-Fi. These signals carry all your messages through the air to your phones, tablets, and computers. I love my job. I get to help you connect with your family, learn amazing new things for school, and explore magical worlds in your favorite games. All while I sit here, quietly blinking, and guiding your wonderful adventures online.