As Edgar Escobar stood in his driveway while a projector displayed the Columbus Crew soccer team onto his Powell home, he reflected on life with his father before his passing — the wisdom he passed on and a promise fulfilled.

As a boy, Escobar’s father would often beckon him while he was working on cars and lecture him on the ingenuity and user-friendliness of the Hondas that he so loved.

Escobar’s family relocated to the United States from Guatemala when he was five years old. As his parents were searching for work, they started out in Los Angeles and eventually landed in Houston when he was 10. When Escobar was 15, his father died from complications from a stroke. As he sat next to his father during his final moments, Escobar said he told his dad that he would become an electrical engineer for Honda, his favorite automaker. Though he had no idea where he would go to school or how he would ever get there, he knew he’d keep his promise.

And he did. At age 23, Escobar graduated with an electrical engineering degree from the University of Houston in Texas. A few years later, he relocated to Columbus.

Now married with two children, the 40-year-old uses his knowledge and expertise of electrical engineering not only in his career in the lighting and vision department at Honda, but to also teach people how to create simple, inexpensive, DIY home projects. His YouTube channel, Super Simple DIY, boasts more than 1,800 subscribers and features 178 videos of low-cost projects and ideas that families can recreate in their own homes, from building a window bird feeder to making a 3D Christmas projection drone. Through it all, Escobar said he strives to show neighbors, friends and viewers from near and far that a small investment and some creativity can lead to fun, interactive projects that will make them the talk of their neighborhood.

“My angle has always been, how do I make something fun, big and cool for someone who may not have a bunch of resources,” Escobar said. “As an engineer, it’s my job to figure out a way to make something from nothing, almost like MacGyver.”

Escobar said that he focuses on cheap and easily accessible materials such as cardboard and items you can get from local stores like Home Depot.

Most recently, Escobar has garnered attention and admiration for his Columbus Crew-themed New Year lights display, which took Reddit by storm and has made his home a popular destination for visitors curious to see his eye-catching nighttime projections.

It’s not the first time that Escobar and his family have been media darlings. He was recently contacted by ABC in Los Angeles to compete in a battle of holiday house decorations,for which he will submit video footage of his home for an audition. (He will find out if made the cut in February.) In October, his 3-year-old son, Xander, who also shares his father’s and late grandfather’s love of cars, made it onto Good Morning America after they transformed his miniature electric truck into the Pixar film “Cars” character Mack. And last year, his 5-year-old daughter Melianna caught the attention of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration after the two of them created a water propelled bottle rocket.

Escobar said watching his two children explore cars, rockets and showing an overall interest in the sciences evokes a feeling of pride.

“When something breaks in the house, the first thought my kids have is, ‘Dad let’s go find the tape; let’s go find the screwdriver; we’ve got to fix this”, he said.

Escobar’s favorite DIY project was the creation of a “Coca-Cola Holiday Caravan” semi-truck for his son that he completed in mid-December. He said it was a homage to his late father who worked for Coca-Cola and collected miniature wooden Coca-Cola semi-trucks. Watching his son drive around the neighborhood in the truck and seeing his neighbors’ reactions reminded Escobar of the days when his own father would traverse the mountains of Guatemala in a bigger Coca-Cola truck.

“Building it was definitely a tearjerker for me because it was like, my dad. My son has this way of looking at me and his smile just reminds me of my dad,” Escobar said.

@ShahidMeighan

smeighan@dispatch.com

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Powell engineer reflects on life with family, projects and promises