Calculating Apple Pie ::: Future You

Story illustration and the design of a range of supporting resources for Future You’s Calculating Apple Pie program.

Calculating Apple Pie written by Melissa Keil, is the second story of the five-story series The Callistan Cycle, as part of Imagining The Future, the new fiction strand of the Future You project.

The aim of this strand is to take children into the future to explore the future of STEM careers through the medium of short stories. Calculating Apple Pie looks at computer programming, space travel and future food production. 

The Calculating Apple Pie poster features the sisters Arche and Kalyke family and depicts, in stylised form, the moment the final moments of the story. The onboard computer system, Maisie, is represented by the phoenix.

‘It’s the level-five alarm, the one where we’re supposed to grab our evac kits and haul butt to the assembly points. It’s the alarm that signals a catastrophic hull breach, an explosion in the ventilation chambers that means our air supply is toast. It’s the We Are All Going to Die Horribly in the Cold Void of Space alarm.

And even though it has triggered approximately eighteen times since we set off on this voyage three-and-a-bit years ago, my heart seizes, then starts to gallop. Turns out, hurtling through space in a ship shaped like a beluga whale the size of a city block is dangerous, and kind of complicated.’

Calculating Apple Pie by Melissa Keil

There is a range of visual, text, audio, video and career resources available on the Calculating Apple Pie website and Future You YouTube channel.

Complimentary illustrations and posters were designed featuring author Melissa Keil and actor Nikita Waldron who read Calculating Apple Pie aloud for the podcast.