Tim Kostersitz
Written by Jenna Sewell, Former Student on Friday, December 19, 2014
Tim Kostersitz is a junior at SHS with a particularly interesting hobby: collecting and repairing old typewriters. Kostersitz says he doesn't know why he got into his hobby; he was just always fascinated with the technology. His dad taught him everything he knows about engineering and has been keeping up with his hobby for about three years. He says he has fixed about six to ten typewriters total.
Kostersitz seems to have always had a curious mind when it comes to technology. In his interview, he told a story of how when he was about eight years old, he took apart one of his dad's Microsoft drives, and given his age, he wasn't able to put it back together. Obviously, his dad wasn't too thrilled. Kostersitz says that his parents support him having his hobby for the most part, just so long as it doesn't get too expensive. His sister also thinks his hobby is cool, as long as her stuff isn't what he's taking apart.
Repairing typewriters isn't a common hobby, either because of new technology people think they're not needed anymore, or because they seem too difficult to fix. "They're actually really simple to fix, they just look complex on the outside. It depends on what needs to be fixed, but they usually only take about one to two hours," said Kostersitz.
Kostersitz never charges anyone when he is asked to repair a typewriter. He just does it because he likes to. He says he doesn't really tell people about his hobby unless they ask, but when he does tell someone, the reaction is always different. Kostersitz says when he lived in Austria, their responses were always casual, but when he moved here and told people, they were more surprised and enthusiastic.
He says he doesn't plan on making a career out of fixing old typewriters, he just wants to keep it a hobby. Though it seems like this is just a hobby, it could be a big reason that he wants to go into engineering.
