WEBVTT
00:00:05.062 --> 00:00:09.292
I see coding as just being another skill.
00:00:10.333 --> 00:00:17.772
Coding is no different than being able to use the bandsaw or coding is no different than being able to use the soldering iron.
00:00:18.342 --> 00:00:20.972
It's just another skill that one can learn.
00:00:20.983 --> 00:00:30.463
Instead of saying, I don't know how to code, you say, I don't know how to code yet, or I don't know how to solder, or I don't know how to solder yet.
00:00:31.382 --> 00:00:32.463
Welcome to make cast.
00:00:32.463 --> 00:00:33.383
I'm Dale Dougherty.
00:00:33.813 --> 00:00:41.835
It's good to get back to other projects after a successful relaunch of Maker Faire Bay Area at Mare Island My guest on this episode is Brian Wagner.
00:00:42.015 --> 00:00:46.576
He is an engineer, a maker, and a teacher of making and coding.
00:00:46.935 --> 00:00:56.926
He's also one of the co-founders of the LVL hackerspace in Louisville, Kentucky, and he remains a member, even though he now lives in Florida, where he teaches at IMG Academy.
00:00:57.286 --> 00:01:05.536
During COVID one of Brian's projects was to create an online course to teach coding specifically how to learn Python to create video games.
00:01:06.046 --> 00:01:13.126
Brian has that maker mindset for learning by doing, and he tries to share his skills and his enthusiasm with students.
00:01:13.426 --> 00:01:15.915
I'm happy to share his story with you.
00:01:17.046 --> 00:01:19.406
I want to welcome Brian Wagner.
00:01:19.445 --> 00:01:21.805
Brian, it's good to see you and talk to you today.
00:01:22.183 --> 00:01:23.664
Thank you very much, Dale.
00:01:23.664 --> 00:01:25.054
It's good to be here.
00:01:25.194 --> 00:01:27.343
It's good to share my passion of making.
00:01:28.123 --> 00:01:31.974
To start off, let me just ask you, how would you describe yourself to someone else?
00:01:32.054 --> 00:01:32.813
Who are you, Brian?
00:01:32.896 --> 00:01:34.355
I have a lot of descriptions.
00:01:34.355 --> 00:01:35.506
I wear a lot of hats.
00:01:35.926 --> 00:01:52.825
I started out as an engineer, but I'm also a computer programmer, but I would say I'm mainly a teacher, teacher of tech stuff or making, tinkering, building, working with my hands.
00:01:53.656 --> 00:01:55.656
Again, I also am a programmer.
00:01:55.656 --> 00:02:04.275
I have this wide array of skills, anything from welding to coding in Java that I've built over these years.
00:02:04.305 --> 00:02:09.425
And I just love to share that with anybody who will listen, quite honestly,
00:02:10.686 --> 00:02:12.496
When did you pick them up, growing up?
00:02:12.506 --> 00:02:14.566
Did you pick up welding before you picked up coding?
00:02:14.575 --> 00:02:16.786
Did you pick up coding first and then get to welding?
00:02:18.135 --> 00:02:19.205
So there's my story.
00:02:19.295 --> 00:02:26.096
Let's see about 1979, a little bit post Star Wars when that came out, 79, 80, maybe.
00:02:26.561 --> 00:02:37.471
My dad bought a Apple II computer and brought it home and set it on a desk and encouraged me to figure it out.
00:02:37.471 --> 00:02:47.078
So myself and my best friend at the time, a fellow by the name of Jeff Gilbert, who actually works for Apple at this moment, He and I sat down.
00:02:47.087 --> 00:02:52.147
We wrote games and we typed code in at that time.
00:02:52.147 --> 00:02:53.098
There was no Internet.
00:02:53.098 --> 00:02:53.978
There was no nothing.
00:02:53.987 --> 00:02:55.707
First off, we had to learn how to type.
00:02:56.068 --> 00:03:09.487
But second off, we would get these magazines, and these magazines had listings of code for games, so we would sit there and type them in, and of course they didn't work, so we'd have to scratch our heads and figure it out.
00:03:09.978 --> 00:03:12.198
We just spent so much time doing that.
00:03:12.198 --> 00:03:16.462
Everybody else was out playing baseball are riding their BMX bikes around.
00:03:16.513 --> 00:03:22.293
We were coding on the Apple 2 and listening to MTV when when there was music on MTV.
00:03:22.712 --> 00:03:26.723
These were the early days of of new wave music and, oh, it was great.
00:03:26.752 --> 00:03:27.443
Great times.
00:03:27.443 --> 00:03:32.362
I was, I would, I would say eighth grade, ninth grade, somewhere in there.
00:03:32.473 --> 00:03:35.652
Now, my parents tell me that I've always been building stuff.
00:03:35.652 --> 00:03:41.812
So I was always working with blocks or Legos or out in the wood shop or something like that.
00:03:41.902 --> 00:03:48.103
But I would put the beginnings of my making at when I first got that first computer.
00:03:48.992 --> 00:03:49.752
And where was that?
00:03:49.763 --> 00:03:50.462
Where were you living?
00:03:51.562 --> 00:03:53.233
Houston, Texas at the time.
00:03:53.342 --> 00:03:54.543
I guess I should say this.
00:03:54.562 --> 00:04:00.733
My dad is an engineer and also a very avid ham radio buff.
00:04:00.802 --> 00:04:02.622
K5KG is his call.
00:04:02.997 --> 00:04:05.768
And he's been doing that since 1955.
00:04:05.777 --> 00:04:16.487
Just how he got bit by the ham radio bug when he was in middle school, say, I got bit by the computer bug in early high school and late middle school.
00:04:17.358 --> 00:04:21.182
You went on in college then to study engineering and computer science.
00:04:21.322 --> 00:04:22.052
Absolutely.
00:04:22.242 --> 00:04:23.023
Yeah, absolutely.
00:04:23.043 --> 00:04:24.653
Was that a decision?
00:04:24.663 --> 00:04:25.812
That's what I really want to do?
00:04:25.862 --> 00:04:28.992
I absolutely knew that I wanted to be an engineer at that point.
00:04:29.202 --> 00:04:30.903
And of course, my dad had been an engineer.
00:04:30.952 --> 00:04:35.023
So I went off to Vanderbilt to do mechanical engineering.
00:04:35.023 --> 00:04:38.872
Very quickly, I switched to electrical and computer science.
00:04:39.382 --> 00:04:40.872
It fit me a lot better.
00:04:41.273 --> 00:04:46.913
I really got the bug for doing embedded microprocessors.
00:04:48.463 --> 00:04:52.567
And this was back in let's say 86, 87.
00:04:52.927 --> 00:05:09.387
We were doing embedded microprocessors as college sophomores, juniors, working with the 6502 chip, the 65HC11, some of those chips, this was before the Parallax stamp.
00:05:09.387 --> 00:05:12.737
This was long before the Arduino.
00:05:12.737 --> 00:05:12.767
Sure.
00:05:12.767 --> 00:05:21.208
These you actually had to burn the EEPROM chips and then hook them all up and cross your fingers and hope they worked.
00:05:21.208 --> 00:05:27.398
And I remember spending just hours and hours in the engineering labs and staring at this.
00:05:27.418 --> 00:05:31.288
Of course also coding all this stuff in assembly language.
00:05:31.627 --> 00:05:34.218
We really didn't have a C compiler to do this.
00:05:34.367 --> 00:05:35.827
This was all assembly.
00:05:36.228 --> 00:05:50.353
And then that Parallax Stamp chip came out and suddenly you get Basic or the ability to do Basic on a microprocessor and connect an embedded computer to the world.
00:05:50.353 --> 00:05:51.403
It was fascinating.
00:05:51.702 --> 00:05:55.372
I had always so many different ideas of things to do.
00:05:56.002 --> 00:06:02.992
And then after, I guess that Basic Stamp ruled the world for about 10 years or so before the before the Arduino took over.
00:06:03.562 --> 00:06:09.783
Yeah, it is interesting to think about, say, in 1980 version, what tools you had to work with.
00:06:10.033 --> 00:06:13.942
And relatively speaking, how few people could use those tools, right?
00:06:15.223 --> 00:06:16.072
Oh, absolutely.
00:06:16.072 --> 00:06:24.492
Bringing that that engineering lab down into the high schools and then to the middle schools and even elementary schools with the micro-bit.
00:06:24.973 --> 00:06:29.932
It's just so much fun because children just have this natural inclination to play.
00:06:30.452 --> 00:06:40.833
And when you give them a tool that is very unique, say like a microprocessor, they take off and they have just such great ideas for what you can do with these.
00:06:40.882 --> 00:06:45.983
When you're talking about you and your friend around the Apple II, part of it is some innate curiosity like what is this about?
00:06:45.983 --> 00:06:46.773
What can it do?
00:06:47.252 --> 00:06:51.192
But part of it is also I want to do something with it, right?
00:06:51.392 --> 00:06:54.752
I want to create something of my own, right?
00:06:54.793 --> 00:06:57.492
And they come together there in an interesting way, don't you think?
00:06:58.812 --> 00:06:59.713
Oh, absolutely.
00:06:59.742 --> 00:07:04.072
That's what drives hackerspaces quite a bit is Hey, look what I've done.
00:07:04.083 --> 00:07:06.293
And then I'm going to pass that off to you.
00:07:06.723 --> 00:07:08.783
And then you try to one up me.
00:07:08.843 --> 00:07:17.952
I remember there were some other kids in my high school or in my middle school, high school, early years that were that were also trying to code games.
00:07:17.952 --> 00:07:19.603
So we would write games.
00:07:19.603 --> 00:07:26.182
I wrote this little chicken game that ran across the screen and eggs were falling and you were trying to catch them.
00:07:26.182 --> 00:07:35.177
Then I would show it to like my middle school teachers and they were like just blown away and then another kid would go-- Oh, that's great but that's like space invaders.
00:07:35.177 --> 00:07:41.872
Then they would go off and they would code something using my stuff to try to make it a little bit better.
00:07:41.942 --> 00:07:46.482
And if you go to a hacker space or makerspace, you see the same thing.
00:07:46.482 --> 00:07:53.911
Somebody codes up a LED strip and then the next thing you know, somebody has made some sort of a Halloween project.
00:07:54.012 --> 00:07:54.942
Or whatever.
00:07:55.192 --> 00:08:00.721
As we were doing this, of course, our brains are like, yeah, we're going to become like billionaires, just like everybody else.
00:08:00.791 --> 00:08:02.411
But that wasn't the focus.
00:08:02.411 --> 00:08:05.041
The focus was just tinkering and playing around.
00:08:05.101 --> 00:08:05.442
Yeah.
00:08:06.992 --> 00:08:17.716
I remember pulling a Apple two apart and figuring out that the joystick part, you could put resistors in there and it would give you a value.
00:08:17.997 --> 00:08:22.956
So then suddenly, then you can deal with potentiometers and you figure out how the joystick works.
00:08:23.387 --> 00:08:26.206
And then you've realized that you could put a thermistor in there.
00:08:26.206 --> 00:08:31.247
And next thing you're measuring temperature and it's just, it's just fascinating.
00:08:31.266 --> 00:08:35.351
Of course I did burn up one Apple II doing that.
00:08:36.081 --> 00:08:40.912
And that was not a fun thing but, they popped the chip, put a new one in and off we went.
00:08:40.932 --> 00:08:44.412
It's like the wild west of early eight-bit computing.
00:08:44.692 --> 00:08:51.402
So when you went to college and came out with an EE/ computer science degree, did you go into industry and get a job?
00:08:52.687 --> 00:08:59.636
I went into industry and ended up working at a nuclear power plant for about four years in Augusta, Georgia.
00:09:00.476 --> 00:09:02.037
I did that for about four years.
00:09:02.076 --> 00:09:03.417
My daughter was born.
00:09:03.846 --> 00:09:12.716
My wife was in medical school at the time, and we decided that the medical school was a better thing for us to be doing, so I actually quit my job.
00:09:12.716 --> 00:09:13.417
I was a Mr.
00:09:13.417 --> 00:09:22.206
Mom for five or seven years during that time, again, just at the cusp of the Internet.
00:09:23.523 --> 00:09:27.302
AOL was just coming to fruition.
00:09:27.312 --> 00:09:28.802
Everybody was trying to figure this out.
00:09:28.802 --> 00:09:36.393
At that point in time, I started doing freelance computer jobs, making websites where everything was completely hand coded.
00:09:36.842 --> 00:09:46.572
Long before CSS, long before HTML5 and any of the other buzzwords these days but a lot of fun and and really exciting.
00:09:46.913 --> 00:09:51.932
I got to know a lot of the people who were running the ISPs in Chattanooga at the time.
00:09:52.322 --> 00:09:56.442
That was a really cool tech group that I would hang out with.
00:09:56.763 --> 00:09:58.273
How did you get into teaching?
00:09:59.432 --> 00:10:00.423
So I was a Mr.
00:10:00.423 --> 00:10:07.462
Mom for a while, and I was at home a lot, and it's great to be a Mr.
00:10:07.462 --> 00:10:11.567
Mom, but the problem is you got all these other moms that are so nice to you.
00:10:12.118 --> 00:10:20.427
And you go to get coffee with them and they got their little kids and you got your little kids, but you never really feel like you're part of that group.
00:10:20.567 --> 00:10:25.628
The real question was, I need to, I want to get back into a job.
00:10:26.258 --> 00:10:31.212
I always felt like teaching was kind of where I belonged.
00:10:31.222 --> 00:10:33.692
So this was about year 2000 or so.
00:10:33.743 --> 00:10:39.633
I took classes at the local University, you know teaching classes how to be a teacher that sort of thing.
00:10:40.923 --> 00:10:47.552
Then the next thing, I landed a job teaching at Kentucky Country Day School.
00:10:48.133 --> 00:10:51.883
This was about 2002 or so.
00:10:53.092 --> 00:10:58.263
Taught math for a year and then I taught computers, of course.
00:10:58.352 --> 00:11:08.503
So I would teach Real Basic, which was the max version of Basic at that time and taught some computer science because I love computer science.
00:11:08.503 --> 00:11:12.352
I love coding and taught computer applications.
00:11:13.602 --> 00:11:22.592
So I'm curious how you've seen that evolve, like the art of teaching coding during the last 20 years, right?
00:11:23.113 --> 00:11:32.753
It has gone from really Basic or in some ways to all kinds of visual programming today, all kinds of entry level approaches.
00:11:33.052 --> 00:11:41.668
But I guess to start in one place there, I was interested, you, I think you described yourself to me once as a nerd, or self identified that way.
00:11:42.398 --> 00:11:48.488
And it's one thing to find kids who really like computers and want to learn how to program.
00:11:48.937 --> 00:11:58.038
But I would guess at a Kentucky Country Day or another school, you want to teach the kids that aren't inclined to be programmers, right?
00:11:58.248 --> 00:12:00.317
Or at least reach them and it's a bit like...
00:12:00.613 --> 00:12:13.773
Same problem with art, it's one thing to teach a group of young kids who want to be artists, but it's another thing to teach kids who struggle with the idea of doing art in any way, and you want to introduce them to it so they can appreciate it.
00:12:14.037 --> 00:12:21.206
So first off, I realize that every kid's not going to be a programmer, just like everybody's not going to be an author or something like that.
00:12:21.206 --> 00:12:25.636
I think you can teach all kids to code, but I just don't think it's their thing.
00:12:25.716 --> 00:12:27.657
I don't think it's some kid's thing.
00:12:27.826 --> 00:12:29.126
But what my goal is...
00:12:30.072 --> 00:12:46.932
in teaching computer science and teaching computer science either at the middle school level or at the high school level or whatever, is I want to introduce it in such a way that, that they one, find it fun; two, they don't find it that hard.
00:12:46.932 --> 00:12:48.621
They realize, gee, I can do this.
00:12:48.652 --> 00:12:51.011
This isn't that scary.
00:12:51.292 --> 00:12:56.052
This isn't that outside my box to be able to handle this.
00:12:56.662 --> 00:13:02.461
And three if they do latch on to it, then they have some foundation.
00:13:02.461 --> 00:13:07.481
They can go on to another class or they can go on to another thing and then go, that was fun.
00:13:07.481 --> 00:13:08.662
And I really enjoyed that.
00:13:08.672 --> 00:13:09.851
And I'm going to continue.
00:13:10.392 --> 00:13:12.022
I'm going to continue pursuing this.
00:13:12.552 --> 00:13:39.432
Personally, I feel like everybody should know at least some basics on coding because if you're in Excel or something, you can do things like, if this cell is negative, then make it red, otherwise make it black or, there's so many things in the world that with just a small little base knowledge of coding, you can absolutely do and do some really cool things.
00:13:39.897 --> 00:13:41.557
Even say with what do I want to say?
00:13:41.557 --> 00:13:54.626
Home automation, if the temperature is above 75 degrees, then I want this fan to turn on and I want the lights to dim and I want to put on some Jimmy Buffett music.
00:13:54.687 --> 00:14:03.386
In other words I do believe that every kid should be at least introduced to coding, just like every kid should be introduced to, say cooking.
00:14:03.476 --> 00:14:09.236
And sometimes they use the term computational thinking, but just as you described, it's like, how does a problem fit?
00:14:09.881 --> 00:14:11.741
Something you could solve with a computer, right?
00:14:11.751 --> 00:14:16.091
Like the temperature is at a certain degree and you want to take certain actions.
00:14:16.422 --> 00:14:27.881
So yeah, but so you were teaching for a number of years at Kentucky Country Day and somewhere along the line after that I ran into you at a Maker Faire in the Bay Area.
00:14:27.902 --> 00:14:28.471
Oh my gosh.
00:14:28.522 --> 00:14:37.542
So I must admit that was a life-changing part of my life was in in 2008.
00:14:37.591 --> 00:14:39.131
I think it was the second Maker Faire.
00:14:39.201 --> 00:14:51.662
Mark Endicott, the physics teacher at Kentucky Country Day, and I were fortunate enough to be able to fly from Kentucky to San Francisco for the Maker Faire.
00:14:52.121 --> 00:14:57.822
When we checked into the hotel, it just happened to be where everybody from Make had checked into the hotel.
00:14:57.822 --> 00:15:03.402
The next thing you know, we were hanging out and talking to our tribe of makers.
00:15:04.182 --> 00:15:05.471
We go to the Maker Faire.
00:15:06.052 --> 00:15:25.392
It's mind blowing, because there's, of course, there's all the stuff that everybody's making, but of course there's also these huge art things almost like installations, but more like mechanical contraptions that I guess a lot of the people take to Burning Man and then they show up at Maker Faire.
00:15:25.782 --> 00:15:34.001
But we met so many wonderful people including a few people from the NoiseBridge hackerspace in San Francisco.
00:15:34.912 --> 00:15:37.101
So anyway we took all these pictures.
00:15:37.101 --> 00:15:38.562
We were so excited.
00:15:38.562 --> 00:15:41.451
We come home and then it's summer.
00:15:41.672 --> 00:15:44.621
And then a little bit later, Mark and I were like let's do something.
00:15:45.042 --> 00:15:48.481
And we found at the community college, there was a welding class.
00:15:48.491 --> 00:15:50.451
So we took a welding class and that was cool.
00:15:50.461 --> 00:15:51.412
A lot of fun.
00:15:51.412 --> 00:15:56.461
We built a a skeleton hand out of metal and fun stuff like that.
00:15:59.522 --> 00:16:09.826
But we never really lost track of this whole notion of having a place to put our tools, a place to have a community workshop.
00:16:10.496 --> 00:16:19.437
So we started digging online about hacker spaces and we talked about apparently there was a German club out of Berlin
00:16:19.486 --> 00:16:20.386
Chaos Computer Club.
00:16:20.626 --> 00:16:21.167
Yeah.
00:16:21.226 --> 00:16:24.586
And they had a lot of information about how to start a hacker space.
00:16:24.687 --> 00:16:28.287
So Mark and I, we were like, okay let's try to do this.
00:16:28.336 --> 00:16:37.226
We threw out a message on the Make magazine blog and we set up a place at a bar where we could have a table and in a back room.
00:16:37.226 --> 00:16:40.606
We go there and we're like, yeah, nobody's going to show up for this.
00:16:40.606 --> 00:16:41.647
And we're like it's okay.
00:16:41.647 --> 00:16:42.966
We'll just have a beer and move on.
00:16:42.966 --> 00:16:45.836
We got a dozen people that showed up the first time.
00:16:46.616 --> 00:16:49.927
And then the next time we ran a meeting, it was the next month.
00:16:49.976 --> 00:16:52.716
We maybe had 20 and then it grew.
00:16:53.206 --> 00:17:07.096
And then we're like, our goal here is to have a place where we can have our table saw, and maybe a band saw, and tools and things like that, but we need to come up with some way to have enough money to put down rent.
00:17:07.346 --> 00:17:08.696
None of us have a lot of money.
00:17:08.747 --> 00:17:14.126
So we all started chipping in 50 bucks a month, on this grand idea, which is fantastic.
00:17:14.136 --> 00:17:18.807
It's crazy to be able to sell somebody on an idea that just doesn't exist.
00:17:18.856 --> 00:17:22.787
They got to trust you somehow, but I guess I have a trustworthy face or something.
00:17:23.977 --> 00:17:39.037
So we did that for about six months or so and during that time, we also came up with structure--bylaws and, one of the biggest things that we did with LVL1 is we decided that we're never going to do fundraising.
00:17:39.987 --> 00:17:41.876
We're never going to take out loans.
00:17:42.386 --> 00:17:45.446
Whatever the members can support, that's what we're going to do.
00:17:46.176 --> 00:17:48.926
Basically we set up a really good structure.
00:17:49.336 --> 00:17:57.547
And I'm proud to say, LVL1 is going strong and we've always run positive as far as money, and we made it through COVID without even blinking.
00:17:57.676 --> 00:18:02.116
So you found a space eventually, you had enough members to find a space.
00:18:02.126 --> 00:18:03.416
Is that the one on Broadway?
00:18:04.626 --> 00:18:05.896
That was the one on Broadway.
00:18:05.896 --> 00:18:08.477
It was really sketchy, but it was awesome.
00:18:09.817 --> 00:18:11.237
We saved up some more money.
00:18:11.287 --> 00:18:15.467
The first thing we bought was a couple of 3D printers.
00:18:16.182 --> 00:18:17.342
Good old MakerBots.
00:18:17.362 --> 00:18:28.811
We called them disappointment machines at the time because they halfway worked most of the time, and they were slow, but really it took off once we got the laser cutter.
00:18:29.031 --> 00:18:34.372
The first time we got the laser cutter, then everybody realizes that's really the cool tool to have.
00:18:34.922 --> 00:18:42.652
It is funny how the laser cutter is the workhorse of a space like that.
00:18:43.797 --> 00:18:45.936
Yeah, but I tell you what for kids.
00:18:47.092 --> 00:19:01.711
The workhorse for a makerspace for kids is the vinyl cutter, because kids will learn how to cut out a sticker to stick on their laptop or their lunch, but they don't have lunch boxes, but on their notebook or something like that.
00:19:01.761 --> 00:19:05.442
But it's wonderful because it teaches them vector art.
00:19:06.281 --> 00:19:10.961
And once they get the vector art, then that can very easily transfer over to the laser.
00:19:11.471 --> 00:19:15.882
And then once they're comfortable in two dimensions, they go to three dimensions with the 3D printer.
00:19:16.251 --> 00:19:22.402
Tell me LVL1 was the really the first makerspace in or hackerspace in Louisville.
00:19:22.892 --> 00:19:24.781
How did it grow and develop?
00:19:27.372 --> 00:19:28.281
Let's see here.
00:19:28.332 --> 00:19:30.551
Basically it was in an old building.
00:19:31.061 --> 00:19:32.912
We got all of our tools in there.
00:19:32.912 --> 00:19:34.211
That was our initial thing.
00:19:34.211 --> 00:19:50.711
We're like we need a place to put all of our tools and we need a place where we can work on this or work on that, but it very quickly stopped being about the tools and quickly became about the people.
00:19:51.791 --> 00:20:08.912
Part of our meetings, we always had a show and tell at the end of the meetings where somebody would come up and they'd say, here, look, I built this duck and then somebody else would come up and they would say that's great, but why don't we put some feet on that duck?
00:20:08.912 --> 00:20:11.902
And then the next person would be, wouldn't it be great if it had a hat?
00:20:12.582 --> 00:20:23.317
And by having those show and tell meetings, you ended up with a lot of people connecting over similar projects.
00:20:23.737 --> 00:20:29.007
Specifically I can think of one project that was huge in that early space.
00:20:29.426 --> 00:20:32.086
That was run by a fellow by the name of Dan Bowen.
00:20:32.096 --> 00:20:40.537
But basically he convinced a lot of people in LVL1 that we wanted to fly a balloon across the Atlantic Ocean.
00:20:40.846 --> 00:20:44.277
Those engineers, they just went to town designing that thing.
00:20:44.666 --> 00:20:47.856
Now, ultimately, I don't think they ever made it across the Atlantic.
00:20:47.866 --> 00:20:52.596
But they sure had a good time building and coming up with ideas.
00:20:52.596 --> 00:20:57.527
Ultimately Dan ended up going off to Google and working for Project Loon.
00:20:57.836 --> 00:20:59.777
He's out in San Francisco somewhere.
00:21:00.287 --> 00:21:01.866
But those were great times.
00:21:02.186 --> 00:21:13.176
A little bit later, we grew out of that space and ultimately, we moved to a better space for us that was across town.
00:21:13.576 --> 00:21:23.426
That was a really hard thing to do was to move everything, but we got through that and and now we definitely have our home and hopefully we'll never leave that one.
00:21:23.426 --> 00:21:26.717
But if we do then we'll just we'll pick it up and go somewhere else.
00:21:26.767 --> 00:21:28.267
How many members approximately?
00:21:28.366 --> 00:21:30.146
About 80, I think.
00:21:30.307 --> 00:21:35.896
Actually, I'm still a member, but I'm down here in Florida, so I haven't been there in a couple of years.
00:21:36.646 --> 00:21:37.936
But I keep paying dues.
00:21:37.936 --> 00:21:38.977
I don't know why that is.
00:21:39.037 --> 00:21:40.656
I have such a love for that place.
00:21:40.676 --> 00:21:42.227
Again, it's not about the tools.
00:21:42.277 --> 00:21:44.446
It's about the people that are there.
00:21:44.477 --> 00:21:52.926
And it's about that, that, that camaraderie and that enjoyment of building and enjoyment of working together.
00:21:53.076 --> 00:21:56.096
It's like a golf club, but we just don't play golf,
00:21:56.186 --> 00:21:58.176
I feel that way a lot about Maker Faire.
00:21:58.176 --> 00:22:03.166
It's just I've got to meet such great people that I wouldn't have met, if it wasn't for having that event.
00:22:03.217 --> 00:22:05.696
How would you else find these people even?
00:22:06.207 --> 00:22:08.856
To know that they live in your community.
00:22:08.866 --> 00:22:13.386
To see what they do and what they're interested in and learn from them.
00:22:13.457 --> 00:22:14.856
It's a wonderful thing.
00:22:16.446 --> 00:22:17.487
Yeah, exactly.
00:22:17.507 --> 00:22:28.997
And we're we pull those people out of their basements where they've been tinkering for 20 years and then suddenly their eyes light up and they can show off these things and it's fantastic.
00:22:29.047 --> 00:22:30.846
How do you see making and coding?
00:22:30.886 --> 00:22:33.156
Or how do you see them all fitting together?
00:22:33.277 --> 00:22:37.176
You're a person that does both--the tinkering and the making and the coding.
00:22:37.457 --> 00:22:41.686
I see coding as just being another skill.
00:22:43.576 --> 00:22:51.017
Coding is no different than being able to use the bandsaw or coding is no different than being able to use the soldering iron.
00:22:51.586 --> 00:22:54.217
It's just another skill that one can learn.
00:22:54.227 --> 00:22:54.247
Yeah.
00:22:56.142 --> 00:23:02.741
I think people are initially turned off from coding for the same reason they get turned off from math.
00:23:03.261 --> 00:23:08.571
They decide early on that it's too scary, too difficult, too whatever.
00:23:09.201 --> 00:23:16.061
I live by a I don't know if a motto or maybe a mantra of a sort of a growth mindset.
00:23:16.102 --> 00:23:18.612
And this is a very education sort of based thing.
00:23:18.701 --> 00:23:34.531
I think it was Carol Dweck who came up with this whole growth mindset where instead of saying, I don't know how to code, you say, I don't know how to code yet, or I don't know how to solder, or I don't know how to solder yet.
00:23:34.582 --> 00:23:35.362
But I could learn,
00:23:35.372 --> 00:23:53.047
I think you can train yourself into realizing that you as a human are completely capable of just about everything if you give yourself the permission to say, I may not know that but I'm going to learn it and I can figure it out.
00:23:53.297 --> 00:24:02.446
There are so many resources out these days, everything from Make magazine to YouTube videos, to teachers.
00:24:02.527 --> 00:24:04.446
In ham radio, it's Elmer's.
00:24:04.446 --> 00:24:14.906
I don't know if you've ever heard that term, but an Elmer is somebody who teaches you ham radio, and it's usually the guy who lives down the street with the ham radio stuff.
00:24:14.906 --> 00:24:23.307
That's like the first thing that I put into my kids brains when I teach school is this whole notion of having a growth mindset.
00:24:23.366 --> 00:24:31.747
It's learning those skills, but practicing them in a community of people that share that mindset is really special, right?
00:24:31.747 --> 00:24:42.461
It's you're not just doing this alone, or you're not just learning it because school demanded that you learn it, but you're doing something and you're doing it with other people.
00:24:42.461 --> 00:24:45.142
You it's exciting to be part of that.
00:24:47.221 --> 00:24:48.592
I do agree with that.
00:24:48.642 --> 00:24:51.251
There's definitely a human need to connect.
00:24:51.412 --> 00:25:01.001
If you have something that's interesting to you and you can connect with another person that finds that same thing interesting, magic happens.
00:25:01.102 --> 00:25:03.922
Eventually you decide to leave Kentucky Country Day.
00:25:03.942 --> 00:25:04.942
Was that around COVID?
00:25:06.301 --> 00:25:06.711
Yeah.
00:25:06.761 --> 00:25:09.291
Unfortunately I lost my wife about that time.
00:25:09.291 --> 00:25:15.201
So I moved down to Florida and and I learned how to play pickleball.
00:25:15.271 --> 00:25:16.951
I didn't know how to play pickleball yet.
00:25:19.261 --> 00:25:20.231
It's required when you
00:25:20.281 --> 00:25:21.201
pass the state line.
00:25:22.192 --> 00:25:23.261
Yeah, I think it is.
00:25:23.362 --> 00:25:24.951
I think it's a requirement.
00:25:24.961 --> 00:25:27.511
So I played pickleball for a while, but I got.
00:25:28.116 --> 00:25:28.846
I got bored.
00:25:29.057 --> 00:26:02.112
Just the same, the teaching bug, once you're a teacher, you're always a teacher and the teaching bug bit me and I took a job teaching robotics at IMG Academy and I also work very closely with the teacher who is running the makerspace there so we get to work with all the same tools, and encourage all the kids to learn new skills and everything from Tinkercad and 3D printing to laser work laser cutting and soldering.
00:26:02.271 --> 00:26:07.362
And you know that I'm going to be throwing some coding in there too, because I do believe in that.
00:26:07.541 --> 00:26:13.291
These are kids, many of them are elite athletes in a particular sport, isn't that their background?
00:26:13.352 --> 00:26:14.622
Yes, absolutely.
00:26:14.632 --> 00:26:21.872
Some of these kids are are world-class tennis players, basketball players, football players, but you know what?
00:26:21.942 --> 00:26:30.352
They are absolutely capable of soldering and learning this stuff and if I get my way, maybe I can help some of them become engineers.
00:26:32.207 --> 00:26:42.156
Or at least realize that, Hey, if my car's not working, maybe I can watch this YouTube video and figure out how to put in this new switch or sensor or something like that.
00:26:43.467 --> 00:26:48.777
That's my goal is to show them that you can figure this stuff out and it's fun.
00:26:48.977 --> 00:26:51.086
It gives you a nice warm feeling.
00:26:51.537 --> 00:26:53.480
Tell us about Coding with Mr.
00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:56.855
Wagner That's another project you started, I think, during COVID.
00:26:58.006 --> 00:27:00.655
It's CodingWithMrWagner.com, here's my little pitch.
00:27:00.655 --> 00:27:04.125
Basically, I love to teach people how to code.
00:27:04.750 --> 00:27:19.800
And I've noticed that a lot of the online coding courses out there, they're like exercise based okay, here, we're going to learn an if statement, so I want you to write five if statements and how this works.
00:27:19.800 --> 00:27:22.111
That gets really boring really quickly.
00:27:22.211 --> 00:27:31.586
What I did in my class and what I've taught in previous years is how to do classic video games, how to code those.
00:27:31.635 --> 00:27:33.665
Say for instance the game Pong.
00:27:34.615 --> 00:27:55.701
Pong has a game loop and every frame in the game loop, the ball moves just a little bit and you use keyboard events to move the paddles up and down and you use collision events to see when the ball hits the paddle and then the ball bounces back.
00:27:55.701 --> 00:27:59.070
The beauty of this is you teach the same things.
00:27:59.070 --> 00:28:07.750
You teach logic and variables and if statements and loops and functions and lists.
00:28:07.881 --> 00:28:21.347
There's only a half a dozen different things that is common to every coding language, but if you teach those individually, unfortunately, it's not very engaging as a student.
00:28:22.077 --> 00:28:32.688
But if you're building a game then you're seeing it come to life in front of your hands and by the way, I'm sneaking in, here's how to use an if statement.
00:28:33.137 --> 00:28:36.827
Or I'm sneaking in a little list or a loop or something like that.
00:28:37.347 --> 00:28:44.647
And I've had really good success with students learning this way, both in teaching school and and with Code with Mr.
00:28:44.657 --> 00:28:45.198
Wagner.
00:28:45.198 --> 00:28:48.137
I got a nice community that's really shaping up.
00:28:48.238 --> 00:29:05.268
And just the same as I had a hackerspace where people could share their ideas and things like that, I have a group online, a Facebook group online where people are showing off their little bits of code; here's my enhancement to the Pong game, or here's my enhancement to the Breakout game.
00:29:06.627 --> 00:29:09.077
It's a bit like the chicken game you created when you were young.
00:29:09.298 --> 00:29:15.347
It's, you learn this kind of template or pattern for a game, and you could easily modify it, right?
00:29:15.607 --> 00:29:24.143
You could easily begin to say, oh that's how a Pong game works, and I could do different things with it just to play within that like Sandbox,
00:29:24.192 --> 00:29:25.232
Oh, absolutely.
00:29:25.482 --> 00:29:26.432
And you'll see that.
00:29:26.482 --> 00:29:28.143
You'll see that among computer games.
00:29:28.143 --> 00:29:41.292
Let's face it like Centipede and Breakout and Space Invaders, they're all more or less the same game, they're just a variation of it.
00:29:41.343 --> 00:29:49.272
When you get up into 3D games, you get your side scroller games like Mortal Kombat or something, but there's a lot of side scroller games.
00:29:49.593 --> 00:29:52.452
Mortal Kombat is actually very similar to Mario.
00:29:53.073 --> 00:30:05.742
Then you've got your 3D games where you got Quake and Doom, which are not a whole lot different than Call of Duty and Fortnite, so you learn one, and then it's just a matter of tweaking.
00:30:06.593 --> 00:30:13.353
Once you, as a teacher, have gotten a student to understand how one works, then the world opens up for them,
00:30:13.393 --> 00:30:21.002
I keep thinking that, some of the analogies to, to making and other things with coding is a bit, like using cooking as an analogy.
00:30:21.002 --> 00:30:27.762
You learn one recipe, you modify that, you learn a class of recipes, you learn to cook pork.
00:30:27.772 --> 00:30:30.242
And then you say beef is similar, right?
00:30:30.613 --> 00:30:34.803
The techniques, it's just, you begin to learn from experience doing these things.
00:30:34.853 --> 00:30:38.393
The more curious you are, it helps you tackle these things.
00:30:38.393 --> 00:30:42.063
And, yeah, you might make mistakes along the way, but it's part of learning how to do it.
00:30:43.282 --> 00:30:43.682
Yeah.
00:30:43.762 --> 00:30:44.192
Yeah.
00:30:44.252 --> 00:30:45.873
I don't know how to cook that yet.
00:30:46.143 --> 00:30:48.742
Again, I have that growth mindset.
00:30:48.742 --> 00:30:49.722
I'm going to throw that in there.
00:30:49.772 --> 00:30:55.803
What I think is interesting say a cooking recipe or Make project instructions, they're procedures.
00:30:55.948 --> 00:30:57.788
It's how to do something in sequence.
00:30:58.228 --> 00:31:00.218
And essentially code is that, right?
00:31:00.238 --> 00:31:11.157
As and you have some other features that, that make it really interesting, but it essentially is what are the steps that I go through to solve a problem or to create a game.
00:31:12.548 --> 00:31:19.928
Another thing that I always teach my students is to break a big problem down into little problems.
00:31:19.928 --> 00:31:22.988
Like for instance, with say the Breakout game that's in Code with Mr.
00:31:22.998 --> 00:31:41.232
Wagner, we start by just getting a window on the screen, and then the next thing you know, you change the color of the screen to black, and then you get the little paddle down below, and then you get the ball, and then you get the ball bouncing, and then you put some bricks, and then you get all the bricks up.
00:31:41.232 --> 00:31:45.772
So it's it's like you're just building one step at a time until it's all done.
00:31:46.103 --> 00:31:47.262
How do you eat an elephant?
00:31:47.282 --> 00:31:48.333
One bite at a time.
00:31:48.333 --> 00:31:51.792
I was just impressed that you did this, with Coding with Mr.
00:31:51.803 --> 00:31:52.353
Wagner.
00:31:52.452 --> 00:31:56.073
In many ways, other teachers could be doing this, right?
00:31:56.393 --> 00:31:57.363
Oh, absolutely.
00:31:57.452 --> 00:31:58.202
Absolutely.
00:31:58.232 --> 00:32:06.742
As a teacher, the support is out there where you can absolutely build your own courses and sell them.
00:32:06.803 --> 00:32:09.573
I can tell you creating videos.
00:32:09.907 --> 00:32:13.407
My early videos were cringeworthy.
00:32:13.438 --> 00:32:14.827
The audio wasn't good.
00:32:14.837 --> 00:32:16.298
The lighting wasn't good.
00:32:16.778 --> 00:32:17.938
It's another skill.
00:32:17.948 --> 00:32:21.438
I view it almost like learning how to solder, learning how to code.
00:32:21.438 --> 00:32:23.278
It was like a whole other thing.
00:32:23.843 --> 00:32:25.492
That I had no idea how to do.
00:32:25.512 --> 00:32:29.573
I'd never done video editing but by gosh, I could sit down and figure it out.
00:32:29.573 --> 00:32:31.053
I could watch YouTube videos.
00:32:31.053 --> 00:32:34.522
I could, buy somebody else's course and watch how they did it.
00:32:34.962 --> 00:32:40.663
It's a small secret, but if you're willing to put the time in, you can learn it, right?
00:32:40.803 --> 00:32:45.163
You can't just skip the time and then just suddenly acquire it.
00:32:45.163 --> 00:32:46.762
It's like video editing's hard.
00:32:47.397 --> 00:32:53.708
But if you do it and do it, you'll get better at it and you'll eventually feel like you have some confidence in doing it right.
00:32:54.887 --> 00:32:55.907
Oh, absolutely.
00:32:56.018 --> 00:33:02.157
And it was one step at a time and I just sat there and I worked at it and I learned it and I enjoyed it.
00:33:02.998 --> 00:33:08.028
And now, I'm not ready to like edit the next Star Wars movie or something like that.
00:33:08.077 --> 00:33:12.567
But I can sure as heck get a video up there that looks as good as anybody else's.
00:33:12.688 --> 00:33:14.097
I got some more tricks.
00:33:14.478 --> 00:33:18.698
I can tell you the hardest thing about the Code of Mr.
00:33:18.708 --> 00:33:23.258
Wagner was learning about marketing.
00:33:23.847 --> 00:33:28.458
Marketing has always been such a foreign thing to me.
00:33:28.538 --> 00:33:43.728
So I really had to figure out how is it that, that you get people to to buy into what you're selling and to trust you and to understand what their pain points are why they might like to buy this particular product.
00:33:43.778 --> 00:33:49.917
But yet again, it's just another skill and you spend the time and you work at it and you can do it.
00:33:51.367 --> 00:33:52.867
Brian, thank you for your time today.
00:33:52.917 --> 00:33:57.577
I appreciate catching up with you and getting the full story and sharing that with other people.
00:33:57.827 --> 00:33:58.807
Thanks for what you're doing.
00:34:00.288 --> 00:34:01.117
Thank you.
00:34:01.117 --> 00:34:02.968
I really appreciate your time.
00:34:02.968 --> 00:34:09.608
I really appreciate telling my story and I just want everybody to get out there and go make something.
00:00:05.062 --> 00:00:09.292
I see coding as just being another skill.
00:00:10.333 --> 00:00:17.772
Coding is no different than being able to use the bandsaw or coding is no different than being able to use the soldering iron.
00:00:18.342 --> 00:00:20.972
It's just another skill that one can learn.
00:00:20.983 --> 00:00:30.463
Instead of saying, I don't know how to code, you say, I don't know how to code yet, or I don't know how to solder, or I don't know how to solder yet.
00:00:31.382 --> 00:00:32.463
Welcome to make cast.
00:00:32.463 --> 00:00:33.383
I'm Dale Dougherty.
00:00:33.813 --> 00:00:41.835
It's good to get back to other projects after a successful relaunch of Maker Faire Bay Area at Mare Island My guest on this episode is Brian Wagner.
00:00:42.015 --> 00:00:46.576
He is an engineer, a maker, and a teacher of making and coding.
00:00:46.935 --> 00:00:56.926
He's also one of the co-founders of the LVL hackerspace in Louisville, Kentucky, and he remains a member, even though he now lives in Florida, where he teaches at IMG Academy.
00:00:57.286 --> 00:01:05.536
During COVID one of Brian's projects was to create an online course to teach coding specifically how to learn Python to create video games.
00:01:06.046 --> 00:01:13.126
Brian has that maker mindset for learning by doing, and he tries to share his skills and his enthusiasm with students.
00:01:13.426 --> 00:01:15.915
I'm happy to share his story with you.
00:01:17.046 --> 00:01:19.406
I want to welcome Brian Wagner.
00:01:19.445 --> 00:01:21.805
Brian, it's good to see you and talk to you today.
00:01:22.183 --> 00:01:23.664
Thank you very much, Dale.
00:01:23.664 --> 00:01:25.054
It's good to be here.
00:01:25.194 --> 00:01:27.343
It's good to share my passion of making.
00:01:28.123 --> 00:01:31.974
To start off, let me just ask you, how would you describe yourself to someone else?
00:01:32.054 --> 00:01:32.813
Who are you, Brian?
00:01:32.896 --> 00:01:34.355
I have a lot of descriptions.
00:01:34.355 --> 00:01:35.506
I wear a lot of hats.
00:01:35.926 --> 00:01:52.825
I started out as an engineer, but I'm also a computer programmer, but I would say I'm mainly a teacher, teacher of tech stuff or making, tinkering, building, working with my hands.
00:01:53.656 --> 00:01:55.656
Again, I also am a programmer.
00:01:55.656 --> 00:02:04.275
I have this wide array of skills, anything from welding to coding in Java that I've built over these years.
00:02:04.305 --> 00:02:09.425
And I just love to share that with anybody who will listen, quite honestly,
00:02:10.686 --> 00:02:12.496
When did you pick them up, growing up?
00:02:12.506 --> 00:02:14.566
Did you pick up welding before you picked up coding?
00:02:14.575 --> 00:02:16.786
Did you pick up coding first and then get to welding?
00:02:18.135 --> 00:02:19.205
So there's my story.
00:02:19.295 --> 00:02:26.096
Let's see about 1979, a little bit post Star Wars when that came out, 79, 80, maybe.
00:02:26.561 --> 00:02:37.471
My dad bought a Apple II computer and brought it home and set it on a desk and encouraged me to figure it out.
00:02:37.471 --> 00:02:47.078
So myself and my best friend at the time, a fellow by the name of Jeff Gilbert, who actually works for Apple at this moment, He and I sat down.
00:02:47.087 --> 00:02:52.147
We wrote games and we typed code in at that time.
00:02:52.147 --> 00:02:53.098
There was no Internet.
00:02:53.098 --> 00:02:53.978
There was no nothing.
00:02:53.987 --> 00:02:55.707
First off, we had to learn how to type.
00:02:56.068 --> 00:03:09.487
But second off, we would get these magazines, and these magazines had listings of code for games, so we would sit there and type them in, and of course they didn't work, so we'd have to scratch our heads and figure it out.
00:03:09.978 --> 00:03:12.198
We just spent so much time doing that.
00:03:12.198 --> 00:03:16.462
Everybody else was out playing baseball are riding their BMX bikes around.
00:03:16.513 --> 00:03:22.293
We were coding on the Apple 2 and listening to MTV when when there was music on MTV.
00:03:22.712 --> 00:03:26.723
These were the early days of of new wave music and, oh, it was great.
00:03:26.752 --> 00:03:27.443
Great times.
00:03:27.443 --> 00:03:32.362
I was, I would, I would say eighth grade, ninth grade, somewhere in there.
00:03:32.473 --> 00:03:35.652
Now, my parents tell me that I've always been building stuff.
00:03:35.652 --> 00:03:41.812
So I was always working with blocks or Legos or out in the wood shop or something like that.
00:03:41.902 --> 00:03:48.103
But I would put the beginnings of my making at when I first got that first computer.
00:03:48.992 --> 00:03:49.752
And where was that?
00:03:49.763 --> 00:03:50.462
Where were you living?
00:03:51.562 --> 00:03:53.233
Houston, Texas at the time.
00:03:53.342 --> 00:03:54.543
I guess I should say this.
00:03:54.562 --> 00:04:00.733
My dad is an engineer and also a very avid ham radio buff.
00:04:00.802 --> 00:04:02.622
K5KG is his call.
00:04:02.997 --> 00:04:05.768
And he's been doing that since 1955.
00:04:05.777 --> 00:04:16.487
Just how he got bit by the ham radio bug when he was in middle school, say, I got bit by the computer bug in early high school and late middle school.
00:04:17.358 --> 00:04:21.182
You went on in college then to study engineering and computer science.
00:04:21.322 --> 00:04:22.052
Absolutely.
00:04:22.242 --> 00:04:23.023
Yeah, absolutely.
00:04:23.043 --> 00:04:24.653
Was that a decision?
00:04:24.663 --> 00:04:25.812
That's what I really want to do?
00:04:25.862 --> 00:04:28.992
I absolutely knew that I wanted to be an engineer at that point.
00:04:29.202 --> 00:04:30.903
And of course, my dad had been an engineer.
00:04:30.952 --> 00:04:35.023
So I went off to Vanderbilt to do mechanical engineering.
00:04:35.023 --> 00:04:38.872
Very quickly, I switched to electrical and computer science.
00:04:39.382 --> 00:04:40.872
It fit me a lot better.
00:04:41.273 --> 00:04:46.913
I really got the bug for doing embedded microprocessors.
00:04:48.463 --> 00:04:52.567
And this was back in let's say 86, 87.
00:04:52.927 --> 00:05:09.387
We were doing embedded microprocessors as college sophomores, juniors, working with the 6502 chip, the 65HC11, some of those chips, this was before the Parallax stamp.
00:05:09.387 --> 00:05:12.737
This was long before the Arduino.
00:05:12.737 --> 00:05:12.767
Sure.
00:05:12.767 --> 00:05:21.208
These you actually had to burn the EEPROM chips and then hook them all up and cross your fingers and hope they worked.
00:05:21.208 --> 00:05:27.398
And I remember spending just hours and hours in the engineering labs and staring at this.
00:05:27.418 --> 00:05:31.288
Of course also coding all this stuff in assembly language.
00:05:31.627 --> 00:05:34.218
We really didn't have a C compiler to do this.
00:05:34.367 --> 00:05:35.827
This was all assembly.
00:05:36.228 --> 00:05:50.353
And then that Parallax Stamp chip came out and suddenly you get Basic or the ability to do Basic on a microprocessor and connect an embedded computer to the world.
00:05:50.353 --> 00:05:51.403
It was fascinating.
00:05:51.702 --> 00:05:55.372
I had always so many different ideas of things to do.
00:05:56.002 --> 00:06:02.992
And then after, I guess that Basic Stamp ruled the world for about 10 years or so before the before the Arduino took over.
00:06:03.562 --> 00:06:09.783
Yeah, it is interesting to think about, say, in 1980 version, what tools you had to work with.
00:06:10.033 --> 00:06:13.942
And relatively speaking, how few people could use those tools, right?
00:06:15.223 --> 00:06:16.072
Oh, absolutely.
00:06:16.072 --> 00:06:24.492
Bringing that that engineering lab down into the high schools and then to the middle schools and even elementary schools with the micro-bit.
00:06:24.973 --> 00:06:29.932
It's just so much fun because children just have this natural inclination to play.
00:06:30.452 --> 00:06:40.833
And when you give them a tool that is very unique, say like a microprocessor, they take off and they have just such great ideas for what you can do with these.
00:06:40.882 --> 00:06:45.983
When you're talking about you and your friend around the Apple II, part of it is some innate curiosity like what is this about?
00:06:45.983 --> 00:06:46.773
What can it do?
00:06:47.252 --> 00:06:51.192
But part of it is also I want to do something with it, right?
00:06:51.392 --> 00:06:54.752
I want to create something of my own, right?
00:06:54.793 --> 00:06:57.492
And they come together there in an interesting way, don't you think?
00:06:58.812 --> 00:06:59.713
Oh, absolutely.
00:06:59.742 --> 00:07:04.072
That's what drives hackerspaces quite a bit is Hey, look what I've done.
00:07:04.083 --> 00:07:06.293
And then I'm going to pass that off to you.
00:07:06.723 --> 00:07:08.783
And then you try to one up me.
00:07:08.843 --> 00:07:17.952
I remember there were some other kids in my high school or in my middle school, high school, early years that were that were also trying to code games.
00:07:17.952 --> 00:07:19.603
So we would write games.
00:07:19.603 --> 00:07:26.182
I wrote this little chicken game that ran across the screen and eggs were falling and you were trying to catch them.
00:07:26.182 --> 00:07:35.177
Then I would show it to like my middle school teachers and they were like just blown away and then another kid would go-- Oh, that's great but that's like space invaders.
00:07:35.177 --> 00:07:41.872
Then they would go off and they would code something using my stuff to try to make it a little bit better.
00:07:41.942 --> 00:07:46.482
And if you go to a hacker space or makerspace, you see the same thing.
00:07:46.482 --> 00:07:53.911
Somebody codes up a LED strip and then the next thing you know, somebody has made some sort of a Halloween project.
00:07:54.012 --> 00:07:54.942
Or whatever.
00:07:55.192 --> 00:08:00.721
As we were doing this, of course, our brains are like, yeah, we're going to become like billionaires, just like everybody else.
00:08:00.791 --> 00:08:02.411
But that wasn't the focus.
00:08:02.411 --> 00:08:05.041
The focus was just tinkering and playing around.
00:08:05.101 --> 00:08:05.442
Yeah.
00:08:06.992 --> 00:08:17.716
I remember pulling a Apple two apart and figuring out that the joystick part, you could put resistors in there and it would give you a value.
00:08:17.997 --> 00:08:22.956
So then suddenly, then you can deal with potentiometers and you figure out how the joystick works.
00:08:23.387 --> 00:08:26.206
And then you've realized that you could put a thermistor in there.
00:08:26.206 --> 00:08:31.247
And next thing you're measuring temperature and it's just, it's just fascinating.
00:08:31.266 --> 00:08:35.351
Of course I did burn up one Apple II doing that.
00:08:36.081 --> 00:08:40.912
And that was not a fun thing but, they popped the chip, put a new one in and off we went.
00:08:40.932 --> 00:08:44.412
It's like the wild west of early eight-bit computing.
00:08:44.692 --> 00:08:51.402
So when you went to college and came out with an EE/ computer science degree, did you go into industry and get a job?
00:08:52.687 --> 00:08:59.636
I went into industry and ended up working at a nuclear power plant for about four years in Augusta, Georgia.
00:09:00.476 --> 00:09:02.037
I did that for about four years.
00:09:02.076 --> 00:09:03.417
My daughter was born.
00:09:03.846 --> 00:09:12.716
My wife was in medical school at the time, and we decided that the medical school was a better thing for us to be doing, so I actually quit my job.
00:09:12.716 --> 00:09:13.417
I was a Mr.
00:09:13.417 --> 00:09:22.206
Mom for five or seven years during that time, again, just at the cusp of the Internet.
00:09:23.523 --> 00:09:27.302
AOL was just coming to fruition.
00:09:27.312 --> 00:09:28.802
Everybody was trying to figure this out.
00:09:28.802 --> 00:09:36.393
At that point in time, I started doing freelance computer jobs, making websites where everything was completely hand coded.
00:09:36.842 --> 00:09:46.572
Long before CSS, long before HTML5 and any of the other buzzwords these days but a lot of fun and and really exciting.
00:09:46.913 --> 00:09:51.932
I got to know a lot of the people who were running the ISPs in Chattanooga at the time.
00:09:52.322 --> 00:09:56.442
That was a really cool tech group that I would hang out with.
00:09:56.763 --> 00:09:58.273
How did you get into teaching?
00:09:59.432 --> 00:10:00.423
So I was a Mr.
00:10:00.423 --> 00:10:07.462
Mom for a while, and I was at home a lot, and it's great to be a Mr.
00:10:07.462 --> 00:10:11.567
Mom, but the problem is you got all these other moms that are so nice to you.
00:10:12.118 --> 00:10:20.427
And you go to get coffee with them and they got their little kids and you got your little kids, but you never really feel like you're part of that group.
00:10:20.567 --> 00:10:25.628
The real question was, I need to, I want to get back into a job.
00:10:26.258 --> 00:10:31.212
I always felt like teaching was kind of where I belonged.
00:10:31.222 --> 00:10:33.692
So this was about year 2000 or so.
00:10:33.743 --> 00:10:39.633
I took classes at the local University, you know teaching classes how to be a teacher that sort of thing.
00:10:40.923 --> 00:10:47.552
Then the next thing, I landed a job teaching at Kentucky Country Day School.
00:10:48.133 --> 00:10:51.883
This was about 2002 or so.
00:10:53.092 --> 00:10:58.263
Taught math for a year and then I taught computers, of course.
00:10:58.352 --> 00:11:08.503
So I would teach Real Basic, which was the max version of Basic at that time and taught some computer science because I love computer science.
00:11:08.503 --> 00:11:12.352
I love coding and taught computer applications.
00:11:13.602 --> 00:11:22.592
So I'm curious how you've seen that evolve, like the art of teaching coding during the last 20 years, right?
00:11:23.113 --> 00:11:32.753
It has gone from really Basic or in some ways to all kinds of visual programming today, all kinds of entry level approaches.
00:11:33.052 --> 00:11:41.668
But I guess to start in one place there, I was interested, you, I think you described yourself to me once as a nerd, or self identified that way.
00:11:42.398 --> 00:11:48.488
And it's one thing to find kids who really like computers and want to learn how to program.
00:11:48.937 --> 00:11:58.038
But I would guess at a Kentucky Country Day or another school, you want to teach the kids that aren't inclined to be programmers, right?
00:11:58.248 --> 00:12:00.317
Or at least reach them and it's a bit like...
00:12:00.613 --> 00:12:13.773
Same problem with art, it's one thing to teach a group of young kids who want to be artists, but it's another thing to teach kids who struggle with the idea of doing art in any way, and you want to introduce them to it so they can appreciate it.
00:12:14.037 --> 00:12:21.206
So first off, I realize that every kid's not going to be a programmer, just like everybody's not going to be an author or something like that.
00:12:21.206 --> 00:12:25.636
I think you can teach all kids to code, but I just don't think it's their thing.
00:12:25.716 --> 00:12:27.657
I don't think it's some kid's thing.
00:12:27.826 --> 00:12:29.126
But what my goal is...
00:12:30.072 --> 00:12:46.932
in teaching computer science and teaching computer science either at the middle school level or at the high school level or whatever, is I want to introduce it in such a way that, that they one, find it fun; two, they don't find it that hard.
00:12:46.932 --> 00:12:48.621
They realize, gee, I can do this.
00:12:48.652 --> 00:12:51.011
This isn't that scary.
00:12:51.292 --> 00:12:56.052
This isn't that outside my box to be able to handle this.
00:12:56.662 --> 00:13:02.461
And three if they do latch on to it, then they have some foundation.
00:13:02.461 --> 00:13:07.481
They can go on to another class or they can go on to another thing and then go, that was fun.
00:13:07.481 --> 00:13:08.662
And I really enjoyed that.
00:13:08.672 --> 00:13:09.851
And I'm going to continue.
00:13:10.392 --> 00:13:12.022
I'm going to continue pursuing this.
00:13:12.552 --> 00:13:39.432
Personally, I feel like everybody should know at least some basics on coding because if you're in Excel or something, you can do things like, if this cell is negative, then make it red, otherwise make it black or, there's so many things in the world that with just a small little base knowledge of coding, you can absolutely do and do some really cool things.
00:13:39.897 --> 00:13:41.557
Even say with what do I want to say?
00:13:41.557 --> 00:13:54.626
Home automation, if the temperature is above 75 degrees, then I want this fan to turn on and I want the lights to dim and I want to put on some Jimmy Buffett music.
00:13:54.687 --> 00:14:03.386
In other words I do believe that every kid should be at least introduced to coding, just like every kid should be introduced to, say cooking.
00:14:03.476 --> 00:14:09.236
And sometimes they use the term computational thinking, but just as you described, it's like, how does a problem fit?
00:14:09.881 --> 00:14:11.741
Something you could solve with a computer, right?
00:14:11.751 --> 00:14:16.091
Like the temperature is at a certain degree and you want to take certain actions.
00:14:16.422 --> 00:14:27.881
So yeah, but so you were teaching for a number of years at Kentucky Country Day and somewhere along the line after that I ran into you at a Maker Faire in the Bay Area.
00:14:27.902 --> 00:14:28.471
Oh my gosh.
00:14:28.522 --> 00:14:37.542
So I must admit that was a life-changing part of my life was in in 2008.
00:14:37.591 --> 00:14:39.131
I think it was the second Maker Faire.
00:14:39.201 --> 00:14:51.662
Mark Endicott, the physics teacher at Kentucky Country Day, and I were fortunate enough to be able to fly from Kentucky to San Francisco for the Maker Faire.
00:14:52.121 --> 00:14:57.822
When we checked into the hotel, it just happened to be where everybody from Make had checked into the hotel.
00:14:57.822 --> 00:15:03.402
The next thing you know, we were hanging out and talking to our tribe of makers.
00:15:04.182 --> 00:15:05.471
We go to the Maker Faire.
00:15:06.052 --> 00:15:25.392
It's mind blowing, because there's, of course, there's all the stuff that everybody's making, but of course there's also these huge art things almost like installations, but more like mechanical contraptions that I guess a lot of the people take to Burning Man and then they show up at Maker Faire.
00:15:25.782 --> 00:15:34.001
But we met so many wonderful people including a few people from the NoiseBridge hackerspace in San Francisco.
00:15:34.912 --> 00:15:37.101
So anyway we took all these pictures.
00:15:37.101 --> 00:15:38.562
We were so excited.
00:15:38.562 --> 00:15:41.451
We come home and then it's summer.
00:15:41.672 --> 00:15:44.621
And then a little bit later, Mark and I were like let's do something.
00:15:45.042 --> 00:15:48.481
And we found at the community college, there was a welding class.
00:15:48.491 --> 00:15:50.451
So we took a welding class and that was cool.
00:15:50.461 --> 00:15:51.412
A lot of fun.
00:15:51.412 --> 00:15:56.461
We built a a skeleton hand out of metal and fun stuff like that.
00:15:59.522 --> 00:16:09.826
But we never really lost track of this whole notion of having a place to put our tools, a place to have a community workshop.
00:16:10.496 --> 00:16:19.437
So we started digging online about hacker spaces and we talked about apparently there was a German club out of Berlin
00:16:19.486 --> 00:16:20.386
Chaos Computer Club.
00:16:20.626 --> 00:16:21.167
Yeah.
00:16:21.226 --> 00:16:24.586
And they had a lot of information about how to start a hacker space.
00:16:24.687 --> 00:16:28.287
So Mark and I, we were like, okay let's try to do this.
00:16:28.336 --> 00:16:37.226
We threw out a message on the Make magazine blog and we set up a place at a bar where we could have a table and in a back room.
00:16:37.226 --> 00:16:40.606
We go there and we're like, yeah, nobody's going to show up for this.
00:16:40.606 --> 00:16:41.647
And we're like it's okay.
00:16:41.647 --> 00:16:42.966
We'll just have a beer and move on.
00:16:42.966 --> 00:16:45.836
We got a dozen people that showed up the first time.
00:16:46.616 --> 00:16:49.927
And then the next time we ran a meeting, it was the next month.
00:16:49.976 --> 00:16:52.716
We maybe had 20 and then it grew.
00:16:53.206 --> 00:17:07.096
And then we're like, our goal here is to have a place where we can have our table saw, and maybe a band saw, and tools and things like that, but we need to come up with some way to have enough money to put down rent.
00:17:07.346 --> 00:17:08.696
None of us have a lot of money.
00:17:08.747 --> 00:17:14.126
So we all started chipping in 50 bucks a month, on this grand idea, which is fantastic.
00:17:14.136 --> 00:17:18.807
It's crazy to be able to sell somebody on an idea that just doesn't exist.
00:17:18.856 --> 00:17:22.787
They got to trust you somehow, but I guess I have a trustworthy face or something.
00:17:23.977 --> 00:17:39.037
So we did that for about six months or so and during that time, we also came up with structure--bylaws and, one of the biggest things that we did with LVL1 is we decided that we're never going to do fundraising.
00:17:39.987 --> 00:17:41.876
We're never going to take out loans.
00:17:42.386 --> 00:17:45.446
Whatever the members can support, that's what we're going to do.
00:17:46.176 --> 00:17:48.926
Basically we set up a really good structure.
00:17:49.336 --> 00:17:57.547
And I'm proud to say, LVL1 is going strong and we've always run positive as far as money, and we made it through COVID without even blinking.
00:17:57.676 --> 00:18:02.116
So you found a space eventually, you had enough members to find a space.
00:18:02.126 --> 00:18:03.416
Is that the one on Broadway?
00:18:04.626 --> 00:18:05.896
That was the one on Broadway.
00:18:05.896 --> 00:18:08.477
It was really sketchy, but it was awesome.
00:18:09.817 --> 00:18:11.237
We saved up some more money.
00:18:11.287 --> 00:18:15.467
The first thing we bought was a couple of 3D printers.
00:18:16.182 --> 00:18:17.342
Good old MakerBots.
00:18:17.362 --> 00:18:28.811
We called them disappointment machines at the time because they halfway worked most of the time, and they were slow, but really it took off once we got the laser cutter.
00:18:29.031 --> 00:18:34.372
The first time we got the laser cutter, then everybody realizes that's really the cool tool to have.
00:18:34.922 --> 00:18:42.652
It is funny how the laser cutter is the workhorse of a space like that.
00:18:43.797 --> 00:18:45.936
Yeah, but I tell you what for kids.
00:18:47.092 --> 00:19:01.711
The workhorse for a makerspace for kids is the vinyl cutter, because kids will learn how to cut out a sticker to stick on their laptop or their lunch, but they don't have lunch boxes, but on their notebook or something like that.
00:19:01.761 --> 00:19:05.442
But it's wonderful because it teaches them vector art.
00:19:06.281 --> 00:19:10.961
And once they get the vector art, then that can very easily transfer over to the laser.
00:19:11.471 --> 00:19:15.882
And then once they're comfortable in two dimensions, they go to three dimensions with the 3D printer.
00:19:16.251 --> 00:19:22.402
Tell me LVL1 was the really the first makerspace in or hackerspace in Louisville.
00:19:22.892 --> 00:19:24.781
How did it grow and develop?
00:19:27.372 --> 00:19:28.281
Let's see here.
00:19:28.332 --> 00:19:30.551
Basically it was in an old building.
00:19:31.061 --> 00:19:32.912
We got all of our tools in there.
00:19:32.912 --> 00:19:34.211
That was our initial thing.
00:19:34.211 --> 00:19:50.711
We're like we need a place to put all of our tools and we need a place where we can work on this or work on that, but it very quickly stopped being about the tools and quickly became about the people.
00:19:51.791 --> 00:20:08.912
Part of our meetings, we always had a show and tell at the end of the meetings where somebody would come up and they'd say, here, look, I built this duck and then somebody else would come up and they would say that's great, but why don't we put some feet on that duck?
00:20:08.912 --> 00:20:11.902
And then the next person would be, wouldn't it be great if it had a hat?
00:20:12.582 --> 00:20:23.317
And by having those show and tell meetings, you ended up with a lot of people connecting over similar projects.
00:20:23.737 --> 00:20:29.007
Specifically I can think of one project that was huge in that early space.
00:20:29.426 --> 00:20:32.086
That was run by a fellow by the name of Dan Bowen.
00:20:32.096 --> 00:20:40.537
But basically he convinced a lot of people in LVL1 that we wanted to fly a balloon across the Atlantic Ocean.
00:20:40.846 --> 00:20:44.277
Those engineers, they just went to town designing that thing.
00:20:44.666 --> 00:20:47.856
Now, ultimately, I don't think they ever made it across the Atlantic.
00:20:47.866 --> 00:20:52.596
But they sure had a good time building and coming up with ideas.
00:20:52.596 --> 00:20:57.527
Ultimately Dan ended up going off to Google and working for Project Loon.
00:20:57.836 --> 00:20:59.777
He's out in San Francisco somewhere.
00:21:00.287 --> 00:21:01.866
But those were great times.
00:21:02.186 --> 00:21:13.176
A little bit later, we grew out of that space and ultimately, we moved to a better space for us that was across town.
00:21:13.576 --> 00:21:23.426
That was a really hard thing to do was to move everything, but we got through that and and now we definitely have our home and hopefully we'll never leave that one.
00:21:23.426 --> 00:21:26.717
But if we do then we'll just we'll pick it up and go somewhere else.
00:21:26.767 --> 00:21:28.267
How many members approximately?
00:21:28.366 --> 00:21:30.146
About 80, I think.
00:21:30.307 --> 00:21:35.896
Actually, I'm still a member, but I'm down here in Florida, so I haven't been there in a couple of years.
00:21:36.646 --> 00:21:37.936
But I keep paying dues.
00:21:37.936 --> 00:21:38.977
I don't know why that is.
00:21:39.037 --> 00:21:40.656
I have such a love for that place.
00:21:40.676 --> 00:21:42.227
Again, it's not about the tools.
00:21:42.277 --> 00:21:44.446
It's about the people that are there.
00:21:44.477 --> 00:21:52.926
And it's about that, that, that camaraderie and that enjoyment of building and enjoyment of working together.
00:21:53.076 --> 00:21:56.096
It's like a golf club, but we just don't play golf,
00:21:56.186 --> 00:21:58.176
I feel that way a lot about Maker Faire.
00:21:58.176 --> 00:22:03.166
It's just I've got to meet such great people that I wouldn't have met, if it wasn't for having that event.
00:22:03.217 --> 00:22:05.696
How would you else find these people even?
00:22:06.207 --> 00:22:08.856
To know that they live in your community.
00:22:08.866 --> 00:22:13.386
To see what they do and what they're interested in and learn from them.
00:22:13.457 --> 00:22:14.856
It's a wonderful thing.
00:22:16.446 --> 00:22:17.487
Yeah, exactly.
00:22:17.507 --> 00:22:28.997
And we're we pull those people out of their basements where they've been tinkering for 20 years and then suddenly their eyes light up and they can show off these things and it's fantastic.
00:22:29.047 --> 00:22:30.846
How do you see making and coding?
00:22:30.886 --> 00:22:33.156
Or how do you see them all fitting together?
00:22:33.277 --> 00:22:37.176
You're a person that does both--the tinkering and the making and the coding.
00:22:37.457 --> 00:22:41.686
I see coding as just being another skill.
00:22:43.576 --> 00:22:51.017
Coding is no different than being able to use the bandsaw or coding is no different than being able to use the soldering iron.
00:22:51.586 --> 00:22:54.217
It's just another skill that one can learn.
00:22:54.227 --> 00:22:54.247
Yeah.
00:22:56.142 --> 00:23:02.741
I think people are initially turned off from coding for the same reason they get turned off from math.
00:23:03.261 --> 00:23:08.571
They decide early on that it's too scary, too difficult, too whatever.
00:23:09.201 --> 00:23:16.061
I live by a I don't know if a motto or maybe a mantra of a sort of a growth mindset.
00:23:16.102 --> 00:23:18.612
And this is a very education sort of based thing.
00:23:18.701 --> 00:23:34.531
I think it was Carol Dweck who came up with this whole growth mindset where instead of saying, I don't know how to code, you say, I don't know how to code yet, or I don't know how to solder, or I don't know how to solder yet.
00:23:34.582 --> 00:23:35.362
But I could learn,
00:23:35.372 --> 00:23:53.047
I think you can train yourself into realizing that you as a human are completely capable of just about everything if you give yourself the permission to say, I may not know that but I'm going to learn it and I can figure it out.
00:23:53.297 --> 00:24:02.446
There are so many resources out these days, everything from Make magazine to YouTube videos, to teachers.
00:24:02.527 --> 00:24:04.446
In ham radio, it's Elmer's.
00:24:04.446 --> 00:24:14.906
I don't know if you've ever heard that term, but an Elmer is somebody who teaches you ham radio, and it's usually the guy who lives down the street with the ham radio stuff.
00:24:14.906 --> 00:24:23.307
That's like the first thing that I put into my kids brains when I teach school is this whole notion of having a growth mindset.
00:24:23.366 --> 00:24:31.747
It's learning those skills, but practicing them in a community of people that share that mindset is really special, right?
00:24:31.747 --> 00:24:42.461
It's you're not just doing this alone, or you're not just learning it because school demanded that you learn it, but you're doing something and you're doing it with other people.
00:24:42.461 --> 00:24:45.142
You it's exciting to be part of that.
00:24:47.221 --> 00:24:48.592
I do agree with that.
00:24:48.642 --> 00:24:51.251
There's definitely a human need to connect.
00:24:51.412 --> 00:25:01.001
If you have something that's interesting to you and you can connect with another person that finds that same thing interesting, magic happens.
00:25:01.102 --> 00:25:03.922
Eventually you decide to leave Kentucky Country Day.
00:25:03.942 --> 00:25:04.942
Was that around COVID?
00:25:06.301 --> 00:25:06.711
Yeah.
00:25:06.761 --> 00:25:09.291
Unfortunately I lost my wife about that time.
00:25:09.291 --> 00:25:15.201
So I moved down to Florida and and I learned how to play pickleball.
00:25:15.271 --> 00:25:16.951
I didn't know how to play pickleball yet.
00:25:19.261 --> 00:25:20.231
It's required when you
00:25:20.281 --> 00:25:21.201
pass the state line.
00:25:22.192 --> 00:25:23.261
Yeah, I think it is.
00:25:23.362 --> 00:25:24.951
I think it's a requirement.
00:25:24.961 --> 00:25:27.511
So I played pickleball for a while, but I got.
00:25:28.116 --> 00:25:28.846
I got bored.
00:25:29.057 --> 00:26:02.112
Just the same, the teaching bug, once you're a teacher, you're always a teacher and the teaching bug bit me and I took a job teaching robotics at IMG Academy and I also work very closely with the teacher who is running the makerspace there so we get to work with all the same tools, and encourage all the kids to learn new skills and everything from Tinkercad and 3D printing to laser work laser cutting and soldering.
00:26:02.271 --> 00:26:07.362
And you know that I'm going to be throwing some coding in there too, because I do believe in that.
00:26:07.541 --> 00:26:13.291
These are kids, many of them are elite athletes in a particular sport, isn't that their background?
00:26:13.352 --> 00:26:14.622
Yes, absolutely.
00:26:14.632 --> 00:26:21.872
Some of these kids are are world-class tennis players, basketball players, football players, but you know what?
00:26:21.942 --> 00:26:30.352
They are absolutely capable of soldering and learning this stuff and if I get my way, maybe I can help some of them become engineers.
00:26:32.207 --> 00:26:42.156
Or at least realize that, Hey, if my car's not working, maybe I can watch this YouTube video and figure out how to put in this new switch or sensor or something like that.
00:26:43.467 --> 00:26:48.777
That's my goal is to show them that you can figure this stuff out and it's fun.
00:26:48.977 --> 00:26:51.086
It gives you a nice warm feeling.
00:26:51.537 --> 00:26:53.480
Tell us about Coding with Mr.
00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:56.855
Wagner That's another project you started, I think, during COVID.
00:26:58.006 --> 00:27:00.655
It's CodingWithMrWagner.com, here's my little pitch.
00:27:00.655 --> 00:27:04.125
Basically, I love to teach people how to code.
00:27:04.750 --> 00:27:19.800
And I've noticed that a lot of the online coding courses out there, they're like exercise based okay, here, we're going to learn an if statement, so I want you to write five if statements and how this works.
00:27:19.800 --> 00:27:22.111
That gets really boring really quickly.
00:27:22.211 --> 00:27:31.586
What I did in my class and what I've taught in previous years is how to do classic video games, how to code those.
00:27:31.635 --> 00:27:33.665
Say for instance the game Pong.
00:27:34.615 --> 00:27:55.701
Pong has a game loop and every frame in the game loop, the ball moves just a little bit and you use keyboard events to move the paddles up and down and you use collision events to see when the ball hits the paddle and then the ball bounces back.
00:27:55.701 --> 00:27:59.070
The beauty of this is you teach the same things.
00:27:59.070 --> 00:28:07.750
You teach logic and variables and if statements and loops and functions and lists.
00:28:07.881 --> 00:28:21.347
There's only a half a dozen different things that is common to every coding language, but if you teach those individually, unfortunately, it's not very engaging as a student.
00:28:22.077 --> 00:28:32.688
But if you're building a game then you're seeing it come to life in front of your hands and by the way, I'm sneaking in, here's how to use an if statement.
00:28:33.137 --> 00:28:36.827
Or I'm sneaking in a little list or a loop or something like that.
00:28:37.347 --> 00:28:44.647
And I've had really good success with students learning this way, both in teaching school and and with Code with Mr.
00:28:44.657 --> 00:28:45.198
Wagner.
00:28:45.198 --> 00:28:48.137
I got a nice community that's really shaping up.
00:28:48.238 --> 00:29:05.268
And just the same as I had a hackerspace where people could share their ideas and things like that, I have a group online, a Facebook group online where people are showing off their little bits of code; here's my enhancement to the Pong game, or here's my enhancement to the Breakout game.
00:29:06.627 --> 00:29:09.077
It's a bit like the chicken game you created when you were young.
00:29:09.298 --> 00:29:15.347
It's, you learn this kind of template or pattern for a game, and you could easily modify it, right?
00:29:15.607 --> 00:29:24.143
You could easily begin to say, oh that's how a Pong game works, and I could do different things with it just to play within that like Sandbox,
00:29:24.192 --> 00:29:25.232
Oh, absolutely.
00:29:25.482 --> 00:29:26.432
And you'll see that.
00:29:26.482 --> 00:29:28.143
You'll see that among computer games.
00:29:28.143 --> 00:29:41.292
Let's face it like Centipede and Breakout and Space Invaders, they're all more or less the same game, they're just a variation of it.
00:29:41.343 --> 00:29:49.272
When you get up into 3D games, you get your side scroller games like Mortal Kombat or something, but there's a lot of side scroller games.
00:29:49.593 --> 00:29:52.452
Mortal Kombat is actually very similar to Mario.
00:29:53.073 --> 00:30:05.742
Then you've got your 3D games where you got Quake and Doom, which are not a whole lot different than Call of Duty and Fortnite, so you learn one, and then it's just a matter of tweaking.
00:30:06.593 --> 00:30:13.353
Once you, as a teacher, have gotten a student to understand how one works, then the world opens up for them,
00:30:13.393 --> 00:30:21.002
I keep thinking that, some of the analogies to, to making and other things with coding is a bit, like using cooking as an analogy.
00:30:21.002 --> 00:30:27.762
You learn one recipe, you modify that, you learn a class of recipes, you learn to cook pork.
00:30:27.772 --> 00:30:30.242
And then you say beef is similar, right?
00:30:30.613 --> 00:30:34.803
The techniques, it's just, you begin to learn from experience doing these things.
00:30:34.853 --> 00:30:38.393
The more curious you are, it helps you tackle these things.
00:30:38.393 --> 00:30:42.063
And, yeah, you might make mistakes along the way, but it's part of learning how to do it.
00:30:43.282 --> 00:30:43.682
Yeah.
00:30:43.762 --> 00:30:44.192
Yeah.
00:30:44.252 --> 00:30:45.873
I don't know how to cook that yet.
00:30:46.143 --> 00:30:48.742
Again, I have that growth mindset.
00:30:48.742 --> 00:30:49.722
I'm going to throw that in there.
00:30:49.772 --> 00:30:55.803
What I think is interesting say a cooking recipe or Make project instructions, they're procedures.
00:30:55.948 --> 00:30:57.788
It's how to do something in sequence.
00:30:58.228 --> 00:31:00.218
And essentially code is that, right?
00:31:00.238 --> 00:31:11.157
As and you have some other features that, that make it really interesting, but it essentially is what are the steps that I go through to solve a problem or to create a game.
00:31:12.548 --> 00:31:19.928
Another thing that I always teach my students is to break a big problem down into little problems.
00:31:19.928 --> 00:31:22.988
Like for instance, with say the Breakout game that's in Code with Mr.
00:31:22.998 --> 00:31:41.232
Wagner, we start by just getting a window on the screen, and then the next thing you know, you change the color of the screen to black, and then you get the little paddle down below, and then you get the ball, and then you get the ball bouncing, and then you put some bricks, and then you get all the bricks up.
00:31:41.232 --> 00:31:45.772
So it's it's like you're just building one step at a time until it's all done.
00:31:46.103 --> 00:31:47.262
How do you eat an elephant?
00:31:47.282 --> 00:31:48.333
One bite at a time.
00:31:48.333 --> 00:31:51.792
I was just impressed that you did this, with Coding with Mr.
00:31:51.803 --> 00:31:52.353
Wagner.
00:31:52.452 --> 00:31:56.073
In many ways, other teachers could be doing this, right?
00:31:56.393 --> 00:31:57.363
Oh, absolutely.
00:31:57.452 --> 00:31:58.202
Absolutely.
00:31:58.232 --> 00:32:06.742
As a teacher, the support is out there where you can absolutely build your own courses and sell them.
00:32:06.803 --> 00:32:09.573
I can tell you creating videos.
00:32:09.907 --> 00:32:13.407
My early videos were cringeworthy.
00:32:13.438 --> 00:32:14.827
The audio wasn't good.
00:32:14.837 --> 00:32:16.298
The lighting wasn't good.
00:32:16.778 --> 00:32:17.938
It's another skill.
00:32:17.948 --> 00:32:21.438
I view it almost like learning how to solder, learning how to code.
00:32:21.438 --> 00:32:23.278
It was like a whole other thing.
00:32:23.843 --> 00:32:25.492
That I had no idea how to do.
00:32:25.512 --> 00:32:29.573
I'd never done video editing but by gosh, I could sit down and figure it out.
00:32:29.573 --> 00:32:31.053
I could watch YouTube videos.
00:32:31.053 --> 00:32:34.522
I could, buy somebody else's course and watch how they did it.
00:32:34.962 --> 00:32:40.663
It's a small secret, but if you're willing to put the time in, you can learn it, right?
00:32:40.803 --> 00:32:45.163
You can't just skip the time and then just suddenly acquire it.
00:32:45.163 --> 00:32:46.762
It's like video editing's hard.
00:32:47.397 --> 00:32:53.708
But if you do it and do it, you'll get better at it and you'll eventually feel like you have some confidence in doing it right.
00:32:54.887 --> 00:32:55.907
Oh, absolutely.
00:32:56.018 --> 00:33:02.157
And it was one step at a time and I just sat there and I worked at it and I learned it and I enjoyed it.
00:33:02.998 --> 00:33:08.028
And now, I'm not ready to like edit the next Star Wars movie or something like that.
00:33:08.077 --> 00:33:12.567
But I can sure as heck get a video up there that looks as good as anybody else's.
00:33:12.688 --> 00:33:14.097
I got some more tricks.
00:33:14.478 --> 00:33:18.698
I can tell you the hardest thing about the Code of Mr.
00:33:18.708 --> 00:33:23.258
Wagner was learning about marketing.
00:33:23.847 --> 00:33:28.458
Marketing has always been such a foreign thing to me.
00:33:28.538 --> 00:33:43.728
So I really had to figure out how is it that, that you get people to to buy into what you're selling and to trust you and to understand what their pain points are why they might like to buy this particular product.
00:33:43.778 --> 00:33:49.917
But yet again, it's just another skill and you spend the time and you work at it and you can do it.
00:33:51.367 --> 00:33:52.867
Brian, thank you for your time today.
00:33:52.917 --> 00:33:57.577
I appreciate catching up with you and getting the full story and sharing that with other people.
00:33:57.827 --> 00:33:58.807
Thanks for what you're doing.
00:34:00.288 --> 00:34:01.117
Thank you.
00:34:01.117 --> 00:34:02.968
I really appreciate your time.
00:34:02.968 --> 00:34:09.608
I really appreciate telling my story and I just want everybody to get out there and go make something.
