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A podcast for homeschool families brought to you by Sequoia Grove Charter Alliance. Encouragement, tips & tricks, interviews with HSTs and curriculum help.
Rebecca: Welcome to the Sequoia Breeze podcast, a breath of fresh air for your homeschool. I am your host, Rebecca LaSavio. Thank you for being here today, listeners. Thank you for joining us. Today we are talking with Josh Manley, who is local to the Sacramento area, has an online class, and he's going to explain to us more about what that means as we talk about innovation at home. Some really cool ideas that all students can be taking advantage of. But homeschoolers have kind of a special opportunity to spend extra time on and maybe do some special problem solving in some of the projects that they'd like to do at home. So first I'm going to say, welcome, Josh, and please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Josh: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Rebecca. So I am, as you said, I'm Josh Manley. I run cadclass.org comma, which is an online platform dedicated to teaching 3d printing, 3d modeling. And really, like you alluded to in the intro there, it's about innovation. So how can we help kids, adults, and people all over the world build products and innovate on their ideas, maybe solve problems they have at home?
Rebecca: How did Cad class come to be? How did it get started?
Josh: Oh, that's a winding question, and I think it's probably easiest to start. So about ten years ago, ten years ago, I was running a workshop in Southern California called Urban Workshop. I was the education director, and that was a place where we could teach 3d printing, 3d modeling, as well as woodworking, metalworking, electronics, soldering, all of those skills that were lost in schools for a long time and now seem to be making a comeback. So I was in charge of running programs there. And one of the things that I realized is that all kids, all people, at some point in their making journey, if you do decide to make things, need a way to model those things up either before they make them or to show them off to other people, or it seemed like one of those skills that they would all eventually get to in their learning careers. And so I kind of had this idea in the back of my head, maybe it's best to do that online, since these in person classes could take quite a while. And so about a couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to move up to Sacramento from Southern California. And when I did that, I said, you know, I've had this idea in my head that teaching 3d modeling and 3d printing online is really a viable thing. Why don't I just go ahead and dive in and give it a try? And we're off to the races since there and partnering with homeschools and charter schools and kind of going.
Rebecca: So I want to ask you to back up for just a minute because I imagine that there are some parents listening right now who, like me, have only been hearing this term sort of makers making, that's being used in a, a different way than its traditional definition. I think I've started to get a handle on it, but really, I've maybe a year into sort of hearing about that. Can you tell us just a little bit what you're talking about so we understand where we're going with why 3d printing is becoming a bigger deal and why it's worth student learning?
Josh: Yeah, definitely. It's funny that you say that, because the term maker, even inside of the community that kind of started it, is a little bit controversial, because exactly to your point, it's like, well, what does that mean? And I think if you zoom out what it really means, when I hear the term maker, I think, well, everybody's a maker. Everybody makes something. Woodworking, cooking, sewing. We've all maybe legos. We've all made something. So I think what really happens is that the term maker has come to encompass the next generation of what shop class used to be. So I would say shop class used to be the spot that you would go and you would learn those. Maybe woodworking, maybe metalworking, maybe auto work, something like that. That fell out of favor in schools. It lost funding. They ended up pulling that out. And I think for probably 20 years or so, there wasn't really anything to fill its place. And so that vacuum eventually got filled by this term maker. And then what I would say is actually a larger maker movement. So folks all over the world building small studios, building little innovation hubs, schools, kind of getting back into this. So the term, it's hard for me to even describe it, but what I would say is maker is the new term to describe the development of hands on, practical, do it based learning experiences.
Rebecca: So a little bit of building, a little bit of inventing, a little bit of taking, maybe something that exists and getting more creative with it.
Josh: Exactly. Could be wood, could be metal, could still, it still encompasses those original ideas. So makerspaces. So what a make, maybe some, like what a makerspace is, would also help this idea. So a maker space is essentially like a gym. Well, a public maker space. It's essentially like a gym, where if you were to get time at a gym, you would rent a membership, or you'd have a membership, and then you could go in and use that gym as much as you'd like. So at a makerspace, you would do the same thing except for instead of gym equipment, it would be making equipment. So things you may not have access to at home. So that's kind of like where a lot of this idea stemmed from was these early spaces, these early innovation hubs that started to say, well, we don't really have access as a society of these tools anymore. What if we had a common space where people could come and use them? And out of that was born this idea of makers. And I think what makers has now come to encompass is anybody working, even. It could even be somewhat with a computer. Right? Because a lot of these electronics that you use, a lot of these kind of maker things that people do, are more than just physical, hands on stuff that involve only a physical medium. They can also involve communication back and forth with your computer and a whole handful of other things like that. So does that make sense?
Rebecca: Yeah, and it's interesting. I don't know if this makes sense to anybody else, but when you talk about makerspace, I see a lot of colors, like a lot of different kinds of materials and things being used. But when then you say wood shop, and I immediately see just wood tones. And I feel like it's, it's metal shop or wood shop in color of just maybe using different plastic pieces. Or we're talking about the 3d printing today. And it seems like you take kind of an, the more traditional, old fashioned, like, metal working woodworking and add a lot of other materials and other tools and add technology to that in a way that couldn't have been 20 or 30 years ago. Does that.
Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's a really nice way to put it. It's funny that you mentioned the, like, kind of drab colors and what you imagine, like, when you think of it, I think what a lot of us think of a wood shop, we think of our grandfathers, and we think of the, the basements that they had with wood that looked like it had been there for 100 years, and sawdust that's maybe built up on things. And there was an aura about it. And you're absolutely right. So this term, because makers, I think, encompass something much larger than just wood shop, for example, or metal shop, for example, that bringing out of color, I think, is something that attracts more people, more audiences, boys, girls, doesn't really matter. There's kind of something for everybody there. And I think that color plays a huge, huge role in it. And so even inside of the wood shops, you find that a lot of these wood shops are now doing the same thing where they're almost trying to rebrand, in a sense, to say, you know, this doesn't have to be something that only your grandfather did. It could be something that you do as well.
Rebecca: So explain the role that 3d printing has in all of this. Like, why is that? Why is 3d printing worth learning for our kids?
Josh: Totally. Yeah, I think what? So first off, if you haven't seen a 3d printer in action, I think the first step to any of this is just go see. Go watch one. Because what happens, this funny thing happens when you see a 3d printer working. It's. I like, and I'm sure a lot of parents on this podcast can relate. I like experiencing the magic of things. And when something feels like it has a bit of magic, it's always more enticing. Right. 3d printing, when you see one of these things working, it has this magic element where you go, how can that be? How does that. What am I actually looking at right now? And I've seen this over and over and over again when I work with kids. They just stare at it. They just stare. They walk up and they look at this thing and they go, what is this robot doing? And how, like, how do I do it? And it. So there's, that's kind of the awe of it. That's not necessarily what it is and why it's important. But I think from a learning perspective, I've always taken the approach that if you can get somebody excited about something, it's much easier than to dive in deeply to the details. If you go deep enough on any subject, it ends up becoming every other subject. It ends up becoming math. It ends up becoming science. It ends up becoming reading. It ends up becoming writing. There's a lot of depth to it. For starters, I would say 3d printing has that magic, especially when you get to see it in person. Now, how we came to it is my business partner, Jake, who is still down in southern California. I'm up here in the Sacramento region. My business partner, Jake and I experienced that magic, and we also experienced the difficulty of trying to help students learn computer aided design. So computer aided design is basically like anything designed on a computer screen could be considered computer aided design. So if you're working in canva or Photoshop or illustrator or any of these, that's computer aided design. But the sort of computer aided design that I'm talking about is specifically around how to design something that can actually be made in the real world. So where this story gets interesting is we tried to teach computer aided design to students without introducing them to the tools that they could actually bring their ideas to life with. And we really struggled to get them interested in the topic. And then one day we looked at each other and we said, well, I wonder what would happen if we put a 3d printer down in this room? And we had it making something when the students walked in. And then we said, hey, by the way, whatever you design on your computer screen today, we're going to print on that machine just like that thing that you're making right there. And we had this transformative experience where we could not pull the kids out of the classroom, and that was kind of the light bulb for us. We were like, oh, okay. So 3d printing is interesting, for sure, and it has that magic that I talked about a second ago. But what's even more interesting is that it gets students to want to learn those deeper technical skills, because now they have a utility for actually learning them. They can make the thing in their head tangible. They can make their ideas a reality. And every kid on the planet, I mean, every adult on the planet, I would hope as well, but every kid on the planet has ideas about things that they want to make. They've got these big creative visions of things. So it was just this togetherness of these two technologies that we said, I think there's something here. I think there's something. I think this might be a way for us to teach really technical, somewhat challenging skills. I'm not suggesting any of this is easy to learn, but in a way that excites kids enough to get over that technological hump, to actually get to know this technology, which when you learn it thoroughly, it means you've learned about machining. It means you've learned about material science. It means you've learned about geometry. It means you've learned about dimensions, which might be numbers and math and all these kinds of things. And that, I think that togetherness was what really excited us.
Rebecca: So it takes all those different aspects and gives them a purpose, not just an assignment on a piece of paper.
Josh: Bingo. And that, by the way, that's a beautiful way to put it, because that's what I would say is so inspirational about the maker movement and about inspiring. Like, kids already want to make things, so why don't we just enable them to do more of that? Right? And so this is kind of the idea behind the maker movement is less teaching, more doing. And I remember my days in the classroom were spent, especially when I was training other instructors. I would say, look, we have one met? Basically two metrics for success. If the students leave happy, we win. And if their hands are on tools, basically the entire time, in other words, if they're doing stuff in this classroom, physical stuff with their hands, it's a win. And if they leave excited to come back and do more of it, it's a win. And that's, I think that's what really is exciting about 3d printing. That's what's really excited about CAD, and that's what's really exciting about the maker movement as a whole.
Rebecca: So I want to, I just put a couple puzzle pieces together that I'm going to point out. So, CAD, computer aided design.
Josh: Yes. Yes. I am using words I realize people may not know. I apologize for that.
Rebecca: I've gotten. I've. I have heard the term cad enough to just sort of know it. It means drawing things on the computer, but I don't know very much about it, and I'm going to just air my ignorance for everybody. So. But as you said, I'm like, oh, that's what that stands for. So, computer aided design class. So helping kids take their ideas, put them into the computer, ideas that maybe can't easily be made with anything else, put them under the computer and then print them out to see one just for fun. But also eventually, can this thing I'm imagining actually be made, or how can I explain it to you? That's your, your bigger goal, correct?
Josh: Absolutely. Yeah. So, so when you've designed, when. Right. Have you. This is, this is the way I like to introduce it to a lot of folks. So have you ever tried to describe a three dimensional idea to somebody using words? That's my question to you.
Rebecca: Oh, gosh, probably. Yes, yes, I've tried. My husband and I are designing our garden.
Josh: And what is the experience like when you go, oh, no, no, no. I want. Right, you're trying to describe something that you want that's a three dimensional object to somebody else.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Josh: What is that experience?
Rebecca: It's really frustrating. Well, it's frustrating because, like, there's this picture in my head and you don't see it. Why don't you see it?
Josh: Bingo. That's what designing on computers allows you to do. And again, when I'm saying CAD from the classes that we teach, I'm referring to CAD that deals specifically with products. Now, there's a lot of different types of CAD, and this is where it gets confusing. Right when I said Photoshop and illustrator, those are design programs, and those are also a type of computer aided design but it's not what we're referring to when we're talking about this. So, I mean, for all the people that are listening to this as well, that might be a little bit confused. It is a confusing subject. And I gotta be honest, I've been in it for a while and I still, I still sometimes think about philosophically, like, what do we, what do we mean when we say computer aided design? And how far does that stretch? So it's not just you.
Rebecca: Can you give us a good practical story of maybe a student who's learned to do this and been able to solve a problem or create something new so that we can really wrap our heads around the application of this?
Josh: Absolutely. Yeah. So we had gone to the Northern California homeschool convention last year and kind of advertised some of our services and that's actually how we got connected with your charter as well as a bunch of other charter schools here. And so we ended up putting our class in some of the catalogs. And one student, his name's Warren, eleven year old student, begged his parents to take our class. That's the class I want to take. He got to borrow a 3d printer from his school. And when you have a 3d printer but you don't know how to make your own models, at some point you discover through YouTube or talking to other people, oh, the skill that I really need is I need to be able to make my own model. So I need to learn computer aided design. So anyways, Warren scans the catalog, finds our class, begs his parents to take it and signs up, ends up showing up, works through our curriculum. His parents, at some point during our program, he's a maker, he's a tinkerer, he loves working with these kinds of things. His parents, at some point during our program, buy him a dirt bike. And they say, if you can get this dirt bike working, I think, I think they paid like $50 for it. They said if you can get this dirt bike working, it's yours, you get to keep it. He was so excited by that. So he gets busy, he does his research, he figures out, okay, the, I don't know how he figured this out. I need to, I need to go back and ask him more questions. But he figures out the carburetor's busted, orders a new carburetor, installs it. And the carburetor is where the air and the gas mix. So installs it on the dirt bike and the gas is leaking out of the carburetor. He's like, oh shoot, I must have messed something up. He takes the carburetor off, realizes he forgets to put a gasket on, gets the gasket, puts it between these two metal pieces, installs it back in the dirt bike. And his dirt bike starts up. So now he's like super excited. He's like, I've got this dollar 50 dirt bike my parents gave me. They told me if I could get it working, it was mine. And I just got it started. This is really exciting. So when he starts to look around his dirt bike and he realizes a bunch of the electrical panels are missing. So because he had been taking some, some of our classes, and because he had a 3d printer sitting next to him at home, he was like, I think I can just make my own new covers for these plastic cases that have the electrical components inside. I think I can just make a new cover. And if I get the sizing right, it will probably just fit on top. So he models up in cad a design for a cover that will fit on top of his. His dirt. His existing dirt bike part. Prints it out on his 3d printer sitting next to him. Next day, he goes out and it. It's a perfect fit. He pops it on, it sits perfectly on top of his electric panel. And he solves this problem with his dirt bike that he's got all these exposed wires with this little plastic part that maybe cost him twenty five cents and an hour or two to design. So now he's got, not only does he have a working dirt bike, but he's continued to develop and build little parts and little missing pieces and little hard to find doodads on his dirt bike. He just continues to make them to this day. And like I said at the beginning of this, he's eleven. And I think the hard thing to realize about this is like, this is an eleven year old solving real engineering problems. Not pretend we're not going to go to engineering class and like pretend that this is something that we're going to do, but a real engineering problem that, frankly, most adults I don't think would know how to solve. So I just found that story extremely exciting. And Warren is one among many students who have similar stories.
Rebecca: I don't imagine myself ever learning to do these kinds of things, but my kids, that whole thing about like, they're of the generation that they're going to speak this language that's always going to be a foreign language to me. And so that eleven year old boy can do this because this is part of what's like, this is life now. And I'm never going to be a part of that. These kids can learn this. And so I have to remember that just because it feels completely outside of something I could or maybe even want to do, that's not true for my kids. This generation, our students today, are going to speak the language of a lot of this kind of innovation in a way that a lot of us won't. And the idea that they can just solve these problems in this way. The problem solving aspect is really attractive to me because I'm not interested in just more computers for computer sake. I'm not interested personally in, let's create more plastic stuff that I'm gonna have to tell you to pick up around the house. Yes, but you're talking about not just creating a new toy, a new doodad, a new thing. You're talking about learning and creating useful, potentially problem solving things big time.
Josh: And, you know, a lot of times it's like a couple. I have so many thoughts with that, like, absolutely. Well put. It's not always useful stuff. Right. You can make artistic objects and you can make. You can make quite. I won't say anything you want. I think there is this misconception that a 3d printer can make anything. It can't make anything, but it can make a whole lot of interesting stuff. And so, yeah, I think it's, it's this. It's. That's so beautifully put. It's. It's a way. It's another way to think about solving possible problems in your life. And maybe some of those problems are. I'm missing a board game piece, or I've got a two dimensional piece of art. That one hit home. It did. The dog.
Rebecca: The dog chewed it up.
Josh: There we go.
Rebecca: Lost it.
Josh: There we go.
Rebecca: Buy a new game.
Josh: You don't have to buy a new game. Yeah, you don't have to. You could make a replacement part, and as a matter of fact, you could probably find somebody who's already designed a replacement part that you could just take the design and make. Right. So a lot of this isn't like, I have to go and design everything myself from scratch. Now, I also want to preface this by saying, I'm not suggesting these are easy skills to learn, you know, because it's an engineering skill. They're not hard to learn, but it does take some time and it takes some patience. And I think there's a couple things, like when you. When you're asking yourself, should I. Is this the sort of thing that I should invest in? You should probably ask yourself some questions about the style of student or learner you may have. And now, if you're, if the person that you're working with is likely to give up easily on things and gets easily frustrated when there's a troubleshooting task at hand and, you know, isn't that's not really their mo, then I, then it may not be for you. But if your student is excited, here's a couple litmus tests. If you make Legos and enjoy that process of going through those instructions, that's a good indicator. If you like Mark Rober or Adam Savage, Mythbusters, any of these programs, there's stuff on blacksmithing now as well, like forged in fire, really, if you just ask yourself, your student or your kid or whoever it is that you're working with, are these the kinds of things that you enjoy watching on YouTube? Are these the kind like, if you had the option to do anything, what would you do? They'll basically give you clues. And if the answer is I like Legos, I love Mark Grober. I love the little inventions he makes, then it's a good indicator that this is probably something your kid would like.
Rebecca: Talk about the more grown up applications of 3d printing. How is this being used in bigger applications than fixing your dirt bike in the backyard?
Josh: Oh, man, that's such, such a good question. So it's being used in basically every industry. And I'll start with a couple big examples. So there's a metal, there's a very large metal, actually, the largest 3d printer, the largest metal 3d printer in the world is here in California. And they're 3d printing rocket bodies. They've essentially taken a robot arm and attached it to a welding head. And don't worry if this doesn't make any sense to you, I'm going to try to paint a picture anyway. And they take metal and they, by working the robot arm in circles, they layer that metal down layer by layer, and they build an entire rocket body. And they just launched one of these rocket bodies into space. So that's kind of like high level like. This stuff is being used in every R and D facility that I know. It's used in dental offices. Nearly every dental office now has a 3d printer because they can take models of your teeth almost instantly. They can 3d print retainers. They can do all kinds of stuff like that. It's used in science facilities, it's used in design labs, architecture firms. I just went, not too long ago, I visited a school, an architecture school that had probably, I don't know, five or 603 D printers just lined up. Every student got access to a 3d printer next to their computer in this architecture program. And honestly, I could probably sit here for another 25 minutes just listing off all of the industries that are actually using this. So the applications, I think we're just starting to scratch the surface, honestly. It's a tool that allows you to rapidly prototype products. It's not always the best for end use products, but it is very, very good for getting an original idea off the ground. And sometimes it is for end use products like that rocket body that I mentioned that is being 3D printed in one part here in California, and then they launch it into space. So it's a handful of industries, it's a ton of different industries. And I think kind of like you're framing earlier. I think the way to look at it is what you're really teaching is you're teaching problem solving. And so if you extrapolate that, not just as the 3d printing interesting as an end use application or as a prototyping application, but it's also interesting from a problem solving perspective, is are we teaching our youth, are we teaching our kids how to really solve their own problems and bring these, these new solutions to life? And that, to me, is the most important thing. It is applicable in every industry for that reason.
Rebecca: What is the advantage that homeschoolers have with learning this skill?
Josh: So I think, I've thought a lot about, I think actually homeschoolers have a unique advantage in this respect. So a lot of times what happens in public schools is even if 3d printing is introduced, there's maybe one or two machines. A lot of times those machines aren't working correctly. It's almost tragedy of the commons. But even when they are, you might have a class of 30 kids, 35 kids who have very, very limited access to these machines. And so what happens is a couple of people in that room get a couple of hours on that machine over the course of an entire year, and that's about all the exposure that you have. What's super interesting about homeschooling is for the students that are interested in this stuff, they can actually go from idea to prototype on their computer screen to physically made object next to them over and over and over and over again. And in a lot of ways, I think they have a massive advantage because you have the tool next to you, you have the know how sitting in front of you. You can anytime inspiration hits, bring your idea to life. That means you could get 100 times, 200 times, like just an insane amount of practice doing these kinds of things. And I'll give you a couple of examples of people who I know who were homeschooled, who now work in pretty creative and interesting jobs and have benefited from that kind of thinking. One is a guy, he's 22, and he runs an R and D facility here in Sacramento doing carbon fiber prototyping work. And he uses a lot of computer controlled machines, which a 3d printer is one style of computer controlled machines, to do the entire processing. And he had the benefit of having a 3d printer at home next to him that he could experiment with all the time. And then another one is a lady that works at Mozak who was also homeschooled. She also had exposure to 3d printers at home. And now she's running all of the programs for teaching kids how to make things. So she's in charge of building out all the programs with that. And I think a large part of that is because both of them grew up with access to the tool with an immediate use for it. And the sky was the limit. If they wanted to create things all day, every day, they had that opportunity to do it. So I think for homeschoolers, when you get your kid excited about something, you have a real opportunity to give them basically access to the gift that keeps on giving, a tool that can keep on doing things alongside of their progression for as long or as short as they like. You know, like I said earlier, I don't. I don't want to. I didn't want to get on this podcast and say, you know, this is for everybody, and it's the solution that solves all problems. I don't want to have. I don't want this to in any sense give false hope. But for those students who really get into it, to me, this is the gift that keeps on giving. It is an incredible engineering education, and they will be far ahead of the competition in terms of both practical making experience and also cad and also the problem solving that goes behind both of those things. Like, you know, I think I gave you this example when we were talking earlier, is I had my Ikea desk, when I. When I ordered, it was missing one of those small pegs that the drawers sit on. And those pegs are both hard to find and annoyingly expensive, and they take two or three days to ship. And I was like, this is really frustrating. So I modeled up my own little peg took me. I'm not exaggerating. Probably two minutes. And then I 3d printed it probably took another five minutes, and it was about two cent of plastic. And I placed it in the hole, and it was a little bit too small. So I did it again. I increased the size, the next one fit perfectly. And in 15 minutes, I've got a solution to a problem that was, frankly, really annoying for me. I hope that wasn't too wandering of an answer, but I think to kind of bring it back to your original question, homeschoolers have this incredible opportunity to prolong exposure to ideas and topics that are really interesting and that can lead also to incredible results.
Rebecca: So I think it's obvious to all of us that, like what? The world we live in now is so different than it was ten years ago. And in another ten years, when a lot of our, you know, ten year olds are going out into the world, it's not going to be what it is today. It's. Technology is changing fast. The way life works is just. It's changing really fast. What. How does learning this type of stuff, focusing a little on these sort of do it at home engineering tasks, help keep our kids up with where life is going in the future? How does that help their education keep up?
Josh: Yeah, I really think there's only one main common theme that's important to focus on outside of, say, reading, writing and math, which I definitely put at kind of the pillars here. There's one main theme I think is the most important to focus on with education, that is problem solving. There's one thing that will never go out of style, and that is learning how to solve problems, no matter the tools. And oftentimes, I think what's funny is the world is moving really fast and the tools are changing rapidly, but there's still a lot of utility in the tools that were used in the past as well. So there's this common thread, I think, that links them both, and that is they're going to have increased exposure to an innumerable number of tools. I have no idea how many things these kids are going to be exposed to, but the common thread stands, and that is you have a problem, you're trying to figure out the solution, what's the best path to get there. And this kind of technical training, where what you're really doing is you're teaching students to solve problems, applies forever to all disciplines. It's kind of, to me, the thing that you want to focus on, because even, even myself, I mean, I grew up and I didn't get Internet until I was in middle school. I didn't get a phone until I was almost out of high school. And I. The world has changed dramatically for me. But the one thing that remains is there are plenty of problems to be solved. And if you've taught yourself over a long enough period of time how to solve enough problems, it turns out that's useful for just about everybody. That's useful for businesses. That's useful for homes and personal life. That's useful for. If it's a government job, that's useful for jobs. If it's a job that you're after. I mean, that's just, to me, that is the foundational and fundamental skill of all of it.
Rebecca: And inherent in that is learning to deal with failure as you're trying to solve the problem.
Josh: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And 3d printing can be stubborn, so you will experience some failure for sure. That's well put.
Rebecca: That's really inherent in that. Solving a problem. It's not a problem if it's easy. So you have to be able to stand up to a challenge emotionally and mentally and just keep trying. And keep trying. You mentioned earlier that you knew somebody who is working at MOSAC, which is Smud's Museum of science and curiosity.
Josh: Curiosity.
Rebecca: Curiosity. Museum of Science and Curiosity. And you mentioned to me when we talked before that you kind of have a pretty cool connection to the MOSAC museum. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.
Josh: Yeah. Yeah, I would love to talk a little bit about it. So we actually, my company, cat class, built the makerspace at MOSAC. So they approached us a couple of years ago and they were interested in building out more advanced maker programs. So for those of you who haven't been to MOSAC, it's, again, it's Museum of science and curiosity. There's a lot of hands on activities. A lot of those hands on activities work were focused to a slightly younger age range. And so they, they approached me and asked if I would be willing to help them build out a makerspace inside of the museum and then some maker programs alongside of that. So, yes, so with our company, we built a 3d printing studio, some CAD workshops, electronic workshops, some robotics. We do some robotics programs. Now we built out, we're in the process of building up the fourth of four, four week programs, all centered around this idea of introducing students to different types of tools, different type of making, different type of problem solving so that they can bring their creativity to life so that they can learn these fun and useful skills with everybody else. And so, yeah, our connection there, one of the first programs that we ever launched was teaching the students how to 3d print rockets that you could then launch with air and I collaborated with another company to get the air powered launcher. They go up insanely high to 120 psi. For those of you who don't know, that's a lot of air pressure. And we went outside with the whole crew to test these rockets and see if they would be fun to fire. And those things, they must have gone up two or 300ft. We all looked at each other and we just busted out laughing. It was one of those experiences where I was like, this is just, what did we just do? We just printed this rocket. We just launched it 300ft in the air with a, with, or 300ft in the air with air. It was just one of those moments where it was just like, okay, like if we're, if we're adults and we're like busting out laughing like this, the kids are gonna love it. So, yeah, I've had the, I've had the privilege and it, and it has been a privilege, and I've had the privilege to see that studio from, from, from concept, really, to machines in the shop, to staff trained, to now having multiple cohorts of students running through those programs.
Rebecca: How fun. What a cool thing. So talk. We've, you mentioned this earlier, but I, I would like to give a nod to. We've talked a lot about engineering and a lot about sort of problem solving to make things do things, but I know that, that 3d printers can be used in a more artistic way as well. Talk a little bit about the art side.
Josh: Yeah, big time. I think so. It's such a gigantic world. Basically. Before I get into the art specific side of it, I want to say that if there's a topic in 3d printing that interests you, that the best thing to do is just google it and go watch a YouTube video on what's possible. That's one of the easiest ways to just kind of let your imagination go wild. And I like to say that often, right. If you're a math teacher and you have a 3d printer in your classroom, just Google 3D printed math lessons and you're going to find some really unbelievably creative ways to teach people math or to show off cool objects and things like that. Now, from an art standpoint, one program that comes to mind that is, it's a brand new software. And in the 3d printing world, they're starting to come out with 3d printers that can print full color. And what's interesting about that is that instead of having one single color for your entire print, you can now layer colors, you can blend colors, you can add them together, and it's starting to create what I would call art coming off of the printer. And so if you've got a full color sign that you would have printed on a piece of canvas before, now you have the opportunity to actually bring that three dimensionally out into the world. So let's say you're an artist and you've designed. Typically, you've dabbled in painting and you painted this face, and now you want to play around with, like, what's possible with 3d printing. You could take that. You could 3d print it at any height that you want. Maybe it's an inch, maybe it's five inches, maybe it's ten inches. Maybe it's got some interactive pieces coming off of it and add full color and bring it to life in a way that didn't exist before. And that's, I mean, that's one tiny example. But frankly, the world of 3d printed art is, like I said at the beginning, just absolutely gigantic. Artists are experimenting with it all the time. I think one thing that I really love about the arts is it brings out the creativity side of people big time, and they're the best. Artists are always playing around with old mediums, new mediums. How can we interact with these new things? So for me, I look at this and I say, I almost can't fathom the number of different ways that you could turn this into art projects for the day. Now, I think unlike some traditional art, again, there is some technical skill required in getting a drawing from a computer screen onto a 3d printer itself. But if that's a technical skill you're willing to learn, then you could honestly almost invent an entire entirely new genre or style of art based on what you're doing. Or you could borrow some of the ideas from people who are already doing interesting things and incorporate that into the art that you already have.
Rebecca: We've talked about the more technical side, the, you know, the building and engineering. We talk about art. Is there any connection to 3d printing? And as a mom, I hear this and I hear my kids sitting. I see, I envision my kids sitting in front of the computer more, but talk about, like, how can this be used in some applications that can still help them get outside, be more active, go and do some things. I know you told me a little bit about geocaching and some applications that you used for that, but just talk a little bit about some other creative ways that isn't necessarily another excuse for kids just to sit in front of a computer.
Josh: Yep. We don't need more computers all the time. I don't think. Yeah, so one of the programs that you just mentioned there, geocache. So geocaching is a geolocation based, like, not hide and seek. That's not the word I'm looking for, but kind of like a digital scavenger hunt that is in the physical world. So you'll make an object or you'll hide a little thing and you'll tag its gps coordinates, and then you can log on to this website called geocache, and you can find other objects that are hidden in areas, and then you can kind of go on your little treasure hunt. So we do teach students in one of our earlier projects how to make a geocache hide container with the idea. Like you said before, wouldn't it be interesting if this also is a way for people to interact with and enjoy the physical world? Because I do think we're moving into somewhat dangerous territories of spending too much time on screens and too much time on computers. And so it is a value that we hold ourselves. The other thing that I mentioned here a little bit ago was 3d printing rockets was very much a way for us to get outside. It is. Let's iterate on this and then let's get out of here. I think there's a lot of applications for making climbing equipment, for making objects that exist in the outside world that maybe start inside in your home, you know, allow you to do things outside like that. So outside of those, again, it's so hard for me to come up with specific examples simply because there are so many. But I think if that's. If that's a value that you have, that's. Again, what I would. I would say is the same thing is, you know, 3d printing outside, what are objects you use outside? You just simple Google terms like that, and before you know it, you've got 10, 15, 20 ideas for how to not spend time inside. Instead, take it outside and get out and do some fun stuff.
Rebecca: Is 3d printing you've talked about? Sort of. It's not for. For everybody. There are some kids who probably wouldn't be interested or may not have the sort of stick to it ness to learn as deep, to go as deep into the skill as they would need to, to be successful. Is it safe in all situations? Are there any considerations that parents should have as they're thinking about this?
Josh: Absolutely, there's some considerations. So it is. It's mainly safe, I say mainly because it's because it's heating up plastic and it gets up to about 210 degrees celsius. There's a nozzle on the underside of it that you're not going to want to touch. It's, it's pretty hot. And it's also melting plastic. So if you're in a small unventilated room, probably not the best idea. The plastic that's used in this is the most common plastic used is called poly lactic acid, or PLA for short. And that tends to be. It doesn't really off gas. You can't really smell it. It may release some particulates, but according to most studies and most people, it's probably not terrible. Now that said, I tend to try to keep my 3d printer in a well ventilated room or a big enough room so that all those fumes aren't concentrated in a tiny little area. I wouldn't put it next to my bed while I sleep, for example. I also would be incredibly careful if it were running overnight or if I had pets around to put it somewhere that I knew was not going to get knocked over, or if you had small children at home. Right. So putting it and securing it in a place that is away from people easily touching it, you know, kind of safely stowed away somewhere to where the likelihood that it gets knocked over and because it's heated up starts a fire is basically minimized. So really the main risk is fire because anything that heats up can cause a fire. So be careful there and then the ventilation of the room.
Rebecca: How, what are we, what's the price range for a student appropriate 3d printer? Are we talking about hundreds and hundreds of dollars?
Josh: That's a very good question. We are talking about, the printer that we use in our programs is called an ender three, and it's on Amazon usually for around $160. Okay. It also uses what's called filament. Filament is the name for plastic that they use. It uses filament, kind of like a printer would use ink. This uses filament for that. And the filament runs about $20 per kilogram. And a kilogram of filament will, in general, it will last you quite a while. So your out of pocket costs on a 3d printer plus some filament to get started is under $200.
Rebecca: And families should check with their hsts. But they, I do believe our families can order a 3d printer and filament as well for some school projects, so. Absolutely. Yeah.
Josh: Yeah. Most of the schools we collaborate with, we mentioned that, and it's all on Amazon, so we try to keep that as simple as possible. There's no fancy ordering required. If you do sign up for our programs, we'll give you links. We'll show you exactly where everything is right. It's all spelled out for you right there, but it is all on Amazon and it shouldn't be difficult from a, it's not like you have to get another vendor approved kind of a thing.
Rebecca: How long are your classes?
Josh: So the 3d printer, we do a 3d printer assembly, build and use class. It takes about two days to get through the entire class. But a lot of those tutorials you're going to want to rewatch. So the printer itself, it's a kit build. It's fun. It's like assembling some legos. That's honestly one of the most fun parts to me is just pulling the tools out of the box and building. The thing is a heck of a lot of fun. The build is going to take about a day, sometimes two. If you have to fidget, maybe you put something on backwards. You got to redo a couple things. It's possible it could take a couple of days and then it's going to take another day or so to download the software that you need to kind of start figuring out all the little nuances of things again, all spelled out in our program. So a couple of days to get up and running and then I like to say it takes a couple of days to get started and a lifetime to master because it's one of those things you'll just, you'll just learn and grow and learn and grow and learn and grow and it will never stop. So couple days to get up and running. It's not a huge, it's not a huge time investment. And then for the, for the computer aided design courses, those take a while. Hours in general take about 90 hours to complete. And I would say it is equivalent to about a year's worth of college curriculum. And I hope that doesn't sound intimidating. It is meant to be. Absolutely. Beginner starts at the basics, doesn't skip anything, goes step by step, but it does take a while.
Rebecca: So are your classes live?
Josh: They are all pre recorded. They have pre recorded videos. Asynchronous. Watch them when you want. Watch them 50 times. We do not revoke access. One of the big, one of our big, one of our big goals is because this stuff takes a while to learn. We wanted people to be able to go back to that material when they got stuck in the future and not feel like, oh, my time is running out. Now we have to up this subscription or whatever it happened to be so you have lifetime access to that, and you can always go back to those pre recorded lectures. We also do a live Zoom cohort specifically for homeschoolers, so that if students want to hop on once a week, they can actually get some live time with either myself or with my co founder, Jake.
Rebecca: So problem solving, looking for some new ideas, those kinds of things.
Josh: Yeah. And then the hundred things like we were talking about, like, oh, you know, this didn't work exactly like I imagined it would. What happened here? Things that are just a little bit easier if it's completely asynchronous. We just. We figured people are going to have questions that it's hard to answer every question in the order that every question is going to be there, you know? So why don't we just offer a kind of a little bit of a live component here, and you can. You can pop in, you can come, you can not come. We don't. We're not taking attendance. It's not a mandatory thing or anything like that, but it is completely optional for exactly that reason. You may get stuck with something and just have that quick little question you want to get an answer to and.
Rebecca: Tell listeners again where to find you.
Josh: You can find us@cadclasscadclass.org. Dot we have also at the top of that, we have a tab that says youth programs. And the youth programs are going to be additional information that will take you to our homepage, but the youth programs tab will give you additional information on what's specifically relevant for you all and whether or not I know for you, for your homeschool. We are an approved vendor. If we're not yet an approved vendor for your school, you can just send us a request, and we're happy to do that.
Rebecca: And you mentioned that you will be at the Northern California Homeschool convention again this summer, right? Families could meet you and talk to you there.
Josh: Yep. We will be there this summer, and we will most likely be giving an innovation at home. Lecture class. I don't. Lecture is probably the wrong way to put it.
Rebecca: That doesn't.
Josh: Yeah, it sounds better. Masterclass. I don't know what sounds better than lecture. Yeah. But we're talking a lot more about how you can help your students innovate at home.
Rebecca: Awesome. Well, Josh, it's been really great talking to you. Thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate it.
Josh: Thank you so much for having me. Rebecca.
Rebecca: Thank you for joining us today on the Sequoia Breeze podcast. I hope it's been a breath of fresh air for your homeschool. I've been your host, Rebecca La Savio. We hope you join us again next time.