#572 – Technology Instruction with Charlie Larrabee

Charlie Larrabe: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Release January 9th, 2022. Episode 572. Technology Instruction with Charlie Larrabee. Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics.

Charlie Larrabe: And I'm Charlie Larrabee. I'm the lab guru for DaVinci Lab for Creative Arts and Sciences.

Charlie Larrabe: Hey, Charlie. How are you doing?

Charlie Larrabe: I'm doing pretty good. How about yourself?

Charlie Larrabe: Good. It's been a long time since we've seen each other, but we've known each other many, many years. I think probably... We're probably pushing 20 plus years now, huh?

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. I think that's... Yeah. I think that's about exactly right. Yeah. I was just thinking about before the show. I was thinking about how I... Years back when I was getting interested in learning about KCAD and looking at videos online and information for how to do it, and then your face popped up. And I was like, oh my God, what's Chris doing explaining GNU software? And it kind of blew my mind a little bit, but in a really good way. So... Yeah. Yeah. I think that's when I started...

Charlie Larrabe: Glad to have done that. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: I think that's when I started texting you and bugging you about KCAD stuff.

Charlie Larrabe: Charlie was one of the first people I ever knew. So I knew Charlie in college, and I would walk to his room, and he would just be sitting there. So obviously, I was learning electronics in class or whatever, but Charlie was the quintessential, shows up at college, already an electronics nerd, already knows all the fun stuff. And he's sitting there soldering in his room and building amps and building guitar pedals and awesome stuff like that. And I just remember the enthusiasm you had about electronics was so infectious. And I really appreciated that about you. I thought it was just... Yeah. I still think back to that.

Charlie Larrabe: That's cool. I'm so glad to hear that, Chris. That's really awesome. I've always thought, growing up, I've always felt like electricity is magic, and everything that has to do with electricity is magic. That's right.

Charlie Larrabe: I think I've stolen that quote from you. I think I've mentioned that on the show before. We were talking about RF or something. You're like, it's the closest thing we have to magic. Yeah. I've probably quoted you on the show more than I remember, even.

Charlie Larrabe: Oh, yeah. Well, I'm sure I'm not the only person who said that.

Charlie Larrabe: It's like we're hearing source material here now. So this is good.

Charlie Larrabe: But yeah, I've always been drawn to projects like that that have to do with RF. That's why I got really interested in vacuum tubes and thyrotrons and stuff like that. And it's just like, how does this work? I don't know. Does it matter? Sure. Let's play with it. And it's just so enjoyable to mess around with stuff and tinker and design things.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. What was your start? I mean, was it a strong figure in your life that taught you electronics? Was it just taking stuff apart? Or what was the genesis?

Charlie Larrabe: You know, it was one of the Radio Shack kits, the 130-in-one-project kits with the little spring terminals. Yeah. And I got one of those for Christmas when I was nine. And I just, I don't know, something about it just clicked with me. And I started building projects on there and started going to Radio Shack and getting my own parts and breadboarding. And then I always had this fantasy that I was going to work at Radio Shack and people were going to bring me their broken electronics and I would repair them for them. And when I was 16, I went and signed up for a job there or did the training for pre-job training. And of course, it's like, here's how you sell- Here's how you sell batteries. Yes, here's how you sell gateway computers. And here's how you get people signed up for cell phone contracts. And if you don't show a certain amount of increase on your number of sales, then we're going to punish you by sending you to a worse Radio Shack. And that's how it is to work for us. And I was like, oh my God, that sounds terrible.

Charlie Larrabe: Well, I mean, these days it would be, I believe I saw in the news that Radio Shack is getting into cryptocurrencies or something equivalently stupid. And so, yeah, it's gotten even worse somehow.

Charlie Larrabe: I'm surprised that they, I thought they ceased to exist.

Charlie Larrabe: But I think, I think it's probably a enterprising individual who's into cryptocurrencies and bought the IP behind Radio Shack. But I think if you go to Radio Shack's website, it says something about crypto.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Well, I'll have to look into that. So it's like, are you guys misspelling crystals? Like crystal radio? But you're saying crypto? Yeah, that must be it. That must be it. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. So, you know, so I guess a lot of that stuff early on, I was pretty self-taught. And then when I had to actually start connecting the math to like, this is how you calculate how much current goes through something. I was always kind of like, what? Don't you just test it and try it and see if it gets hot? Yeah. So that was always kind of my MO for that kind of thing. But yeah. Electricity is magic. Always loved it. Still do it.

Charlie Larrabe: Still do. Still do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you started with a Radio Shack kit. I think that's a common experience to a lot of people listening to this. Now you're in an education, you know, you're the lead guru at a school and you do maker programs that we're going to get into here. Well, what is going to be the gap now? Like what is the... So kids that are starting these days that don't have Radio Shack because they're not in a cryptocurrency and, you know, I guess there's still the spring terminal kits that are out there. Like what are they doing? You're seeing this, you know, you're helping these kids get started. What does that look like?

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. I mean, it's pretty amazing what's... Like you said, it's really different now. Like there's no longer really any stores that you can walk into and say like, oh, that's interesting. Let me find out more about it. On the other hand, there's so many learning related things, right? So I actually got some of the spring terminal kits for my kids to mess around with that. And they're not interested in it at all. What is this, baby stuff? Yeah. Well, what they do like is snap circuits, which I never would have thought they'd be interested. They love snap circuits. So that's kind of like these little Lego blocks that have, well, snaps on the backs of them and the different little circuit components. And so that's one thing that's good. And then with my middle schoolers, I've been using... Last year, we used microbit computers and they really like that a lot. And this year, my middle schoolers are using the Circuit Playground Express from Adafruit because we couldn't get microbits. They were... They disappeared. They dried up. Yeah. But that's fine because they feel like from their perspective, it's like, oh, we're doing something new now. But I mean, it's really more microcontroller stuff.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. I think if you're willing to be flexible on curriculum style or just even... I think one of the problems is that there isn't variety in a lot of curricula because there's just... You have to keep it consistent over time. But then kids want variety there anyway. So I would imagine that would actually be a benefit there as long as you're willing to be flexible as the instructor.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah, absolutely. And I find that in my job, it really helps to kind of change it up a bit. So I kind of have like two sets of projects that I do per year. Like I have one year, we'll talk about this one thing. And then the next year, we'll kind of talk about something that's similar, but framed a little bit differently. So the kids feel like it's new. What they don't know is that we're reviewing material and strengthening their knowledge on that. Ah, that's good. And that's been working really well, I think. And one of the things that I'm really lucky in my role is that I'm given a lot of freedom to adjust the curriculum or put things in as it's relevant to what we're doing. Or change things up. One of the things that we're looking forward to is I have an application in right now for a space station contact. As the International Space Station, they set up a certain number of planned contacts with schools throughout the year. So I got past the first round of applications. So fingers crossed. That's awesome. We'll get picked. Yeah. We'll get picked to talk with the astronauts this coming fall. That would be so cool. My kids are really excited about that. Yeah. Yeah. Except for the ones who are graduating. They're like, yeah. Right.

Charlie Larrabe: They're like, we're coming back. You better have extra chairs in the classroom.

Charlie Larrabe: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I told them that they'll be invited back if we get it. So personally, I'm really excited about that. It's something that I've wanted to do for a lot of years. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see how it goes.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. No, it's really great that it's part of the charter. I mean, I applied and got an invite to one of the launches last year, two years ago, I think. I had other plans that I couldn't. When the launch got moved, I had other plans that I couldn't move. But just seeing that happen, I mean, that's so cool that that's part of their... And then reaching out to school kids and just... It's a really great part of the space program and NASA in general. So I'm not sure what's going to happen after the ISS. Oh, yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Isn't the ISS going to get decommissioned relatively soon? Yes. I think... I'm not sure how soon. I want to say it's on the order of three or four years. I could be off on that. But yeah, that's, I mean, relatively pretty soon. Yeah. But I think it's going to get replaced with another space station. Maybe. I don't know.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah, I remember reading that it was like individual countries, or sorry, private enterprise as well was going to have like basically like smaller substations as like launching platforms for other exploration or, you know, basically they're going to cut down on the size and the management, the centralized management of it. But it was also going to have, there's going to be more stuff up there. I'll try and link in an article. So I saw about it, but yeah, but I just think about like, okay, but now there's just like less, there's just less coolness. You know, like, I don't know, like ISS, it's its own thing. It's like, there's so many different modules up there and it's pretty big. Oh, yeah. I don't know.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. And I mean, there's people, there's people in it living in there. I mean, I think the thing that really gets me every time is this doesn't happen super often. Maybe, maybe a few handful of times a year. Um, but you can see it in the evening. Um, the ISS going overhead because the sun's lined up just in the right way. So we have darkness in the sky, but it's being lit up by the sun. That's that hit is hitting it up higher. Right. Um, and so you see, you see the satellite go overhead and it's lit up and you're like, Oh my God, that's not a plane. Um, but it's moving and it's got people in it. Uh, and it's in space. Um, and, uh, yeah, I think here they are sitting in a tin can, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Exactly. Yeah. That, that, that just never, that never gets old to me. Like having that realization is just, wow. Yeah. And that's cool stuff. And that's one of the things that, that like elementary kids to, there are certain things that they will never get tired of. Um, space, dinosaurs, rocks. Um, yep. Yep.

Charlie Larrabe: I'm just thinking my head checklist, check, check, check. Yeah. I'm not, apparently I'm in the same category. Yeah. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. But anything, anything related to space, you know, the, the kids just love it. It just really is a feeds their imagination and there's so much to think about. It's amazing.

Charlie Larrabe: So, I mean, so you teach kids that are, you know, from pretty young up to, you said, I think 13, 14, like, so like eighth grade or so.

Charlie Larrabe: So my youngest students are, are about six years old. So about six to 14, they're right in there. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's a huge range, especially like, so now you're trying to teach pretty broad concepts like space and just technology in general. Like what is, what changes in terms of when you, so when you're, let's just go with the extreme. So you're talking to a six year old, you're talking to a 14 year old. How, how does that interaction as an instructor change?

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. You're absolutely right. It's a, it's a, it, there's a, there's a big difference in like what, what's age appropriate material for each level. And yeah, the difference between what a first grader is going to be ready for versus an eighth grader. I'd say generally for the, for the, my, my upper levels, like, like middle school, I would be talking about, uh, an orbital path or let's say, and then I would ask them to, to do a little bit of math. Um, like let's find this, let's find the circumference of the orbit or something, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, you know, not, not too, not too crazy, but like just something to, but, uh, right. Yeah. Just, just something to bring it into like, here's a, let's put in, let's put numbers to what's happening or let's think about, um, you know, let's think about what this speed means. How can we relate to that in, in our, in our life here on the planet? Um, whereas for the, for the younger, for the younger students, we would probably think more about like imagination type things, um, and relating to, you know, what, what would it, what would it feel like to be in this, to be in the space station or what, you know, what would, what kind of thing, what kind of things do you think you would need if you are in space? Like, uh, you know, as if you're preparing for a camping trip or something like that.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Right. Do any of them say air? Do they think, I mean, like, is that.

Charlie Larrabe: Oh yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Part of the, yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. That's good. Um, air.

Charlie Larrabe: Probably the last thing I'd list.

Charlie Larrabe: A lot of them want to get a, like a lasso in case they get separated from the station so they can lasso their way back or, um, a lot, a lot of them say they want to bring ice cream with them because. No, no, no.

Charlie Larrabe: They, NASA sends you ice cream. That's. Yeah. Right. I've learned that at the Smithsonian, you know, it's freeze dried and it's the Apologen. It's all they eat.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. So it's, so, um, it's, that's something that, that I've learned as I've been teaching is, um, yeah. How to, how to, how to present the material. Cause I'll, cause I'll see different, I'll, I'll see different, um, levels throughout the day. Um, but I'll, I'll present similar material, but in a way that's appropriate to kind of where they're at in like thinking about subjects. Yeah. Um, and that's taken, that's taken some practice.

Charlie Larrabe: Oh, no doubt. I mean, that's, I, I would, I would imagine I would be trying to teach myself and that would be very, very high level. And, and, you know, like just thinking about the, just the terminology definition type of stuff, you know, like I'll say a word that it's something very normal for me. I'll say resistor and be like, Oh, everybody knows what a resistor is. And, you know, well, it's an element that has resistance and, Oh, okay. Resistance is that, you know, just like all the way, you know, just plops all the way down the path to, to trying to then be like, well, an electron is, uh, yeah, it's, it's, no, it's

Charlie Larrabe: actually really hard, um, to, to, to teach kids about stuff that, that you're really, really knowledgeable about, or, or I should say something that you've been thinking about for a long time. Um, and then you, you kind of, you kind of forget what it was like to, to approach that topic for the first time. Um, so I found that in, in those kinds of cases, it helps to zoom in like super, super small. Like, let's talk about this one little tiny thing that's interesting in and of itself. And then let's look at how that's happening.

Charlie Larrabe: And that makes a lot of sense to me. I feel like the, the thing I always, when I think about getting down to that very base level, is it like, so now you're like super zoomed in and you're talking about like an electron jumping across a gap, which it's probably very, very way too high level, but like something that might be interesting like that. And it is, you know, kind of a, it's a, it's a small unit of, of learning and you could have outcomes there, but then it's like so hard to tie that all the way back to like, oh, but then the led lights up and your Christmas tree looks cool and it's less power than if it was a heated wire, you know, it's just like, I feel like the tying it back is, is the most important part. Sure. Yeah. You and I were there struggling through, through education as well. And it was, you know, they did not, when it wasn't tied back, even at the collegiate level, it was very, very difficult.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah. And that, yeah, I, I always found that really frustrating. Um, to, to me as a, as a learner personally, I, I, I want to know why I want to know why we're learning something before the, you know, like, I want to have a sort of a top down, like what's the, what's the point of like the section and what are we going to do with it before start learning the details? Um, which is, which is, uh, not a, not a great way to do it, to be a student, I think. But, but I, um, what I like to do now is to kind of like take some kind of tactile thing. Um, like, like for instance, talking about, uh, electrons jumping across a gap. Um, so I have this, this, uh, Wimshurst generator in my classroom. Um, and so we'll, we'll set it up and, um, start making sparks. And of course that's really exciting. Um, and then we start, we start thinking about, yeah, like, like why, what, what's, what's creating the sparks? Why do they come faster or slower? What makes the sparks bigger? What happens when we move the electrodes away from each other? Um, and then, and then, um, we can do some stuff to figure out, um, like what's the voltage jumping across the gap on the generator, right? Cause we, we can, we can measure it with a ruler and we can say there's about this many centimeters between the, between the electrodes. And so if we know the breakdown voltage for air, we can say that it's, you know, a quarter of a million volts or it's not that much probably, but, uh, you know, we can, we can figure out some, some number. Uh, I think, I think it usually comes out to like 70 or 80,000 volts. And then it depends on the, uh, how much humidity is in there, but anyways. Oh, right. But so I guess, well, and so I guess that would be.

Charlie Larrabe: And you're in, you're, you're in Houston. And so, uh, yeah. So a hundred percent is normally, uh, yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah. Somewhere between 90 and a hundred would be, would be normal. Yes. Yeah. It's funny. Like on, on your, uh, on, on your, um, your forum, uh, uh, that you run and there's, I see a lot of discussions about, um, uh, static sensitive devices and managing static shock and stuff like that. Yeah. ESD protection. That is so, that is so interesting. And I, I, as long as I live here, I'm never going to like care about any of that stuff at all. Pretty much. Yeah. Except maybe for a few days during the winter.

Charlie Larrabe: My one friend moved to the desert from a much more humid location. And he's like, I just outfitted my entire lab with just like everything's ESD, you know, cause it was like 5% humidity. It's like, Holy moly. You know? Wow. Yeah. Now I'm living much more South in the winter and I'm like, well, I'm probably okay. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. I bet. So, um, how's the, how's the winter been at, um, in, you're in Durham. Is that right?

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's been, uh, pretty mild so far, you know, cold days here and there, but, uh, usually in the afternoon, it warms up into the fifties or, uh, 10 to 15 C. Yeah. For the. Awesome.

Charlie Larrabe: That sounds like, uh, that sounds like way nicer than, uh, the windy city winters.

Charlie Larrabe: That's right. I would have thought. Yeah. I'm not, uh, I miss the people in the windy city, but that's about it. The windy part can, can pound salt. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you are kind of teaching this stuff, right. So, so, and you, you mentioned, you know, this, the, the generator that reminds me a lot of like my physics teacher kind of, you know, that, that was when I kind of got enamored with electricity in general as well. Like that same kind of like, all right, let's, let's do some experiments around electricity. Let's see some sparks fly. Let's see what happens. Um, but what about stuff that's maybe a little bit harder to have in the physical realm? I mean, so like you're, you're showing something that's, that's very visceral. It's, you know, it's got sparks, it's got sound, it's got, uh, you know, all that, all the stuff that a generate, you know, high voltage demonstration does that we enjoy. But what about when you're trying to say like, okay, well now let's, let's program a computer that just maybe does this thing. If you do everything right.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Um, yeah, that's, that's a great question. Um, and there's, there's two things that I rely on heavily for like beginning programming. Um, and, uh, one of them that, I mean, the main thing is actually to, to, to do make things visual as visual as possible. So have the output of the code run a turtle, for instance, like, so if we're doing Python, we will, we'll be making, uh, turtle shapes or whatever. Um, and then there's, there are also some, some resources that I've been using a lot. Um, like, like code.org. I use a lot with my younger students. Um, and that's a great, that's a great way to make the results, make the outcomes be very, very visual and easy to follow. Um, so.

Charlie Larrabe: I don't know if I know code.org.

Charlie Larrabe: Oh, okay. It's a, it's a, I think it's a Microsoft, um, undertaking, but they, it's really well done. And they, they separate all of their levels by age and whoever's, whoever's involved with it. They've, I think done a really nice job of making their, making their coding projects be age appropriate. And, um, so, oh, yeah, right. So one, so one challenge with, um, uh, teaching someone who's like in the beginning of elementary school and is that they, they may not read yet. Um, and that's totally, and that's totally normal. That's something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if you, so if you tell, if you tell a first grader to click on the start button, um, they may not know which one that is, even if it has start written on it real big. Um, and that's okay. And so what, so what they do in code.org is they take for that level of learners, they take, they make everything symbols, right? So if you're going to move your character on your little output screen, if you're going to move them to the right, it just has an arrow to the right. And that's your line of code is an arrow to the right. And then you go down to the next line of code and move it down or whatever. Um, so they've, that's really, they've, they've done a really nice job of thinking about thinking about that stuff.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Cause another thing I've wondered about with just, you know, developmentally as well, like, I remember hearing about like, well, why don't they teach algebra to like, you know, third or fourth graders? And I'm like, well, actually kids' brains can't abstract concepts at a certain age before a certain age. You just like, can't hold the idea that X represents a variable, right. Or that X represents a number. And it's just really hard to do that. And that was my primary exposure. Like, you know, if I equals one, you know, like that sort of thing is like the first thing I learned in programming, but obviously there must be other things in here. So it's more like decision trees or the visual piece like you're talking about.

Charlie Larrabe: Sure. Yeah. Um, and, and yes, absolutely. You know, algebra is something that kids usually learn in middle school because that's the time when their brains are able to do that. And prior to that, they're not usually for, for most people. Um, but yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know what? Typically there's not a lot done with variables until. I want to say until like later in elementary school, like fifth, sixth grade, um, on the, on the code.org stuff. Um, most of, most of their focus is on let's do things in sequence and think about what's about how would you make an algorithm to maybe go through a maze or something like that. Um, and, and they're, and so they're, they're focusing on sequence and on loops and on troubleshooting as well. Um, so, so most of the, yeah. So a lot of the, the, um, the things that a lot of the, the puzzles will have like a step button, um, for, for, for troubleshooting. Every time you click on a step button, it goes down one line at a time. Um, so they can do their debugging and, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's really, it's really nicely, nicely thought out. And I have to remind them over and over again, like they'll come in. I mean, I'll have students who are like, I'm stuck on this. I, I, this, this one's impossible. This puzzle is impossible. And we'll just sit down together and like, we'll read the instructions together. And sometimes that, you know, answers their question. Cause they got in a hurry and didn't, didn't want to read the instructions or.

Charlie Larrabe: Charlie, do you, do you do that service for men in their late thirties who had the same problem with programming, uh, an everyday basis sometimes?

Charlie Larrabe: Uh, yeah. Uh, yeah, yeah, I, I could, I could, I, I could, I could, I could do it. Seriously.

Charlie Larrabe: That the number of times that is the problem where I'm like, Oh yeah, look at that. Oh, that library just doesn't take that variable. And the instructions right at the top. Okay. Yeah, cool.

Charlie Larrabe: You know, you know, what's, you know, what's really funny about, about teaching kids is, um, I find myself saying like, Oh yeah, kids do this, but it's, it, that's not really accurate as much as it would be to say people do this. Human. Humans do this. Humans do this. Yeah. So like a lot, a lot of the things that I've seen kids doing, adults do all those same things do, you know? Um, you have an example for us? Um, well, like you said, I mean, I'm just the reading. Yeah. Yep.

Charlie Larrabe: Yep.

Charlie Larrabe: Yep. That's a, that's a big one.

Charlie Larrabe: Um, probably not slowing down and like doing stepwise debugging as well. And just trying the same thing over and over again. I could, I could think of my own, my own experience there.

Charlie Larrabe: Jumping, jumping into projects without planning them. Um, Oh boy.

Charlie Larrabe: I feel triggered right now, Charlie. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, God, but, but, but every, but everybody does that.

Charlie Larrabe: Cause you, you, you look at that and you think, Oh, that's not going to be that hard. I'm going to be done with it in 15 minutes. So I shouldn't take the time to sit down and draw it out first.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Not writing down my results and not, uh, journaling as things go, not creating a hypothesis. Uh, yeah, yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: For me to go back to school.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. So I like to think that I'm also learning good habits for myself by helping others to remember to have good habits. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I, I'm, I'm always, I'm always learning, always learning from, from the kids.

Charlie Larrabe: Oh, I believe it. Yeah. Yeah. So what about the, so you're doing stuff that's, you know, you've mentioned the micro bit and the, uh, circuit playground and stuff like that. I'm really curious about, you know, kids these days, kids these days, boy, do I sound like an old person? Uh, younger people who are coming up right now. Um, you know, they have screens from a very young age. My daughter is less than a year and she's already like intensely attracted to, to, you know, screens and just LEDs and blinks and stuff like that anyways. But like, so now do you make that connection to like, oh, well, this is all your phone or a tablet or your computer that you're using as well. This is all the guts inside of there. Like how, how much do you tie that together?

Charlie Larrabe: Um, I, I do that. You're talking about hardware, learning about hardware.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, so, so just, let's just, we could focus on the circuit playground. I mean, that's got an accelerometer on it, for example, and you might have some examples with it or that are part of the, the learning program.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Do you then say, well, this is why your parents can use this for Google maps or like, like, I don't know how much, how much there is that logical, the link between the two.

Charlie Larrabe: Sure. Yeah. Um, uh, yeah, I try to, I try to go into some of that without being too, too exhaustive. Um, cause like, yeah, I mean, you could, you could spend a long time explaining every little detail about how an accelerometer works. Um, but typically what I'll, what I'll, I'll do kind of like a divide and conquer kind of strategy on, um, like if we have a board that has a bunch of different sensors, I'll have the kids each like pick a sensor and they'll research it, figure out what it does. Like maybe they'll watch a video on spark fun or something. And, um, they'll figure out what it does, um, write up a little report and then, um, either present that report or make a video of, you know, that they're delivering to their classmates saying, this is, this is what, this is the accelerometer on the micro bit. This is what it does. This is how it works. This is why you might want to use it. Um, and, uh,

Charlie Larrabe: I just, I, I mean, I, I think, I think about the boards, even like, even at a collegiate level, you know, it's like you and I took very similar labs and like, just thinking about like some of the boards that were there and some of the interfaces. So like, just thinking about like seven segment displays, I knew what they were sort of like having seen them on other devices, but it's such a big part of like, you know, intro to digital logic type labs. And it still was like the standalone thing that was not like, oh, well, this is how people used to just display info. And it's like, you know, and so that same kind of like tying it back to the, to the real world thing. I still didn't really care. And I'm not sure it really mattered all that much, but, but like the stuff's a lot cooler now too. Like I, now that I've seen it all and you've seen it all, and we know like how this stuff is actually used. I would, I would think I would have trouble like containing myself and be like, oh, but look at all these things that can do. And like, it's in everything, you know, like an accelerometers everywhere, but like that, I don't know. It just feels like that that's tough to, to navigate.

Charlie Larrabe: Uh, yeah, it, it, it is. It is because there's, there can be so much complexity. I mean, if you're talking about a seven segment display, do you go, do you go into like, is it common anode or common cathode or, you know, like, or, or do you focus on, this is our tool that we're going to use to get the information back out of our system? Um, and, and, and I think if you take more of a, an approach about like, this is, you know, like, this is how this is, this is why it matters to us right now. Um, then I think that, that really, that really helps a lot. Um, and, uh, oh yeah. Also I want to, since you brought up kids these days, um, I think it's, there's, there's, it's really funny. There's a lot of attitudes about, you know, parents will tell me like, oh, well, my kid knows how to work the, the iPad and whatever. And, but you know, when, when they, when they come into my classroom in first grade, almost none of them know how to use a mouse. Um, and they hate, they hate the mouse. They, they do not like the mouse. It's, it's new, it's hard. It's not cool. Um, there's like a wire coming out of it usually. And, uh, right.

Charlie Larrabe: They're like tapping on the screen.

Charlie Larrabe: They're like, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Totally. Um, I mean, cause that's how, that's how all the consumer devices are set up. So at some point we usually have to have a conversation around, like, there are ways that you can use a computer to be a consumer. And there are ways that you can use a computer to be a creator and, and do just do it, just being able to do the things that are allowed for you to do from inside the user interface. Um, you, that's not usually a way to make something new, um, or to be creative.

Charlie Larrabe: That's, that's a really, that's really good. That makes sense. The, the making something new and like the computer as a tool. That's, that's a really, I like that.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Well, thank you.

Charlie Larrabe: Um, more on that topic actually is like one, one thing, you know, I've been thinking about like, you know, like every new, I'm a new parent, uh, relatively new parent and, uh, people for some reason ask me, well, what do you think she'll be when she grows up? And I'm like, I don't know, I don't know, like whatever she wants to be. But the one thing that I think about is like, I want her to be a producer or creator of some sort, right? It doesn't have to be like, she has to make electronics or has to make anything. But like, I think one thing that I generally fret about in the world these days is consumption as a general topic of like, oh, well, uh, you, you know, young YouTubers who are praised for their like video game playing. And like, then just a bunch of people are watching it and there's just a lot of people out there just watching other people play video games. Then that's just like a really weird form of consumption to me. And it's very encompassing and like, uh, and kind of almost highlighted because there's for the game companies, there's money in it. Like, and I get all the economics of it, but I, when I think about like the things I want for kids generally, it's just to be like creative and like put stuff out in the world. That's useful and fun. And I don't know, like versus just consuming. So yeah. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: It's weird. Um, how much, yeah, the culture today around like, you know, what do you, what do you want to be when you grow up? And it, like a lot of, I could ask a lot of kids that, and they would say, you know, I want to be a YouTuber. YouTuber. Um, yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: And, um, when Dave, Dave, Dave co-host Dave is Dave Jones mentions when he does like, you know, he goes into his son's, uh, classes and gives talks and stuff. And the kids are really interested in the fact that he's YouTuber. The fact that he does electronics in there is like, who cares? Right. But it's like, oh, YouTube is his job. Like that. Oh, that's, that's, that's what they want to do. It's like, oh, okay. That's yeah. Okay. I guess that's the thing.

Charlie Larrabe: Right. Yeah. And I, I think a lot of them, they don't, they don't really, they don't necessarily realize like the amount of work that goes into, uh, you know, like Dave's channel, for instance, you know, he's, I'm, I would imagine that Dave is constantly working and coming up with new ideas and tearing stuff apart, coming up with explanations, building stuff up and, you know, so much, so much work. But from the consumer side of things, it's just like, oh, well, he's just talking, you know? Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Right. Right. Right.

Charlie Larrabe: Right. And, and, uh, yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: I think across all YouTubers, like a lot of that stuff is hidden, you know, like the, the amount of time it takes to make videos and stuff like that. And it's just, yeah. Oh, it's this thing that shows up on my, my tiny screen. So. Yeah. I think that's just a general challenge for, yeah. So I, to, to make it just personal, I don't want to make past judgment on anyone else. When I think about like what I want for, for, for my child is just like, yeah, I want, you know, to create things in the world, you know, that's the main thing that not just consumption.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, that's, that's a, I think that's what everybody's looking for really, as we, you know, find our way through life is, you know, what, what do you, what do you find satisfying? Um, that, you know, that makes you feel good about what, what you're doing, what you're doing here. Um, oh yeah. What, what, one, one other thing I should, uh, mention that, that really gets, uh, kids ears perked up is, um, I will, I will announce to them when I'm going to be hacking. Um, and they, they really like that a lot. Yes.

Charlie Larrabe: Uh, so we, where, what is, what is that reference point for hacking?

Charlie Larrabe: Um, all over the place, all over the, usually. Like, uh, uh, uh, like a guy with a hooded sweatshirt on the, uh, uh, yes, yes. On the six o'clock news. And, uh, but, but, uh, the, the typical one is like, we'll, we'll be on like a, um, uh, zoom class or something like that. And I'll be sharing my screen and there'll, I'll go to some website and there'll be a pop over. And, uh, and then I'll, I'll show them how to delete the pop over from inside the browser. And, and then we'll have a little, a little talk about how, like, this is code that came onto your browser and it's, you have control of it cause it's sitting on your computer and you can change it and you can do what you want with it. Um, if you know, it's there.

Charlie Larrabe: Um, and then Charlie, are you like the, are you like the, the Morpheus to their Neo? Is that what I'm hearing here? You're like, it's just, it's the mate to see the matrix. I, I, you can choose Neo.

Charlie Larrabe: I, I would, I would, I would hope so. I would hope so. That's, that's what I, that's what I aspire to be anyways.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Um, yeah. Have you, so have you been doing this long enough to have, so you've been doing this six years, is that right? The, the. Yes, correct. Longer than that.

Charlie Larrabe: Six, about, about six years. I'm, I've, I've been doing it for long enough that my youngest students were not yet born when I started teaching.

Charlie Larrabe: Wow. Okay. I was actually wondering on the other side, have you, have you had any students come back and be like, oh yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm in it. I'm in it to win. And I'm a, you know, computer engineer, software engineer, whatever. I'm, I'm going to school for this sort of stuff. I've chosen, I've chosen the nerd life.

Charlie Larrabe: Right. Um, yeah, no, not, not yet, not yet, but that, but, um, my students, my oldest, students would be like just getting into college or like they'd be in maybe a year or two in college now.

Charlie Larrabe: Got it. Yeah. So a couple more years until they're like, yeah, well I'm at Google now or whatever.

Charlie Larrabe: Uh, yeah, I, I would love to, I would love to hear back from any of my students about, you know, their successes in life or challenges or whatever.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. I mean, I went back and I, I talked to my physics teacher. I told him, I told him to his face. I was like, look, you're the, you're the reason, you're the reason I'm in electronics now. Um, and that's awesome. I think he, I think he appreciated it.

Charlie Larrabe: Um, yeah, he probably spent a moment being like, uh, Chris Camel. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Oh yes. Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I don't know if it was like, I'll show you, I'm going to make a podcast. You're the guy from Australia. Yeah. Right. We'll talk about electronics all the time.

Charlie Larrabe: Right. Well, either that, or maybe leaf back through his grade book and was like, oh yeah, I remember, I remember you.

Charlie Larrabe: Oh yeah. Oh boy. Slightly better than it was. Slightly.

Charlie Larrabe: But yeah, no, I mean, I'm, I'm just kidding. I, you know, I, I, I loved doing, I love doing physics and high school. Like that was such a, yeah.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. It's a formative, you know, and it's like experiments are so like, I don't know, results based. It's like, yeah, the ball rolls down the inclined plane. We did it guys. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: And you, and you start doing math for stuff.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Um, I, I, I guess that's not, that would, that would also be true for chemistry, I guess, but I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. There's a, there's like a lot of stuff that I was supposed to have already known coming into physics. And then I started doing physics and then like all of this stuff from years prior just started clicking and I was like, oh, this is great.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that is, I mean, that's something that, I don't know. I feel like that is a very positive in an educational sense. That is, those are formative moments, right? Where it's like, oh, I get this now. Like, I mean, hell I've talked on the show a couple of times when I finally figured out what the hell all the math was around a four year transform. And I was like, oh, I get it. There's a single line for a sine wave. And that's the frequency. Like, finally, finally.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: You know?

Charlie Larrabe: It's, yeah, it's, yeah, it's great. Um, yeah. I mean, it's great nowadays. It's great. Like, you know, we have, we have these little, little doohickeys. I, I, I have one of those, um, I forget what it's called. Many, many spectrum analyzers or something like that. And it's like.

Charlie Larrabe: Oh, like the nano VNAs? Yes. Yeah. Something. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: And they're just like that. There's a, there's another version that's a spectrum analyzer and it's like the size of a cell phone or something like that. And it just shows you stuff. I don't know. It's really cool. Um, yeah. If I, if I, if I had a college class, I'd probably just like hand out a bunch of those at the beginning of the class. Exactly. You're like, here, play with this. Let's talk about it in a couple of days.

Charlie Larrabe: Go find the spectrum. Yeah. Yeah. Well, on, on the, uh, on the realm of spectrum as well. So you are also a ham, uh, a long time ham. Uh, what, what is your, what is your poison in the ham space? Are you a low power? You have a long distance. Well, you trying to do there.

Charlie Larrabe: You know, I, I'm, I'm still. I just kind of explore. Um, I like doing, um, I guess, I guess I'm, I'm in, I'm interested in satellites. Um, I'm interested in DXing. So getting, so getting like, um, atmospheric skip to go to other countries.

Charlie Larrabe: Um, I'm interested in, that's, that's definitely in the magic realm. Oh yeah. This is going how far. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah, exactly. I guess those are, I guess those are some of the main things. And, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm gradually, um, working on my, my CW or Morse code. Um, which is. Yeah. It takes a long time to learn for me anyways.

Charlie Larrabe: Um, but, but, but, but I feel like that's the hams of old and the Elmers that are out there. They're probably listening to us talk about this stuff and like, like whatever, whatever we're saying about kids these days, they were saying that about us with kids these days. They don't know how to use a CW. And it's like, yep. They don't know Morse for the, from the back of their hand. And I, well, sorry guys. Like, yep.

Charlie Larrabe: And I have screens. I definitely hear them talk about it on the reg about no coders. And it's like, yeah, well, that's fine.

Charlie Larrabe: That's fine. Technology just changes. Yeah. There's just different focus. Foci.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: I suppose.

Charlie Larrabe: But, but one of the, one of the things that I really love about ham radio is that it's a, it's a community where there are people who are exploring electronics, um, from different kinds of backgrounds. And, uh, that's something that I've always thought was a challenge. Um, for me it was like, if I was to learn something, um, or finish a cool project, there wasn't always a good way for me to share that with anybody. Um, you know, uh, but in that type of community, then, you know, people actually get what you're talking about. And it's not like their eyes glaze over like, Oh, Oh wow. You got an op amp wired up to do something. That's great. Wow.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I guess that does, that does help. I mean, so you also do, uh, you know, audio type stuff as well. And I feel like that's another audience where they would be more into it, but it's probably more like, well, yeah, but what does it do for my guitar sound? Yeah. I guess that's more targeted than.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, yeah. And that's, that's a lot of fun to, uh, working with, uh, um, vacuum tubes and, um, that's what a, what a, what a cool technology. And, um, the, my, my latest, my latest project that I've been working on is I'm trying to, trying to mimic the sort of the non linearities of vacuum tubes using a whole bunch of J FETs. Um, Oh, nice. Yeah. And, and so I'm, I'm, uh, building this, it's like a mini guitar amp that where the PCB is the face plate and all the bits sit on the backside and they're, they're, uh, uh, oh, I think I mentioned this to you before the Philadelphia soldering. So like the through hole pieces that are soldered, like bent over and soldered onto the board as if they're, um, surface mount. Um, and I read somebody call that Philadelphia style soldering. And, uh,

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. I've heard Manhattan as well. Ah, okay. Okay. Okay. I think I've seen Philadelphia and Manhattan. I think. Yeah. Do you use like the, the metal pads? No, wait, maybe I'm thinking of a different thing. The, the Manhattan one I think is like the little metal pads that you like glue down and those are like centralized, like SMD points effectively. And then you solder leaded components to that. Maybe this is different than that.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I've, yeah, I've only, it's only like a, ever a thing I've heard mentioned in ham context. So there's no telling where it came from, if it's an actual thing or if somebody just made it up, but.

Charlie Larrabe: Well, you know, Manhattan, Philadelphia, pretty close. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty close together. That's great. And so on the JFET side, I mean, like, so are you, so is that, you know, at the beginning of the show too, you talked about like, I'd rather just kind of figure it out and kind of do it by feel. Is that a thing where you're like, you would go and simulate that first, or is it more of a follow schematic, see how it sounds, see if it's actually nonlinear in a similar way?

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. I, I, I never really do any, any kind of. Um, simulations. Um, although I probably should, but I just, my, my typical design path is I'll just get the data sheets for. The parts and see if I'm making enough, uh, you know, look at impedances, see if I'm making enough power for like an output transformer. Um, try to make my best guess about where things are going to be biased. And then, and then after that, just do empirical measurements. So like on this, on this board, I've, I put in bias pots for every single transistor. Um, so if I'm way off, I can tweak it quite a bit.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, that makes sense. And that's like early, early prototyping type of thing too. And you're trying to kind of, it sounds like you're kind of trying to feel out what's even possible. And if it's in the realm of possibility first.

Charlie Larrabe: Exactly. Exactly. And, and if it works, does it sound good? Um, yeah. And is it, is it fun to play? I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Um, so yeah, I don't know. So that's something, something that I've been, uh, playing with. I'm hoping to maybe release that as a, as a kit. So like a kit that's like 90 degree, 90% finished, like all the parts are on there. You just have to like hook up a power wire and hook up the speaker and maybe, maybe you make an enclosure for the speaker or something like that. And I think a lot of people would find that to be like a fun, fun project. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: And that's a great, like getting started for people in the audio realm as well. Like, yeah, it's a, it's interesting. Like I, you know, I think about ham, I think about audio. These are like really common paths in, and I feel like a lot of people kind of get stopped at that point. They're like, well, okay, well I've stuck together a kit, but then the education piece, they're like, I don't, I can never do the math or whatever. And it's just like, yeah, but just keep going a little bit further. Or, you know, like just look in this one corner over here and you're going to find something else that keeps you going. You know, it's just like, it's tough to, to think about the, the path that would keep people interested enough, especially if they're coming in as adult learners. I feel like that.

Charlie Larrabe: Sure. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: I think resilience is tough.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. And I think that would be a really big challenge to, to, I think it would be easy to get discouraged when you, when you see the breadth and depth of all of the things related to electronics. Um, and it's, and it's so easy to get, um, sort of like out of your element, um, just cause you haven't heard of something, there's a new name for something, but maybe you did know about it, but you just didn't know it was called that.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Like what the, what the, what to Google for problem.

Charlie Larrabe: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I, I definitely, I find it kind of discouraging. I see a lot of stuff on forums online, um, where, where people will be giving advice and it's like the person giving the advice clearly doesn't understand what they're talking about, but they know enough words to be dangerous, you know? And they're just like, this is, you don't know what you're talking about and, and, uh, you got to do a such and such. And, um, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. And, but, but then, but then nobody knows more than that person to be able to like shut them down and be like, okay, just stop. Yeah. So I don't know. Yeah. I think, I think it's a field that can be really intimidating from, if you come in from, you know, starting a fresh.

Charlie Larrabe: Definitely agree. Definitely agree. I mean, so to, to stay on the resilience piece as well, because, you know, we're talking about adult learners and our own experiences with this. Sure. What about kids in like their resilience level as well? I mean, you had mentioned the, like a kid, uh, a student walking up to you and, and having trouble troubleshooting and that sort of thing. But what do you do to encourage resilience? Cause that's another thing I think about, like, you know, teaching my daughter, helping my daughter, like resilience is something that I've seen. The most successful people that I see are the ones who are able to understand when they should stick with it. And like, that is just such a tough thing to do and encourage. And I struggle with myself. What do you see with, with students?

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. So, um, I think resilience is a bit, uh, in a large part is about, um, confidence. And, um, the, the, there are, well, I guess they're related, but there's a, there, the, one of the biggest ways I think to build confidence. If you have a, if you, if you have a student or you're feeling yourself, like I'm not good enough to do this, I can't do this. Or, um, what's the point in trying? Um, I think the, the best thing to do in one of those cases is to, is to break the problem down into like a little bit smaller parts and kind of, you know, kind of set, set that person up for success. Like, like, yeah, I know, I know you're feeling discouraged that to go from A to B, but like, maybe there's a, maybe there's a smaller step in the middle that you can do to show that. Yeah. You are, you are capable of, you know, mastery in this subject. Like, well, like for instance, like I'll, I'll give my, I'll give my middle schoolers like a, like a problem to work on where they, um, they got to make a program that makes the Fibonacci sequence or something. Um, and that we'll do that for like a warmup for class. And, um, then some of them will be like, cool, this is hard and I can do it. Um, and then some of them will be like, what's the point in an event starting? I suck at this. Um, and then we'll try to kind of break it down into some smaller parts and then be like, okay, well, let's start by doing the smaller thing. Here's your step one. And then I get them over step one and then, you know, where's your step two and then getting over step two. And yeah. So, so yeah. So I, I, I don't, I don't know if that's, that answers your question, but I mean, I'm all about building confidence and I think that's what, that's what really allows people to shine. And also, and also people that are not thinking about like, I could, I could be an engineer or I, I think of myself as a coder or stuff like that. Those kids normally don't have any trouble at all.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Cause they've like internalized it. I think that would only be problematic if they run into a true roadblock and then they're like, but I'm supposed to be a coder or I'm supposed to be an engineer. And it's like, well, actually you just ran into a thing where like you're running into the laws of physics and there's nothing you can do there. You know, it's just like, yeah, it's a little, it's only problematic when they run into true problems and it's like, you know, yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: That internalization.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. But by, yeah, by and large for, for kids or for anybody, you know, there's, there's so much value in, in having a mindset of it's like me to do this. You know, it's like me to, to solve this kind of problem. Um, and you know, yeah. So to kind of build that, that mindset up is, is, is really awesome.

Charlie Larrabe: Yes. Once again, I'd like to just say, if I could hire you to come sit in my lab and just to be like, Chris, you know, it's, it's like you to do this or, you know, it's people stuff you're talking about. It's very, it's very important. I think it, you know, one of the things I think about is like, okay, so I'm a hardware engineer. I've been doing this a long time. Uh, but there is so much, I don't know. And so like, I run into a new thing and then sometimes I have to remind myself like, no, no, this is brand new. Like you need to be easy. You need to go easier on yourself. And like, like you're talking about, break it down into smaller steps and, you know, get some small wins and like, man, all these things are just, they're people things. They're not kid things, you know?

Charlie Larrabe: Totally. Totally. I completely agree. Um, well maybe, maybe Chris, um, I can build you a little box with a button on the top of it and press it and it says, you're doing great, Chris. Stay focused. You're going to get this.

Charlie Larrabe: Well, that, yeah, yeah. Make a drawing. Make a drawing. Yeah, that's good. Actually. Yeah. Write, write something down. Have you written something down today? Have you, have you tracked your, your own progress? Yeah, that would be good. Yeah. And then, uh, and then what you need is like a, just like a randomizer. So it just says it in different ways. So I'm not like, oh, well, that's just, that's just the Charlie box talk. And I, I can ignore that. Oh yes.

Charlie Larrabe: I, I, I actually, I had one of my students from a couple of years ago had this awesome. We do, we do these, um, innovation projects like as a, like as a capstone, um, uh, project at the end of the year. Uh, one of my students made an electronic, um, uh, site psychologist or, or, um, or therapist or whatever.

Charlie Larrabe: And like a Lucy, uh, five cents, the psychiatrist is in sort of thing, but yeah, yes, yes.

Charlie Larrabe: He made that. And, and, and it has like four or five different buttons on the front and it's like, I'm feeling sad and you press the sad button and then, and then it's like his, his voice reads, um, uh, some inspiring sentence of guidance. And then, you know, the next button is I'm feeling angry or depressed or whatever. And it's, and then, and then this, this student recorded themselves speaking these things and it was so cool. Um, that's awesome. Yeah. I, I loved it so much.

Charlie Larrabe: Um, yeah. And he just, that's really, I mean, that's, that's marketable. That's, that's a pro that is a true product right there. Yeah. Basically, basically Dr. Phil's entire, uh, career in, uh, in electronic product. Yeah. Maybe some, some more drama built in. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: It's, it's probably, it's probably out there, but usually the, usually the little boxes that you push a button in it, um, it says something rude. Yeah. That's the only kind of gifts. That's the only kind I've seen. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: That's great. Okay. So I'm, I've mentioned a couple of times that I'm invested in my daughter's education. And just general learning and becoming a good human. Uh, two things about that. One, I'm curious about your interaction with parents and how to not be the kind that teachers don't like. Two, I'm curious about like kind of best case paths you see for, you know, a lot of people listening probably also have kids and like, should we be buying them kits that are robots or should we, you know, like, should we be putting them in summer camp that is for nerds or sending them to space? You know what I mean? Like just your experience or obviously it's, you know, whatever it is, but, um, I'd love to hear it.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah, sure. Um, yeah. So, so to your first question, my interactions with parents are like generally great. Um, I'm really, I'm really lucky because I, I, I have a, like a specific class that, that kids are generally really excited to go to.

Charlie Larrabe: And yeah, I, oh, I'm, I can almost guarantee that you are the class they talk about when, when the kids come home and like, how was school today?

Charlie Larrabe: And it's like, I hope, I hope so. That would be my, that would be my hope.

Charlie Larrabe: Professor Larrabee is, is, is, is, is the jam, you know, he's like, that would, that

Charlie Larrabe: would be my hope. Um, so, so, and, and, and, and the other thing is I only, I only see them for pretty, pretty small part of the day. So the, the, the likelihood that we're going to have like profound issues is not, not, not that high. Um, so to, to your, to your, so, so, so generally, so generally like, oh man, my, my parents are awesome and like super supportive.

Charlie Larrabe: And yeah, they're, they're, they're kind of, I was kind of secretly hoping that you'd be like, well, this one guy and don't do what this one guy does. He is just a total over the top so-and-so, but yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. So, I mean, I mean, so, so coming from a teacher's perspective, I mean, like, like, I think what, what teachers are generally hoping for from parents is like to, you know, to listen and listen and have, have trust in them, but also like, you know, tell them your opinions and just to, to have an open communication. Right. Cause teachers spend so much time with kids. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Being involved, being in, uh, going to, uh, PTO stuff. Like, like I have a group, great relationships with all of my PTO parents and like, they're, they're awesome. They're amazing. Um, and that's, and that's really helpful for the kids for to, to, to have that, that kind of communication bond that, that, that, um, provides that continuity throughout their entire day. Right. So I'm with mom and dad, I'm with my teacher and like, they talk with each other. And so everything, everything is, you know, connected. So that's, that's a good thing. Um, yeah, in terms of, uh, in terms of like how you can be a better, um, person, like a better, better parent. Um, that's a, that is a really hard question. Um, that's pretty broad.

Charlie Larrabe: I was actually more thinking like in the, uh, in the technology. So like, you know, how do I encourage a child to, to do fun, creative things? You know, I guess that's the real thing, you know, like thinking about the, so for example, uh, we, we bought my nephews and my niece robot kits. So that was a real example. So we bought them like robot kits for, for Christmas this year. A lot of fun. You know, I don't know if it's going to be a thing. Yeah. But hopefully maybe that'll inspire them to love robots, you know, that sort of thing.

Charlie Larrabe: No, definitely. And if it's not in it, and, and if they don't immediately launch into it, it can go on the shelf for a little bit until they think about it some more and they're ready to mess with it again later. Um, and that's the, that's the, the thing that's really challenging about being a teacher, about being a parent, um, is knowing what things are age appropriate. Like what, what are, what do kids, what are, what do kids want and what are they capable of at their particular age? Um, yeah. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Like developmentally and, and just like attention wise. And yeah, totally.

Charlie Larrabe: Exactly. Um, and some of the, some of the resources that I've used, um, a lot for figuring that kind of stuff out is, um, looking at, um, a lot, there's, there's a lot of free educational stuff for kids out there. Um, now, so like code, code.org is a great resource. Um, uh, commonsense.org is an, is an awesome resource. I would recommend anybody, anyone who's a parent to go to commonsense.org. Um, and that, that's about online safety and that, that type of thing. Um, and they're, yeah. And they're, they're very keyed into like, it's made by teachers. It's, uh, and they're, they're very keyed into like, this is, um, this is, these are the kinds of problems that I, that a first or second grader is going to have with like going on the internet or, um, these, or interact, interacting with technology in some ways. Um, and it, and it gives parents ideas of like, uh, this TV show or this movie is, is appropriate for this age or not or whatever. So that I, I use that resource a lot. Um, uh, let's see, what would I say? Code.org, commonsense.org. Um, and also recently I've been looking at the, the, the positive discipline, um, series of books. Um, I just read the one for, for toddlers cause that's kind of where, or sorry, the one for preschoolers cause that's kind of where my daughter is right now. Um, and those, that series of books is really good cause it talks about how to, how to look at kids motivations, um, and what's appropriate for their age level and like how to, how to encourage them to, to make their own choices and do their own stuff. Um, and it's, it's a vast, it's a vast topic.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. I've had this discussion with my wife, uh, many times around like, well, I, you know, I want like my kids to be a nerd and she's like, you, you don't get to, you don't get to choose that Chris. I'm like, I know, but I still want it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Fine. She can, I guess, live her life in the best way she can. Fine. Whatever. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: But, but I mean, the, the, the, the best, the, the best thing, you know, that I think that any parent can do is listen to their kid and enable them to make choices, you know, when it's appropriate and, you know, just, just set them up to succeed and build confidence and, you know, then they'll do great. And listen. That's great. Great.

Charlie Larrabe: That's great advice. Yeah. I mean, other, other teaching resources you've done as you've built other stuff up. I mean, you, you've mentioned SparkFun, the Adafruit boards and stuff like that. And microbit, any other, any other platforms you've seen, you know, as you've developed

Charlie Larrabe: curriculum as an educator, there's so many, there's so many great, great ones out right now. Oh, and I should, I should mention that we're using, we're using within the circuit playground express world. We're using circuit Python. Oh yeah. Cause I wanted to, it's, it's been working really well. We're, we're using like a beta, a beta, um, IDE that's, that runs on the web browser and it, and it works pretty well. I, I, I wish that we could be using like a real one that's running on the computers, but they, the kids are all on Chromebooks and that's a, that's a walled garden. So everything's got to be kind of on the web browser. Um, yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: So then it uses like web USB to talk to the actual hardware and stuff like that.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Which is, which is pretty amazing.

Charlie Larrabe: It's getting better. It's definitely getting better. I've, I've been looking at it a little bit for work and it's, uh, yeah, but it's amazing that it can even do that. Like web USB, web Bluetooth, like all these things that are like, sweet. My browser's talking to a Bluetooth device. Like that's just kind of blows my mind that it's possible.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Um, yeah. Like it's a little bit scary, but it's also really cool. Um, you know, that, that your web browser has that much control on your computer. Yeah. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: But, uh, but I mean like, well, like you said with Chromebooks, I mean those, that's almost like the whole OS is inside of Chrome at that point. So, but that's how a lot of, that's how they keep the cost down for these, you know, educational laptops anyways. Right. That's like a pretty common thing.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They work pretty, they work pretty well. Everything works pretty well. And kids get to learn about the cloud and how everything auto saves for you all the time and files never exist anywhere. They just kind of disappear into the mist until you call them back somehow.

Charlie Larrabe: Right. Magical incantations, you know? Yep. You like do a mashup with like Harry Potter or something. That's a good idea. Spelliamus. Delete.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Oh yeah. And I had, I had mentioned you're, you're asking about, um, hardware and stuff. And I mentioned, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of, I'm investigating how to build my classroom out into like the kindergarten age level. So this is, um, there's a, there's a robot that I'm, that I'm looking at that I haven't used yet. Um, but I'm really excited about that reads, it's a line follower and it reads the colors of the lines. Um, Oh, cool. So the, so the students would be able to, to, um, color in the, uh, the color, like a different sequence of colors would mean like go faster, go slower, turn left, turn right. Um, that, that type of thing. That's a great idea. Yeah. So they could.

Charlie Larrabe: Cause then it mashes up with like what they are already doing, like in art class or something. So like you're saying at like that age of kindergarten or whatever, right. That's like, that's really good.

Charlie Larrabe: So they can build their program on a sheet of paper with a magic marker and it looks like a, like a racetrack, but you know, the robot goes through the track and different sequences or, or whatever. Um, and, um, yeah, but if, yeah, anyways, I think, yeah, I'm, of course, I'm going to get them right now because the chips aren't available. Well, yeah, of course. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Have you ever thought about developing hardware in this space? I mean, like what that, I don't, I'm not sure what it, how it's presented. One, one thing I've always seen is just like, it's, I think someone I knew, well, actually a classmate of ours is Zach Ferdin. I was, yes. So he talked about kind of selling it in the educational market on the show here and he was doing it for an SBIR grant. And like, he just said, it's just really long timelines and the cycles are really difficult. Yeah. I don't know if you looked at that.

Charlie Larrabe: Yes. I remember listening to his interview and, and, uh, it's, it's, his project sounded so cool, but I think he was making neurons or something like that. And, um, that's right.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Neuro bites. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Um, but, but yeah, I think the, I feel like the education space is really challenging because like you, I guess, I, I guess you, you'd have to, you'd have to make something that people felt like were relevant and it would have to be really cheap because it's for, cause it's for kids and, or for a classroom. And so you have to be able to purchase like 50 or a hundred of them like at a time.

Charlie Larrabe: And you have to price in the cost of curriculum, I think as well, because I think just hardware by itself is, you know, like that's not nearly enough. I mean, this is something that like the Adafruits and the, you know, the spark funds of the world kind of have baked in, but it's not really even made someone like you as an educator, you're taking that and then putting curriculum further around that. Like the stuff I think about that, like is sold to school systems has to be like, no, no, here's a lesson module. Here's like a plan to use all this stuff. And by the way, here's a bunch of spares because you're going to break stuff. And yeah, it's just, it seems like a very difficult ecosystem.

Charlie Larrabe: Yep. Yep. Yeah. And you're so right. It's all, it's all about the support and the lesson plan too. Like that's just as important as the hardware. Um, I was thinking about building, uh, designing boards for a lot to make tiny line followers based on the AT tiny processor. And, and I was going to use that as like a summer camp project for two weeks. And, um, and then I looked around and found that somebody already does that. Um, it's the, the, uh, what's the brand? Is it Olimax? That's in.

Charlie Larrabe: Olimax is one of them. Yep. Yep.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Yeah. They sell these kits for like $4. That's like an entire, it's an entire robot. Um, with a microcontroller and two little tiny, uh, motors and it lives on this little PCB and it's, and it's great. They're, they're really cool. Um, right.

Charlie Larrabe: Probably not making a lot of margin per robot there though, as a, as a business. I mean, Olimax has other, many other things that they sell, but like, yeah, that, that might be a loss leader more than a, uh, you know, they make more on the cable than they do on the, on the robot or something like that.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. But, but I mean, I got everything, everything nowadays is like so saturated with gadgets and, uh, educational stuff that, uh, I don't know. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, uh, I wouldn't dare to like jump in there and be like, yeah, I'm, I'm going to come up with this novel idea that no one else has thought of and, and, uh, get rich off of it. I'm more likely to go in there and be like, okay, let's see what someone else has done and let's adapt it. Yeah.

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Um, that makes, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I think that, I think that the whole idea of like getting rich off of it is, yeah, I don't think that's going to happen in the educational space, but you know, maybe if you do enough things and if you build enough curriculum around it, then maybe you can, you know, build a business there, you know, like that's like, but a business is different than being rich. Right. Right. Right.

Charlie Larrabe: But yeah, God, there's so much, so, so much good stuff out there right now. Um, it's, it's, it's incredible. Like I, yeah, I, I owe a lot to companies like Adafruit and spark fun and code.org and, uh, Autodesk and, you know, they, they, they make so many great products now for kids and early learning. It's, it's, it's amazing.

Charlie Larrabe: Charlie, where can people find out more about you and the programs you work on and maybe follow you and your ham radio exploits?

Charlie Larrabe: Yeah. Um, so, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll go in reverse order. You can look me up on qrz.com. I've got a little page on there. Um, if you're interested in ham stuff, I have a, um, uh, my own personal website with some of my projects is at larabielabs.com. That's L A double R A B double E labs.com. And, um, my, my school website is at S S E S H.org. Um, that's St. Stephen's Episcopal school, Houston.org. Um, so yeah, you can find some of my stuff on there.

Charlie Larrabe: Well, Charlie, thanks so much for joining me here today and, uh, inspiring me to, to get into electronics deeper. Uh, I've always enjoyed watching your work and talking to you about electronics. It is, I hope to keep doing it for many more years.

Charlie Larrabe: Hey, Chris, it's, um, it's been a pleasure. I could say, I could say all the same things about you. So thank you for having me on. I, I really appreciate it. Talk to you soon. All right. Bye-bye.

Charlie Larrabe: Bye-bye.

Speaker ?: Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.