Promoting education in engineering and design for all ages. Learn more and read transcripts at www.k12engineering.net. Produced by Pius Wong, engineer, of Pios Labs (www.pioslabs.com). This podcast is for educators, engineers, entrepreneurs, and parents interested in bringing engineering to younger ages. Listen to real conversations among various professionals in the engineering education space, as we try to find better ways to educate and inspire kids in engineering thinking. For episode tr ...
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Soft and Squishy Robots in the Classroom, with Dr. Holly Golecki
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Modern robotics can interact with the human body in newer, innovative ways, using flexible materials and compliant actuators. Dr. Holly Golecki, Ph.D., wants to teach young people all about it, recently sharing her team’s K-12 curriculum in soft robotics in The Science Teachermagazine. A professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, …
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Engineering Meat Cruelty-Free, with Dr. Katie Kam
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Cultivated meat has the potential to disrupt the meat industry, and engineer Dr. Katie Kam joins the podcast to talk about it. Katie founded BioBQ, her startup that’s developing cultivated beef brisket. She explains how cultivated meat – also known as “cultured meat” or “lab meat” – is real meat that avoids animal slaughter by being grown in a bior…
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Solve Real Problems and Win Real Prizes, with Autumn and George Dowdy and Ann Woo
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The Solve for Tomorrow design competition from Samsung is starting up again, and three guests join the podcast to explain how it works, and why schools and businesses should invest in K-12 STEM education. George Dowdy led his students at Porter High School to win the most recent competition, while Autumn Dowdy led her students at the same school to…
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Teaching Coding to the Community with a Small Business, with Amy Pirzada
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Amy Pirzada started My Coding Place as an educational business focused on teaching coding to kids in Austin. But she soon expanded to teach chess, game design, 3D modeling, 3D printing, and more technical topics in problem-solving to wider audiences. She talks about the mission of her entrepreneurial business, how to teach kids programming effectiv…
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The Physics Circus Teaches Science, with Joseph Ziegel
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The Physics Circus at The University of Texas at Austin tries to attract kids to science using loud and entertaining demonstrations that might not be as accessible to the average school. Led by graduate students doing the latest in physics research, The Physics Circus is getting back into live shows again. Joseph Ziegel is one of the coordinators o…
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The Science Journal for Kids, with Tanya Dimitrova
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Do scientific research articles sometimes sound like another language? To K-12 students, very often it’s yes. Tanya Dimitrova tried to help solve this problem by founding the Scientific Journal for Kids, where her team of writers, designers, and teachers translates articles from scientific research journals into more kid-friendly language. Tanya ta…
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Design Biomolecular Circuits, with Dr. Xiaojing Gao
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What is synthetic biology? Researcher and professor Dr. Xiaojing Gao introduces this cutting edge field. He explains how his lab at Stanford University engineers biomolecular circuits, which are meant to be programmable, reproducible, and friendlier to mammalian cells than non-biological molecules. Xiaojing hopes to create the building blocks of th…
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A Video Game for Designing Robots, with Dan White
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Learning in robotics doesn’t have to take weeks, if you can design, build, and test a robot in hours in a video game. Dan White, CEO of Filament Games, introduces RoboCo, their game meant to teach principles of robotics to players, from the mechanical design all the way to testing in the 3D world. Dan discusses cofounding Filament Games with partne…
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Reach Youth by Listening to Them, with Scott Steward
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Chicago educator and entrepreneur Scott Steward breaks down his teaching philosophy, rooted in getting to know his students. Steward founded Genius Lab in Chicago, where he teaches young people technology, business, and how to become an adult. He honed his curriculum from teaching in Chicago Public Schools classrooms for fifteen years in largely bl…
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Robotics Competitions after 2021, with Dan Mantz
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The Robotics Education and Competition (REC) Foundation has been running robotics programs for youth for years, including the widespread global competitions sponsored by VEX Robotics. Dan Mantz is the CEO of the REC Foundation, leading this nonprofit through the pandemic, after previously working in industrial engineering and robotics for over twen…
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Teach Harder Math and Problem-Solving, with Richard Rusczyk
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Math is fundamental to engineering education and other disciplines. That’s part of why Richard Rusczyk wants to teach kids harder math than they often see in school. As the CEO of Art of Problem Solving, he wants to challenge more young people mathematically, hopefully giving them an earlier chance to achieve math mastery. He talks about national m…
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Teach 3D Printing, with David Seto and Michael Welch
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Kids can learn CAD for 3D printing, but teaching it doesn’t have to be a hassle. David Seto and Michael Welch wrote a set of books to make teaching and learning the subject easier. They based it on their own experiences with 3D printing, learning it as beginners, coming from finance and mobile games industries, and then teaching CAD for 3D printing…
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Trans Engineers You Should Know, with Dr. Ada-Rhodes Short
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Mechanical engineer Dr. Ada-Rhodes Short studies robot brains, having previously worked in industry and academia for commercial toy companies, NASA, Texas A&M, and more. She also advocates for diversity and inclusion in education and STEM for trans people, including her time founding the Sexual Identity Forum at Baylor University. Dr. Short talks a…
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Aiming for Equity in K-12 Computer Science, with Rosemary Kamei
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The Silicon Valley Education Foundation (SVEF) is a nonprofit running several programs in K-12 STEM education, including its Computer Science Institute for middle and high school teachers. Rosemary Kamei is the Chief Development and Innovation Officer of SVEF, and she talks about why SVEF piloted its CS Institute a few years ago and how it has been…
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CAD in a Web Browser, with Amanda Hough
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The pandemic has spurred teachers like Amanda Hough to teach CAD remotely, but how do you do that if students don’t have the hardware to run resource-heavy CAD software? Amanda uses cloud-based CAD platform OnShape, and her students run it in a web browser, no installs needed. She talks about her experience switching over to OnShape this year, its …
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Better K-12 Engineering Post-COVID, with Dr. Corey Hall
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STEM curriculum specialist Dr. Corey Hall shares tips and resources for teaching engineering effectively at the K-12 level in 2021, both during and beyond COVID. Corey recommends teaching strategies and products based on her 24 years of experience in education, as a school librarian, middle school teacher, professor, and online teacher. She discuss…
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How to Change the Education System, with Suzanne Demallie
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The education system can change top-down, or bottom-up. Author Suzanne DeMallie wrote “Can You Hear Me Now?” – a book about how parents and teachers might change our schools from the bottom-up. She draws on her own experiences in Baltimore County Public Schools as an elementary math teacher from 2011 to 2019, a parent of children in BCPS, and an ad…
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LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, have changed the world – and continue to do so. This energy-efficient electronics technology came from decades of design and discovery in engineering. Dr. Russell Dupuis is one of the engineers behind LEDs, and he recently was one of five winners of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for his work in this techn…
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Teaching HTML/CSS, Unplugged and Offline, with Sam Taylor
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How do you learn web development without a computer, or without any electronic device? Sam Taylor wrote a book to help learners do just that. As a former middle school teacher and current tech worker, Sam wrote the newly released educational book titled The Coding Workbook, which intends to teach the basics of HTML and CSS, but with no computer req…
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Aerospace Engineering Entrepreneur, with Mishaal Ashemimry
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Mishaal Ashemimry is an aerospace engineer and pilot who, after working for major aerospace organizations, formed her own aerospace startup to design rockets for small, low-Earth orbit satellites. As a Saudi American, she got interested in the stars when she was young, looking up at the sky while visiting Saudi Arabia. She describes many parts of h…
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What Do Equations Sound Like on the Piano?
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Let’s make equations musical. Instead of visualizing equations on a graph, let’s listen to them on the piano, merging all our math and music knowledge. You can make two-dimensional x-y math equations audible – or sonify them – by translating the x-values to time and the y-values to the keys of a piano. If you can’t play them on the piano yourself, …
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Modernizing Army Training in Software and Tech
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Army Futures Command (AFC) is partnering with Austin Community College (ACC) in Texas to create a new Software Factory, which will be a software development training program for Army soldiers. Planned to start in January, it will blend training of both soldiers and civilians in newer tech practices in agile development. Maj. Vito Errico from AFC wi…
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Schools have reopened in Fall 2020 amid the COVID19 pandemic, and educators are putting in overtime to make it work. Four educators speak about their experiences getting students learning again either online or in person: Superintendent Teddy Clevinger in Bell County, Texas; engineering entrepreneurship teacher Melanie Kong in Seattle, Washington; …
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Listen and Learn: Making an Audio Course in Science for Kids
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How do you make an audio-based course to teach science topics to kids? Podcast creator, teacher, and musician Marshall Escamilla explains. Marshall is a co-creator of the highly rated Tumble Science Podcast for Kids. He drew on his podcasting experience and his years in the classroom to develop a “podcourse” for Himalaya Learning, focused on explor…
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Model railroading is uniquely primed for doing educational outreach today, says Stacey Walthers Naffah, President of Milwaukee-based Walthers. Walthers is a major model railroading company, distributing and manufacturing products for hobbyists around the world. Stacey discusses how the industry has a big opportunity to add to K-12 education, in his…
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How Do You Build a Career in EdTech?
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These teachers know tech. Steve Dembo and Victoria Thompson teach in K-12 and are also educational technology consultants. Steve is a middle school teacher and founder of the edtech consulting and training company Teach42, based out of Chicago, and Victoria is a math teacher in Washington and consults on edtech products for different large corporat…
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The nonprofit Beyond Benign specializes in developing and disseminating educational resources in green chemistry – like how to create bioplastics, or thinking about a full product life cycle – and two guests from Beyond Benign joined the podcast to talk about it. Janie Butler is the K-12 Program Manager for the organization, and Eric Nash is a high…
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Rachel describes how her small Texas school district can function in the middle of COVID-19. As a school district administrator, she has to organize many major actions in this crisis, ranging from meal distribution to bolstering cybersecurity as teachers transition to online learning. Her team still must wrestle with many new questions as they come…
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As a biomedical engineer in orthobiologics, Neil Thompson still had to do a lot of public speaking. He was a self-professed awful public speaker, but then he worked hard to improve his skills. Now he wants to teach other STEM professionals the same public speaking strategies he learned, so they can get better like he did. Neil talks about best prac…
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The South-by-Southwest education conference for 2020 is cancelled, due to emergency declarations related to COVID-19. Pius and Rachel discuss what happens next, for educators in Texas and across the country.Related to this episode: • How Coronavirus Took Down SXSW: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/03/sxsw-cancellation-coronavirus-austin-music-fi…
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Casey Lamb and Roger Horton work with the nonprofit organization Schools That Can. Schools That Can aims to promote real-world learning in education, with particular experience fostering real-world learning for younger students. This takes many forms, including collaborating with industry, teaching design thinking, and embracing the maker movement.…
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Project manager and software engineer Rick Kennedy is running for US House Representative for District 17 in Texas, in the 2020 Democratic primary. After decades working in tech, and after Trump was elected, Rick decided to run for office to try to solve difficult social problems and help end political divisiveness in the country. He joins the podc…
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How do you “develop your practice” as a teacher and administrator? Rachel and Pius discuss this question and share their thoughts on going deeper into their careers as educators, all after a dinner of Austin barbecue.Related to this episode: • Slab BBQ: http://realdopebbq.com/• The cover art is a photo of the Slab BBQ wall, showing patches from the…
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Hugo Fruehauf, one of the co-inventors of GPS, explains the nitty-gritty of what GPS is. He also details his critical engineering work on the GPS subsystem of the atomic clock. Hugo was one of four recipients of the 2019 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, along with Dr. Bradford Parkinson, Professor James Spilker, and Richard Schwartz.Related t…
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Australian Trends in Engineering Education
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Like much of the world, Australian educators are increasingly embracing STEM education for younger students. Chris Perkins is one such teacher at Keithcot Farm Primary School outside Adelaide, South Australia. He talks about a range of issues on his radar as a STEM teacher, including how he stays up-to-date, Australian inventions, how New South Wal…
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What does a chemical engineer do? What makes a good one? What should young people know about the field? Chemical engineer Will Mullen helps us answer these questions and more. Will is a Process Engineer and Engineering Manager at a manufacturing plant for specialty chemicals in North Carolina. Before that he managed facilities and worked in chemica…
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Career Advice for New Electrical and Software Engineers
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What should you look for in your first engineering job? How do you bridge high school, college, internships, and then finally full-time work? Is college worth it for the tech industry? Engineer and developer Omar Leyva gives advice on all this and more, speaking as an Android developer and computer engineer at Tile, a consumer electronics company i…
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What do young people think about STEM fields today? Michigan STEM educator Danielle Boyer talks about her perspective as a recent high school graduate who teaches robotics to many young K-12 students. She talks about her lower-cost robot platform Every Kid Gets a Robot, her coloring books for STEM representation, young people’s college fears, and a…
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Distributed systems rule much of new technology today, as software programs exist across multiple computers, servers, phones, and smart devices. How can students learn to program these systems? Start with a visual programming environment, says Dr. Akos Ledeczi from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Ledeczi is an electrical and comp…
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Teaching Accessibility by Building Picture Books for the Blind
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How can you teach universal design to kids and teens? Have them build accessible games and books, according to The Build a Better Book project, from The University of Colorado Boulder. Guests Dr. Stacey Forsythe and Dr. Kathryn Penzkover develop the Build a Better Book project at UC Boulder, which provides curriculum for schools and libraries to te…
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Educating a Cybersecurity Professional
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In this age of growing internet technology and connected computers, cybersecurity engineers and computer scientists will be more critical. Software engineer Sam Houston joins the podcast to talk about how she got into the security field, led by interests in computers and a desire to protect those in need. Sam is also a former student of Rachel, and…
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If you missed the 2019 edition of the South by Southwest Education (SXSW Edu) conference in Austin, Texas, we rehash some highlights that you may have missed. We talk about empathy, accessibility, and a few new tech tools available to educators discovered at the conference.Related to this episode: • SXSW Edu: https://sxswedu.com• UT McCombs School …
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Texans across the state and across the political divide agree: public school funding needs fixing. What that means exactly, however, is tricky. In Part 1, Texas State Representative Donna Howard explains the school finance conundrum and its evolution over the years, along with some potential solutions floating around the legislature. In Part 2, pol…
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Water Systems with the Army Corps of Engineers
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Problem-solving, technology, and public service all combine when you work as an engineer for the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Dr. Michael Sterling, PhD, is a lead water resource engineer at the US Army Corps of Engineers, Southwestern Division, and he oversees missions related to water supply, flood prevention, hydroelectric power, and more …
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The educational technology company Robolink is coming out with a new robotics platform for teaching kids the fundamentals of programming artificial intelligence (AI). Hansol Hong is the CEO and Founder of San Diego-based Robolink. Hansol discusses their latest AI education product Zümi, which won an award at the 2019 International Consumer Electron…
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Educator Rachel and engineer Pius introduce Season 4 and brainstorm about what interests us in K-12 engineering education today. We talk about school finance reform, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and more.Related to this episode: • Lego programming: https://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms/learn-to-program • Article on Facebook security brea…
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Engineers Sadhan and Pius continue an ongoing series of discussions on the fundamentals of mechanical engineering. Today they talk about what they remember about statics, forces, acceleration, moments, relativity, stars, and more.Related to this episode: • Statics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statics• Dynamics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynam…
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The Startup Reinventing Invention Kits
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What are the trends in educational kids’ toys today? How can programming kits be improved? How does an education business start and succeed? Entrepreneur Joseph Greer in Chicago discusses these issues as he describes his STEM education startup, MakeXchange, and its “Invention Lab” Arduino kit. The kit was designed to be more user-friendly and more …
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Games and Simulations in Construction Engineering
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Architectural and civil engineers are using rich digital tools to simulate constructed buildings. Similar tools are also being used in digital video games and virtual reality games that might teach future engineers. Dr. Fadi Castronovo speaks about his efforts to advance engineering education using simulations and games like these. Fadi is an engin…
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Reaching the High School Girls Who Didn't See Themselves in Tech
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Among the various STEM education organizations that have developed throughout the last several years, there is ChickTech. The local Austin chapter of the nonprofit began just a few years ago, and Dana DeFebbo, its Assistant Director, discusses how ChickTech Austin reaches out to high school girls who might not have had opportunities in tech. Dana t…
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