Ep. 91: Zooming In on the Engineering Design Process with Michael Bycraft

Michael Bycraft

As mentioned during our chat, here is Michael sitting on a student engineered chair made out of only three pieces of cardboard.

How to reach Michael:

X (formerly Twitter): @mabycraft

Backyard Squirrel Maze:

Michael mentioned Mark Rober in our chat, so here is a highly entertaining example of his amazing YouTube videos about engineering and inventions.

Transcript:

Melissa Milner 0:08

Welcome to The Teacher As... podcast. I'm your host Melissa Milner, a teacher who is painfully curious and very easily inspired. This podcast is ever changing. And I hope with each season, you find episodes that speak to you in your work as an educator. This is the fifth season of The Teacher As..., and it's exciting to see the growth in how many educators are listening. Episodes are released every other week. If you enjoy The Teacher As... please rate it on Apple podcasts and leave a review. It helps the podcast reach more educators. Thanks for listening.

Michael Bycraft 0:42

I'm Mike Bycraft. I teach design and robotics and makerspace right now at the International School of Bangkok, where I just started about two weeks ago. And before that I was teaching at Korea International School just outside of Seoul, where I was for eight years, kind of started the design program with some other teachers and built it and it grew. And then before that for 10 years, I was teaching physics and engineering in the United States for like a decade. So this is year 19. I think for me, I don't know, I really like building cool stuff, super industry and directly classrooms trying to do weird stuff in my classroom, that's fun that the kids are into. That's always been kind of my jam. And it's been cool over time to kind of like change my teaching style completely and let kids do more and more and more of their own things. And it's made it a lot more fun.

Melissa Milner 1:32

Very cool. I first saw you, I think it was an Instagram video, like an Instagram reel where the students had to design a chair.

Michael Bycraft 1:45

Yeah.

Melissa Milner 1:45

And would you be able to sit on it and not fall on your butt. And that was so fun to watch.

Michael Bycraft 1:51

Thanks. Yeah, the cardboard chair project. I my very first year at Korea International School, I wanted to build a chair. I was like I got this woodshop and go build a chair chair. And I came in over the weekend to try to build the chair. And it was terrible. Because I was like, Oh, I'll build it myself. Yeah, it was not a good project. So I'm like, what else can I do? And it's kind of an old hat project from engineering school, but they give you like three sheets of cardboard, and you got to build a chair that supports a person. So I thought my kids could do that. Maybe I don't know. And so I just kind of started from there. And I did it every year. It's such a highlight now, and the kid got super into it. And yeah, I'm like it has to support students' weight. But you know, if you're really cool support my weight, because I'm a lot bigger than most of my kids. That's that's half the fun, right? You sit in it and the thing collapses. And the kids all freak out. They love it. But it doesn't sound like a bad grade for them that it collapses, right? Because I'm a big dude. It's okay that it collapses.

Melissa Milner 2:47

It's the process. Do they then go back and see if they can tweak it?

Michael Bycraft 2:50

Yeah, absolutely. With my classes, I've always wanted that. Like you always want to have the processes. The big thing is, is it nice at the end? Does it look cool? I guess that's nice. But it's about that whole building of it. And yeah, they build prototypes and see if it works. And then we'll kind of revisit these designs. Why did it fail? What happened that caused that? And a lot of the times they had a lot of insight and like yeah, here's this one spot that failed. And that's what happened. And it's cool. I mean, like, oh, yeah, I can build it again. Of course, my school won't let me buy enough cardboard and build it twice.

Melissa Milner 3:20

Oh my gosh, that's amazing. When you mentioned that you change the way you taught. So do you want to just give sort of the genesis of your teaching and your philosophy? Yeah.

Michael Bycraft 3:32

So this started a while back. So I was teaching in the states and teaching bio and physics classes with everybody. And you'd have one or two teaching partners, and they hand you a piece of paper. Here's the lab we do. And everybody would do the lab. And it's exact same lab, it does what it's supposed to do. I just was like, Oh, no man. And I remember I had a really nice, it's my second year of teaching I had because it's one class and I just was like, I don't know, I want to do something cool. And I just put a box of junk together and just handed it to every kid and was like, do recreate one of Newton's laws for me and demonstrate it. And it was awful. And the lab, you know, went all over the place that everybody struggled, but it was kind of fun. And kids were like, that was cool. And they wrote like some learning objectives. Oh, it shows Newton's law because this and this and it kind of put this thing in my head like, well, it doesn't have to be in my hands. Like it doesn't have to be it's they're learning they should go learn. And over time, I kind of would try and do different stuff, build your own lab. And then when I got abroad and started doing like Makerspace design full time as a job, there's just there's so much freedom to like make up whatever they want, they can make what they want. So I started these projects that were okay build a chair right or build a board game or build it. I could open up further and further and I would do these really general parameters like once a game to you or my high school kids. I just give them one word now and say okay, this unit is entertainment and go and it's like what do you think is is entertainment. Right? Is it a game is it like an interactive thing, it can be electrical, it can be whatever they want. And I've just letting go more and more has made my kids work better and better and better. And I think that's just been such a gift for learning. Because my students are just, they're having fun, they're doing the stuff they want to do their works better. They're more invested. Right? And it's just been kind of this long process to get here now, because it's scary, right? Letting go of your classroom is scary.

Melissa Milner 5:31

That's student centered. Yeah, it's important. It is even with, you know, an elementary, we have, like so much curriculum that we need to cover, sort of that's amazing to hear, you know, because it sounds like sort of what happened with me is when I started teaching in 91, it was this is what we do. Okay. And then I tweaked it. And then I find every year I'm changing things up. But you know, I never do it the same because you don't have the same kids. You want to see what their interests are. And so that's another reason. I was like, Oh, I have to get Michael on the podcast, because I see the stuff you're doing. So really quickly. How did you end up from the States going to was it? Was it Korea?

Michael Bycraft 6:11

Yeah, it was.

Melissa Milner 6:12

Yeah.

Michael Bycraft 6:13

So this is this. I love telling the story. So you know, my wife and I were teaching for 10 years. And we were like, okay, yeah, this is a career. And I was in a pretty big department. I think it was like 16 or 17 people. And one day a co worker came in, and she said, Well, we're not coming back next year. Oh, okay. You go into another school. You guys move in? Because we're moving to Ukraine. And I went, Okay, what's going on there? And she's like, so there's international schools. And we applied for a bunch. Her husband was a social studies teacher, she was a science teacher. And they had two kids. And they said, Yeah, they they ship you over, they pay for your kids go to school there, they pay for you to live there. Yeah, it's good to go. And we're out of here. And we sold our house. And I was just blown away, that this was the thing, I had no idea. But she's like, international people are all over the world. And in the, you know, post World War Two, they started these schools for some kids that live abroad, and they start, you know, they use us curriculum, or they use IB or something. And I just, as soon as I heard that, that's what I want to do. I want to get out of here, I want to see the world. I want to go on adventures, and my wife took about four years to sell on the topic, oh, man, I don't know, we're gonna be away from our family. I had been abroad, once I had been out of the country one time. So what we found was, there's a online, there's like a website, and you put your resume up, and they vet everything. And then schools post their stuff. It's called Search associates. And then just, it kind of makes connections and you see openings for schools, and you just sent him your resume and the advent of zoom, and all this stuff, like we interviewed. So this was 2014. We interviewed with so we sent out a bunch of applications. And we got calls back from a lot of schools, and it was between Qatar, and Korea. And a couple of because they had spots for both my wife and I. And you know, that's what you want, right? You want to get somewhere that has spots for both you and I remember I was I was coaching in a wrestling tournament on a Saturday. And we had to do like a second or third interview. So I had to go home for an hour and I have all my coaching gear and smelly and fire up zoom, and you're talking to people, and it was great. And they said, Is it okay, sounds good. We'll send you guys some contracts. And this was December, you know, for the next year. So they got a play on that far in advance. And we said, we had a five year old, you know, my daughter was five. So we just went, alright, let's go. And we sold our house. And we packed up all our stuff. And it's been it's been the best decision I've ever made hands down. And I don't I don't want to smack talk, you know, the US are teachers because people are still fighting the good fight. But we now we live abroad or our apartments paid for our kid goes to these incredible schools for free. And then I can I'm actually home more in though in the summer, right? Because I don't have to teach summer school anymore. And I don't have to do all this stuff that I used to, to kind of get that extra money. And it's made a huge difference in my practice, too. Because there's money for things like you had to write a grant for a robot. And now I walk into the school and I got a room for robots of sizes are interesting.

Melissa Milner 9:14

I thought you you shared a picture of like your new Makerspace lab, whatever you call it. That's amazing.

Michael Bycraft 9:22

Yeah. So we're at Korea International School. So they gave us contract for first, and you do a two year contract, and then you can resign. And so we kept resigning. But we kind of were like, well, maybe we should explore other options. Maybe it's time to go maybe it's not right and and then COVID happened. So you know, we said well, maybe in Korea was a great place to be for COVID. So we said well, maybe we'll chill out for a little bit. But then last year, we were just like, You know what, I think it's really time to go my daughter was in eighth grade you're going into she was in seventh grade should go in an eighth grade. So we thought this is a cool time to pull the trigger. Let's go but the scary part is you have to tell your school whether or not you're coming back in November.

Melissa Milner 9:59

Yeah

Michael Bycraft 9:59

And you don't have a job yet. So you got to get rid of your job, and hope you're gonna find a new one. And I had known enough people and I had enough of like a media presence that I was I felt fairly certain I, you know, I could probably learn something. But it was scary. It was there was some time where we didn't have a job. And we had resigned our group, you know, you're still there for the year.

Melissa Milner 10:18

Right.

Michael Bycraft 10:18

Right? You're there still. But then at the end of that year, but then we interviewed at International School, Bangkok, and it was awesome. And they were like, yep, we want you over here. We were just teaching robots. And here's the MakerSpace. We have a design team.

Melissa Milner 10:30

And what does your wife teach?

Michael Bycraft 10:31

She's an art teacher. She's mostly been Elementary, her whole career. But here's the cool thing. They didn't have a job for her. We knew going into it, that both of us are specialists to kind of when we found our initial position in Korea, we were like, This is a golden opportunity for both of us. And so we said, Okay, we might have a year where you're not working, or I'm not working. And it was, it was cool.

Michael Bycraft 10:54

But your housing is paid for. I mean...

Michael Bycraft 10:56

It is right.

Melissa Milner 10:57

Yeah.

Michael Bycraft 10:58

Well, some places some places. So you get different packages, depending on where you go. And places that people really want to go like Europe, they don't pay for your house. And they're just like, sometimes they don't even give a full tuition for your kid. So it's a lot more cost. And other places, right in Asia seems to be a sweet spot where you can make a lot of money and cost of living can be low, and your housing is good. So we are interviewing in a couple of different schools. And some are like, I don't know, we can afford this. Like, it's really nice. But, man, you don't work. I don't know. And but when I got offered the job here, they said, Nah, come on, there's opportunities for your wife. You know, she can work after school clubs. She can sub... and Bangkok's a huge international hub. There's a lot of schools, there's a lot of opportunities.

Melissa Milner 11:41

Yeah.

Michael Bycraft 11:41

And it's cheap. And it's real cheap. And the school didn't care. They were like, Nah, you're a family come on, we will pay for this housing, your kid goes to school, they've already brought my wife. And it's it's like, I feel like I've made some kind of deal with an evil, you know, entity somewhere like I sold my soul for somebody because I look around and I'm in this room. It's It's amazing. They picked us up at the airport, drive us home. So these opportunities are out there. They're cool. You know...

Melissa Milner 12:07

Especially maybe for a young teacher who doesn't even have a family yet. What a great opportunity.

Michael Bycraft 12:11

Oh, man, some of the young people I work with they are they're wild and out, having a great time. And we had this one guy who I'm not going to tell what he taught or who he taught because I don't want to besmirch his bad name. But he was he was he would go out and go hard, like all weekend, and then Monday morning, show up and he taught little TD kids. And you could never know who's the best teacher in the world. But then you'd see this guy and he would the weekend would hit and he's like, Oh, I'm out. And he would travel all over and get into trouble. And then just Monday morning, be like, kids. It was amazing. Dude, consummate professional, but out here having a good time. And yeah, but I think older people we see a lot of older teachers to their kids are grown. And they're just like, Yeah, let's go. Let's have, we have these grandparents that kind of adopted this. Our first year. They had three grown kids. She was a librarian. He was a tech guy. And they just were like, so sweet and kind. They've been all over the world. And we're like, it was awesome. So it's a nice community. 10 year and this really tight community. It's not perfect, right? You're in a fishbowl. You're in a foreign country, crazy stuff can happen. You know, COVID was kind of nuts. Because we were like, okay, yes, yes, we're here now. But it's it's like living anywhere else. Right. There's good and bad things. And so I'm thinking I'm lucky to do what I do abroad, that's for sure. But we do miss you know, it's sometimes tough getting a good like Jewish deli sandwich that you just like, oh my gosh, right. You know, yeah. We my wife's gotten really good at making bagels because it's just hard to find a good bagel abroad. Like, I'm gonna just make it I'm gonna do it myself. Or like in Korea, it was really tough because there wasn't a Home Depot or like a Lowe's or anything. So for all the stuff we do, I feel like Oh, I gotta run to Lowe's. But there's not a Lowe's make figure it out.

Michael Bycraft 13:59

Yeah. So do you do have to order stuff ahead of time through the school to get stuff?

Michael Bycraft 14:04

Yeah and the schools are great, right? They'll get me they'll get you whatever you want. But you gotta really I'm bad at planning. I'm, I'm like, Let's do stuff. Let's try this today. I want to do this. This is fun. And it's it is a challenge because you're just like, I need to have this stuff in mind or you order consumables ahead of time, or you need the right kind of tool and, and they'll order one time a year, right? Although they're gotten better. Some schools are like, yeah, you can order this and we'll do bring it in. But it's it kind of takes away from that. I'm gonna do something tomorrow. Let's go to the grocery store real quick and get some stuff and do a weird lab.

Melissa Milner 14:37

Right. Oh my gosh, that's too funny. So what do you what do you find, you know, the engineering design process? And are you mostly high school or middle school age?

Michael Bycraft 14:48

I do right now? I have three middle school classes and two high school. I've always kind of done mostly a mix of that in Korea. It was awesome. We kind of created a problem for ourselves because we can't build in this department, and more and more kids were into it. And so I ended up with like three or four different preps, and all my co workers had these crabs because the kids were just excited. And the school was like, I don't know, man, let's do this class. Let's try this class. So right now I teach to, like product design classes. And then usually it's a mixture of like three or four high school or middle school robotics classes each year, and it kind of flows that way.

Melissa Milner 15:25

Oh okay.

Michael Bycraft 15:26

Yeah. But we do, we follow the design thinking model. When I got started, I worked with a awesome guy named David Lee, who was really into Stanford d school. And he introduced me to a lot of cool stuff. And he was, you know, in the IDEO, and these companies that do cool stuff. And so he was like, we're gonna do this design thinking method, it flows like this, which was great. And that was kind of that right? Find a problem and find a solutions and brainstorm some ideas and build your prototype tested, and then revisit that evaluate where you're at. And ISB kind of uses now its own design model. It's like a four model of, like, understand, design, make it evaluate, and it's just that cycle of, what are we doing? You know, are we what whom are we designing for? Who's our audience? Who's our clients? And what do they need? And that user driven design, I think has been really cool.

Melissa Milner 16:21

The empathy.

Michael Bycraft 16:21

Yeah. And the students, the students are so good at it. And it's other stuff, too, right? Like, we'll do animals and like, Hey, you're gonna build a house for an animal, and I'll bring in stuffed animals and give them personalities and say, Okay, you have to build a house for one of these four. And here's what they like it, here's what they dislike. But other stuff to this, it's more important. So I was born with one hand, so I have what's called Poland syndrome. So which is usually where your right arm and hand won't, doesn't form real well. And sometimes it's a couple stubby fingers. And sometimes it's, you know, what I have, which is pretty much nothing. And so the kids, we talk about prosthetics, and that's one of the ways I got started in making as I was, I was like, 11, when Nintendo came out, and the controllers were, I couldn't use them real well. So my dad's like, this is stupid, let's go build our own controllers. And so we just took them apart, and I were soldering and build and stuff. And it was really empowering. Yeah, to like, take that and go from there. And so my students, sometimes right, that user driven, you want an authentic audience, and the kids just relate to it, or they'll see me and be like, Wow, you would need a prosthetic for this and this or just talking about how technology improves people's lives? And the ways that we do it, and like, even just something like opening a door, how do you make it easier to open a door if you don't have good hand grip, or put on shoes or all kinds of stuff? And it's once you put that empathy in place, it becomes really cool for kids to kind of, how do you how would you help an older person or someone who's visually impaired or an amputee or anything else, and it's a million things. And it doesn't even have to be a disability, it can be like, I need a better way to play video games, or store my paint brushes, or, you know, a pillow for my dog. And just as long as they're empathizing and they're designing that way, it's, I think you get really cool stuff.

Melissa Milner 18:05

Yeah, that's so cool. I love that. Do you have like a top three hints for teachers, when doing this kind of student centered engineering design work/

Michael Bycraft 18:17

I think one, you've just got to be comfortable that it's, it's not gonna look exactly like what you think it is in your head. You know, we all have this picture of what this lesson looks like that we do, and how it's going to work, right? How we do it, or how we want it, and the kids are never going to do it. And the more freedom you give, the more out their stuff they make. But I think again, there's value in that, that their their process is still the same, they're still experimenting, they're still building. So I think you have to really embrace the messiness that it's gonna, it's gonna go all over, but right, your objectives are still, hey, you're gonna build a thing that does this, or you're gonna, you're gonna really reach out there. And so I think that's the hard part that was hard for me to get away that control of just saying, Okay, I want you to do and I want you to build it the way you want it to. And so with that, changing your expectations is also like, really changing what you want your students to do, because you have to embrace that idea that they're gonna follow their own path. And that, but what's great about it is it opens it up for differentiation, right? Because then the kids are gonna, I am gonna do this. This looks like it to me. So I think you really want to do that. I think you also have to realize sometimes it's not going to be the best lesson. Right? I've done stuff. I'm not putting on Twitter, the stuff that looks terrible, you know, are the lessons that I did?

Melissa Milner 19:39

You should... you totally should.

Michael Bycraft 19:41

Because it does. People are like, Oh, you're this rock star teacher? Well, yeah. Well, that everybody's stuff is looking like that. Because sometimes, and it's okay, and I had I've had some great admin who really understand this and they'll support it and how to go it went okay. And that's okay. Right, because it's a process for us to write it's, yeah, we could probably improve that that could probably be done better. So I think you have to have a lot of self reflection, that, did that work the way you wanted it to. Right? The kids are all marching to the beat of their own drummers. But did everything go okay? And it's okay if it doesn't.

Melissa Milner 20:16

Do you then plan lessons to try to teach certain pointers? Or, you know, how do you then craft your lessons? Do you have lessons or you do literally not have lessons?

Michael Bycraft 20:31

No. So, so so some people don't, or some people who do Makerspace work, it's, it's really pushing and see what you can do. So I tend to do project based learning, specifically, and I tend to do like in my design classes, I'll do maybe four units a semester. And so like, when I do the cardboard share unit, I start us off, and we talk about, like, what is a chair? Like, what makes a chair what? Why do we have these? Why do they look the way they do? And then we'll start and I'll try to scaffold the hey, let's work with cardboard. And we'll make we'll put can you fit these two pieces together? Can you fit in this way, and then start sketching idea that say, Okay, I'm gonna give you this piece of cardboard that's maybe a letter paper kind of size, say, Okay, you're gonna I want you to make your chair from there, like a little mini prototype, and then see how it works. What are the weak points? What are the good points? And then say, star, you're gonna holler? Yeah, yeah. And you really got to scaffold up and say, Okay, so the whole time though, we're building chairs, and we're building chairs for humans. And you're gonna have, and we do some math, right? Because I say you get 150 centimeters by 100 centimeters, and they get three sheets of cardboard. And that's it. And you don't get any more and you mess it up, and you figure out a way to fix it, like that's on you. And then it's just building time every day. And you come in and you orient them to the task. And for assessment, I tend to I have them keep websites, and they really show the process. Well, use your phone, take some pictures, take some video every day, you know, do a little check in what goals did you meet what goes up. So then the website kind of shows this process of them over time building this chair, or they'll do time lapses of them working. And it's so cool.

Melissa Milner 22:11

To simplify if that's too much for elementary is just some slides, Google Slides, they could put the pictures into Google Slides. Yeah.

Michael Bycraft 22:18

100%. And I'll scaffold it sometimes where I'll make a slide deck, right. And I can make a copy of this. There's this slide, you put your objective, this is one take a few pictures right day to take a few pictures. And my buddy at the school that we just came to Jacob, he does that with his middle schoolers. And it's they do it for the whole year. And they've got this huge slide deck. And each day there's a new one and they add their stuff in it works great. And I think that the the I tend to be way too loosey goosey, I think. And I could be a lot better with how I assess things and how I have them document their work and their processes. I tend to be the big excitable idea guy like let's do this.

Melissa Milner 23:00

That's like me.

Michael Bycraft 23:03

And then it's like okay, let's refocus, and Jacob,one of my teaching partners now, he's, you know, he does IB High School designs. So he's like, we do need, and you got to document it better.

Melissa Milner 23:14

I just want to ask, but like, what, what is IB?

Michael Bycraft 23:16

Oh, sorry. So in the 50s. And you had the start of teaching internationally, you kind of needed a curriculum, because there were still a lot of people using us curriculums. But over time, it kind of changed. So a group and Europe started was called International Baccalaureate. And it's got three sections. So they have like the middle early years. And then you have like MIP for the middle years program, which is usually like middle school to around 10th grade, and you have the DP, which is the diploma program, and you have to the work you do in your class, you have to send it into IB. So like when I was in the States, we were an IB school within a school. So you could take your high school sciences as IB. So you have to take a couple labs and they're held to certain standards. So it's just it's similar to curriculum in the US, but it's just a little more detail. There's a lot of cross curricular stuff. So a lot of international schools use it. But most most that I've worked for us like a modified us program, or like you'd like Science uses NGSS. And, you know, math uses common core and, but a lot of people kind of finish with that IB because then it stamps that kids diploma, because if the kids are Australian or British kid or somewhere else, they can also go to school, Canada, and it's a great program. So there's a lot of that input, you do gotta have your stuff in a row, like you got to organize it. And so some of these people I've worked with, they get really good at okay, I need to see that process. I need to see this and this and this and because if you don't document it, right that that that kid's going to miss out on some points or something. So So we've kind of, yeah, so So some places do that fully from K through 12. Some places just do it the last two, three yours for diploma program kind of stamping on their diploma. And K is like when I was in Korea didn't do it at all, they just followed the American curriculum. And so you are certified. There's these international school councils that go and certify your schools, make sure your curriculum and all that good stuff, because you are kind of these independent entities. And you have some weirdo like me who's just in there, like, Let's build a chair within, like, hey, what curriculum are you follow in? So I actually I use ISTE. Now, and I don't know if you're familiar, ISTE standards, but like, I've started using them for tech and design. And it's super fun. And I it's really open ended. So I totally went away from that other question. You asked me about tips and tricks, but I think like, like that part, too, with curriculum, like I start with a project, like I want to do a blank and like a board games unit, or monuments or chairs, or even, you know, simpler stuff like bridges. And then you kind of think, Okay, well, how can I how can I fit this into what I want to do? And what, what do my kids need to do? And what are all the curriculum stuff we're hitting? So I kind of do that backwards stuff. Yeah. Although I was excited I got here and I met one of the middle school art teachers, and she does a whole board games unit, which is a thing I've done to where you start off. So like in the classroom, we it's like a month long, we'll start off playing board games and looking at board games. What's good about this? What's bad? And then how can the kids then can they personalize something, make it a unique thing, or tie it into like curriculum they're doing right now. And another class I had a kid make an animal farm card game that was phenomenal. Last year. It's one of the best things I've ever seen a kid do. He's a really good graphic design kid. And it was all this cards and you had decks and you had like the pigs and the horses and the cow was it was it was really cool.

Melissa Milner 26:44

What do you do like growth mindset when a kid's project isn't going the way they're starting to get frustrated? What What how do you help that kid through and see the process?

Michael Bycraft 26:56

Yeah, that's. So a big thing I've focused on the last couple years is the importance of failure, and iteration. And because it's hard, especially these international kids I work with, they are very great focused, and they are you know, they want to do well. And mom and dad want them to do well. Right? Oh, yeah. And so they struggle like the if we're building robots, and their robot doesn't work like it's Oh, but I love it. Because I think when things don't work, I think that's kind of a gift, right? Because you realize, Well, why didn't it work? How are you going to fix it? And so a lot of times with a kid, they tend to they tend to overreach a ton, because they're, you know, 14, and or they're even younger, and they see stuff. Yeah, that's easy to do. And it's not and you kind of say, okay, so I call I build a note, I stole this from Kickstarter, but I build in what we call stretch goals. And I say, Let's make your most basic goal. What do you what do we need to do at your most simplest that you want to achieve? Right? Is it a board game, you need a board game that's painted? And you need two pieces for a player to be? So let's do a stretch goal, right? Like, let's add a custom card deck. And that's great and doesn't have to be 100% completed? No. And okay, cool. We did that. Let's do some box art. Let's do a commercial. You know, let's add to it. And some of those kids are there and they've met met those stretch goals and other kids. I think you can say it's okay, you're still being evaluated on the work you're doing. Right, my curriculum. I'm about that process. So if you're reaching a point where you didn't do the things you did, it's unfinished. Yes. It's just a prototype. You're still in beta. It's okay. And I think when they hear that from a teacher that's really free, that your grades isn't going to suffer because you you think didn't work the way you want it to. I built a million things in my life, and a lot of them don't work. And it's okay my a lot of my lessons haven't worked in the past either my Boston fire me yet. So you know, like with our students, we can help them compartmentalize, right, what do you want to achieve? What do you really want to achieve? And then what's like your dream thing and say, Okay, well, how would you make a L sign for your room with your name on it that lights up? And then they get into it? And they're like, oh, I don't know if I get the lights work. And that's okay. Right? You still made a really cool sign. It looks good. You did it. It's you started with a block of wood. So now we've already done cool stuff. And I think that, that reframing it for the kid, like what are the things you want to reach versus what have you achieved? Is okay, and then they go, Yeah, I can try and make this now. So I think that's where my role really in the classroom becomes. Because a lot of times, I'm a facilitator, you know, we start these units, and then we just go and then I'm wandering around and hey, yeah, how your Wow, that looks great. Or sometimes, hey, I noticed you're kind of in a rut, or hey, maybe that's not working. Let me let me give you some suggestions. And we all know that's,

Melissa Milner 29:48

That's the next thing. Like how do you give suggestions without telling them what to do?

Michael Bycraft 29:55

You know, yeah...

Melissa Milner 29:57

Because you know what they could do to fix it. but you don't want to tell them.

Michael Bycraft 30:01

I think a lot of it depends on the kid. And if you've got a classroom, and it's hard, right when you got these big classes, to know what everybody's needs and their strengths and weaknesses, so I try really hard to kind of generalize my stuff. And I say, Well, does it need to look better? Right? Is it an aesthetic problem? Does it need to function better? Is it a functional problem? Does it need to be focused? Better? Like, hey, I feel like you're kind of out here. And let's bring you in a little bit more. So I try to talk a little about that. Right? Like as a functional? No. Okay, so yeah, how did that wheels not rolling? How do we make that wheel roll? And and then the kids looking at it, okay? Because sometimes they just need somebody to do them a little bit better in that direction.

Melissa Milner 30:45

Help them focus on what they're trying to do. And then ask them questions, but don't...

Michael Bycraft 30:51

Yeah, right. Almost the Socratic method, where they're at, you're asking these questions, where, hey, let's so because I'm looking at it, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I see. Exactly.

Melissa Milner 31:03

Yeah

Michael Bycraft 31:03

That's it.

Melissa Milner 31:04

Yeah.

Michael Bycraft 31:04

But yeah, you try to kind of subtly go in there. And you know, it doesn't, it doesn't need to be fixed. Because it doesn't necessarily have to look the way they think it is, it's cool to sometimes take those detours, and it goes somewhere else. And then that's like, you know, that worked out, okay. And to let them know, right, it's gonna work out, okay, it's what you're doing is valid. I say that a lot. But one thing my wife does with teaching art that I found really interesting moving abroad, she stopped doing examples, because the kids would see that example, and everything looks like that example. And that's a big elementary problem. Right?

Melissa Milner 31:37

It is because you're supposed to do exemplars that this has been my issue from day one, like, Oh, if you're gonna have them, right, do do an exemplar writing and like, but then they're gonna, and I don't want to pigeonhole them into trying to do it the way I did.

Michael Bycraft 31:52

Yeah.

Melissa Milner 31:52

I have such I, I am so mixed on exemplars.

Michael Bycraft 31:56

Yeah. It's a challenge. And I, you know, if there was an answer for it, we'd both be millionaire consultants right now. Because I don't know, either. And I'll show my kids more generalized examples, like, hey, you know, stuff tends to look like this, but doesn't have to. But also, sometimes I think there's still value in the making process. Like a lot of times my robotics students, they'll find a design online, or they'll find some code and there's like, can I use this? Yeah, sure. Well, like, you know, change it, do add something to it, because there's still value in seeing something online and then recreating it yourself. And that's hard to do. And I'm like, Well, you know, what, I said, just just give me credit. Give them credit, right? Don't Don't be like I made this, you know, because, because that's really fun, too, because I've been in this business for a long time. And some kid shows myself and I'm like, bro, I don't think you made that are not 100% yourself. But I think as long as they're, they're also saying, like, Hey, I was really inspired by this. Because we all wear our inspirations on our sleeves, you know, I do the same thing. There's stuff that I'm super into. And I'll steal right from Sylvia Martinez who wrote in vet to learn and she's like, one of my idols. And, yeah, there's great stuff. I'm just gonna lift it right out of that book. And that's my thing now, but I want to mix it up a little bit. And Twitter is awesome for that, too. You see stuff people building? And you're like, Ha, man, that's cool. And I don't think that's the worst thing for our kids to do. As long as they're understanding that process. And that, you know, make it your own right, what else are you going to do to it that makes it yours. Like, last year, my daughter was, was in seventh grade. And they were reading books of their choice. And she was reading Percy Jackson, which are awesome books. And she's not a big, she's not a kid that enjoys writing at all. And the teacher was like, write fanfiction. And she was like, Okay, let's go. And that was the thing she knows.

Melissa Milner 33:47

She knows the characters. She knows the Greek myths. She knows... Yeah. We do that sometimes in my class.

Michael Bycraft 33:52

Yeah. That's valid writing 100%

Melissa Milner 33:56

And I think sometimes it's more challenging because you need to sort of try to do it, like the author did instead. Yeah, it's like taking an exemplar and challenging yourself to try to continue.

Michael Bycraft 34:06

Yeah, I'm gonna paint that and it's gonna look just like this or I'm gonna build that and it's gonna look like this and I don't think there's too much wrong with that. I think I think it just like you have to introduce a lot of different things to show the kids a wide range of stuff like hey, this person does this. But here's somebody else who does it like this somebody else?

Melissa Milner 34:24

Yeah, we do a catapult engineering process with forces and things like that. So we just decided we saw it on Instagram we found it grabbed it said oh, we'll use this for the forces because with our Know Atom program there catapult was ridiculously hard. Yeah, for like too many steps and all that. Oh, yeah. Now I'm thinking could we so what we do is like paper cup, cut it out. rubberband with a spoon, but it doesn't look super work super well, but it's what we want. Walk the kids through every step of making it. So yeah, would it be better to either just give those supplies of the cup and let them figure it out, just make sure to have a lot of extra supplies because they might need to redo or go back to the Know Atom materials and see if they can figure those out.

Michael Bycraft 35:19

You know what, I'm always gonna go towards the former and you just give them a handful of stuff. And I've done catapults, I do them as one offs with middle school and high school kids. We did a we did a bigger one in the summer when I taught summer school one time, and I love it. And you know, you it is expensive to do it that way, right? Because you need a lot of consumables.

Melissa Milner 35:41

Yeah.

Michael Bycraft 35:41

And that's, you know, I'll drop a lot of money there was this first summer school when we did our catapults, there was a Korean door near me that was like a craft store. And I would go in every day and just buy popsicle sticks. And this poor dude was like, I don't know who this guy is. But man, what's going on is like, but I like it. Cuz, you know, and I talk about changing parameters too, because I'll do with catapults, I like to do distance. And I like to do accuracy. Yeah. Right. And then and Yeah, and just say like, you know what, it's cool. Let's do this. Let's do that. Because I'll just give them like the popsicle sticks and the rubber bands. It's about, and I had a kid one time and they broke the popsicle stick and kind of made their own little basket. And it was it was really cool.

Melissa Milner 36:23

What do you use as the thing that because we were using ping pong balls? Yeah. What do you um,

Michael Bycraft 36:29

I traditionally have really enjoyed either Mini or normal marshmallows. I think that Yeah, cuz they're solid, and they're a little bit dense. gets super gross, because they'll get all sticky and the kids want to eat them. But they're really fun. And they don't hurt when you get hit with them. And you tell the kid Hey, I'm standing right here, hippie. Do it should if it weren't so good. Let's go. And you're like, I'll put on safety goggles, because you never know. But, but I've really enjoyed using that. And then you find them everywhere for like three weeks afterwards.

Melissa Milner 37:01

Do you have a non food example? Because we're not allowed to use food.

Michael Bycraft 37:06

Oh, yeah. Um, I wonder what you could do, which is squishy. It's a round like that. I don't know. We did bigger ones with like beanbags and stuff. But that's more that's like a bigger thing.

Melissa Milner 37:19

Mini beanbags? Yeah, do you because we do a lot of front loading with learning about forces. We watch a lot of catapult you know, a couple catapult, trebuchet type videos and things like that. Do we tell the kids to bring in like, we'll have some materials, but also they could bring in things that they want? Is that like, too messy too crazy.

Michael Bycraft 37:44

I like messy and crazy. You know, I My room is trashed. And I want it to be trashed, right. And I I've had I had men who just walk in and they're like, What is this like this place is wrecked. And I'm like it is it? We did stuff is cool. My wife was our teacher, right? And she had this admin who would come in and just be like, Why is it so messy? Like third graders? It's an art room. Can I tell you a quick story about catapults and bringing in your own your own materials, though? Yes. So when I was teaching physics in the States, you know, we take like the final exams or you do AP, right? And then you've got time afterwards. So I said, we're building real catapults, like, let's go. And we're building big stuff. We're getting two by fours. And we're going, Yeah, right. And power tools. And these were juniors and seniors. And I said, yeah, if you want to, if you want to get stuff, you know, get stuff go nuts. And it was a neat school district because it was a school. This was the Clark County, Nevada. There's a lot of kids who who had quite a bit and a lot of kids who didn't, and they all work together. So this one kids like we can really build, we can do whatever we want. Yeah. Okay, so it's 5:30am. And I get a call from the building security and they're like, by craft. There are four kids here and a pickup truck that say they're your students. And they got they got like wood, got cement. And I'm like, What are you talking about? And let me talk to one of them. And it was one of these kids. They had gone the night before to Home Depot, and they bought stuff and this kid knows, you know, the water jugs for the water dispensers. Yeah, they took a water jug and filled it with cement and use it as a counterweight. And I got pitches this thing I swear to you I am not lying. This thing's probably nine feet tall. And they're like by crack. Can we put it? Can we put a candle open? And I was like, No, you're gonna kill somebody. Like this thing's gonna go four yards, descend out of the sky. So we took it down to the like the football field and launch and stuff. Like 90 yards, and I couldn't believe and it was a full on like trebuchet looking like yeah, it was it was such a great moment and I couldn't believe these kids just like we wanted to build like a legit catapult. Okay, well, you did this. Yep, that's terrifying. And my admin, I'm like, I'm gonna get fired. These kids are gonna die. And my admin just thought it was the best thing ever. I had this principle Jeff Horn who was such a cool dude, and it was just like, Yep, I don't care. Do it, do it. He's like, Let's shoot some watermelons. I was like, Jeff, okay, chill out. So I love that and the kids were into it. And I think it personalizes their learning. I never want to put it on them. Right? Like, you got to bring in stuff from home.

Melissa Milner 40:16

Optional. Well, sometimes even just bring something from home that you're gonna chuck. What are you gonna bring a little greater? Bring a little Smurf or bring a little you know, that's a little open that way.

Michael Bycraft 40:28

That's cool. I love that. And I think that's fun, too. Yeah, I would always go with the let the kids do weird stuff rather than like, follow that, hey, you can do these steps. Because it doesn't have to be steps. It doesn't have to be whatever. Like it can be whatever they want. But then if you haven't, that's expensive. Yeah, you need it. Yeah, that's the that's your kicker right there. Right? Like we as teachers in the US, man, it's so easy to go broke because you just want go to the store and buy some more popsicle sticks or some glue or something.

Michael Bycraft 40:56

But I liked that. Keep It Simple popsicle sticks and rubber bands. I mean, that's at least to keep it simple kind of thing. So it wrapping up. What are you zooming in on right now in your work? Is there a project coming up for the kids? Robotics? Like what What Are you zooming in on?

Michael Bycraft 41:15

Oh, my two big focuses right now is the school that I'm at has a really competitive high school robotics program. And they do Vex and those kids, I kid you not were messaging me this summer. And they they were in there the first day of school, and they're working on stuff. They're already asking me questions about February, Hey, we gotta go to Worlds what do we what are the requirements for this and that and I'm like, pump the brakes. A little dudes like, you know, let's talk about work life balance. But they are so good, and so smart. That it's for me, I'm not the smartest guy in the room, right? You really have to embrace that these kids are better than me at coding. They're better than me at building, like, what's my job now as a coach and a facilitator for these classes? So it's really been a how do I how do I get those kids to where they need to be? Right? What is What can I do? And my class that I teach isn't about the competitive game. Like it's just it's a general robotics class. I specifically don't focus on the game for the robotics, but they are geniuses and they are ready to go and they want to learn they're like, we code this to C++. Can we do Python? Can we do an A like, you can do whatever you want. So it's really I'm running every weekend trying to figure out what else do I need to learn to kind of make stuff creative and engaging for them, as well as personalized. And so I think that's one of my focuses right now. And I'm doing middle school robotics, but that I can do, I can do pretty well. So I really focus on what what they're going to need to be successful in that class, because I want to, I want them to push themselves and do really cool stuff. But they're, they're ahead of the game. And then my other thing is I'm teaching I usually don't teach, teach, and I've got somebody else. And we're doing each section of middle school product design. And it's a really cool class. And we have, we're going to do like four units. And I just, I really need right now to come up with some some kind of cool ideas about how, because I just started school, like we had our third day of school today. Yeah. And it's, it's like, what are we going to do for these cool projects, we have this amazing space, we have resources and tools. So I really want but but I don't want to just go in and they're going crazy, right? I really like what is what is a good thing I could focus on. So my buddy does. His first unit that he's suggested, and it's brilliant is a no touch device. So his his whole design brief is it's think about COVID times, how do we want to like open a door, but you don't want to touch the door. So these kids are making these flat tools. They're two dimensional, right? You can you can blueprints, and you can cut them in cardboard, and make a prototype but then he wants to after that prototype, right? Let's make it out of wood. Let's 100% Cut it out of the jigsaw. Yeah, right and make it like it's a handheld thing, which also we could talk about mobility issues, right? How would somebody else, grab something. So I'm really trying to try to learn this system and what they do, because man, they do really great work. And then I'm just trying to figure out living in a new country, and I've got this new school, my daughter is at this new school, and it's just so many things all at once. But I think it's nice, it's helped me to reframe my teaching as well. Because it just everything shaken up. And once you let go of that and go, come on, we're doing something new, right? We're all guilty of that. We've done the same thing over and over sometimes and it works well. And it's fun, and it's safe, but I'm just like, Alright, we're going let's reevaluate everything. You know, I got a new space. I got a new school, I got new rooms. And it's really helped me to kind of just embrace that it's gonna be messy again, it's gonna be weird. And, you know, I got new admins who are looking at me like, here's this new guy and he's loud and

Melissa Milner 44:56

They knew what they were getting when they interviewed you.

Michael Bycraft 45:00

Yeah, I think so too. I, some of the people, that it's nice because right, I'm pretty upfront with who I am and how I teach. And so I think that you know, you want somebody who's quiet and peaceful, then you probably need to go get that person because that's not going to be me. And, but it's fun too, because the kids, they work so hard, and they have these really tough classes. And I'm just like, Come on, let's go, let's build some cool stuff. Like, today we're building I said, You, we cut out these five pieces of wood. And I said, You got to stack them, and smallest to biggest. And they're radioactive materials. So it has to be like 10 inches away from your body. And so I gave them just a bag of stuff. And they had to build little things to like, pick it up. And and then it's okay, see, if you can do it with one hand and make a tool that you can use it just one and two picks them up. And man, it was challenging, and they were really some degrade and some didn't. And that's the thing with design challenges, right? So the first time we did this challenge me and my buddy kind of threw it together quick. And through it right in our product design kids. And they were like, that was fun. Did yours work? No, not really. Did you have good time? Yeah, absolutely. You learn stuff about it? Yes, it's great. We filled out a little design brief. And, and it was fun.

Melissa Milner 46:07

Do they sometimes everybody sometimes say, you know, oh, I wish we had these materials. Like did they kind of think, oh, this would work here, but we don't have it type of thing? Well,

Michael Bycraft 46:16

that's the best part about teaching design, you talk about constraints, right? Everything has constraints, you know, you give me a billion dollars, and you know, access to NASA, I'll, we could probably build a really cool satellite, right. But NASA doesn't have that blank check. And there's always a constraint I can if I worked with this woman, Joyce Pereira, one of the greatest teachers I've ever worked with in my life, she's amazing. She's computer scientists. And she really introduced me to this idea of you have these creative constraints. And they're a gift. And because right, our designs when they're wide open, they tend to not help us focus. And she talked about like, on the iPhone, you have one input, right? Especially remember those old school iPads or not iPads? How do you how do you design something for that? You have one button, right? Or you have a space that's this large, or you have only these materials? And I think that it's like when you introduce those constraints?

Melissa Milner 47:08

Yeah, it's like that BlackBerry movie? I don't know if you've seen that or not.

Michael Bycraft 47:11

Yeah.

Melissa Milner 47:12

Did you see?

Michael Bycraft 47:13

Yeah, right.

Melissa Milner 47:14

Yeah, they taught they like the whole design thing of, and then when, when the apple when, you know, that whole thing comes out, and they're like, the touch the, the no more keyboard, it's touching the screen. And they're like, what?

Michael Bycraft 47:28

Oh, and I was, I was just gonna say that, like, with students, I think that that you always have to talk about your constraints, right. And that I think, helps them and it's great when they look at materials, because now we're talking materials, oh, this would work better. Oh, it helped or if I had more of this, or if I and that's why it's also fun to do those maker projects where you charge them money. And you say you have $10 and a popsicle stick costs, you know, 30 cents, and a rubber band cost this and you have that. And there's your budget.

Melissa Milner 48:00

That's a cute idea. I like that.

Michael Bycraft 48:01

That's it, and they got to plan it out. And man, you want to talk about building little economies in your classroom. Those kids are like bartering with each other. And they take it seriously, that popsicle cost me $1 don't touch it. There so into it.

Melissa Milner 48:16

The thing... I always think in movies, you know, like my brain goes to movies. So in Apollo 13, there's that scene where they're like, you have to do this with the materials on this table. And they're like what?? Because that's all they have up. And that's literally all they have on their ship. That's like the best scene ever for engineering.

Michael Bycraft 48:36

And it is and it totally gives the idea because you're like, if you don't fix it, they die. So we got to figure so that's a little more pressure than I'd like to give my kids right. But it's when we think about engineering is teaching our kids. These are real world skills. I think that's pretty cool, right? Like, you need to make this stuff and or it needs to be affordable, right? You talk about people aren't going to spend 10 grand on a blank that does this. Like for me, that was always a barrier with prosthetics, right prosthetics in the US when I worked there, and we tried to get my insurance to cover a prosthetic they'd never cover it because, you know, it's carbon fiber, and it's made out of this and it's 10 grand, and you say to students, like how do we make? How do you make a phone that costs $100? Right? How do we we've got to or your your design audience is some country where the VDP is 50 bucks. You know, how do you make a water filter for that? Do you watch? Do you watch Mark Rober on YouTube? No. Oh my gosh, you gotta watch this guy. So it's Mark robear, our OB er, and he does every year he does these great engineering videos. He's an ex NASA engineer, and he builds stuff like a giant super soaker. And, you know, how do you how do you really make a pool filled with jello? But then he does. Yeah, it's great. But then once a year, he'll go and look at these companies that are doing really cool stuff. And he did this one this Rwanda company. That's cool. All by zip line, because how do you get how to get medical supplies to a really remote areas, your country, we don't have roads. So figure it out, it's got to get there in an hour people die. And it's the video on it's amazing the technology and they have these drones, and it's so cool. And you show that to your students. And maybe you know, even your little kids are gonna get that and be like, yeah, that's gotta get he's got to get over there. And it's, it's really cool to think like these are these are problems that people face in the world? And how do we how do we create little problem solvers that are going to grow up? Because, right, like, my big thing that I always think about at the end of the day, is I think about all this stuff I learned in college for technology. And I graduated college in 1999, right, and the coding languages I used are all gone, there was this brand new fancy thing called C. I took a class in COBOL. Like nobody, what is even is COBOL now, and I say that to my students, right? I don't know what you're gonna see when you're 20 years from now. But if I teach you to be creative, and think about cool stuff, and how to solve this problem and go around the box, right? Does my catapult have to look like this? What if it looks like this? And if they take that approach to whatever they're doing in life, I think they'll be successful and right, that's all you want them to do. Give them the skills like they don't have to grow up to be little engineers. But if they're grown up to like, I can think around problems and I'm resilient. And I can I can fix this even when it breaks. Like that's, that's the skill sets I want.

Melissa Milner 51:23

Yep, yep. And then one more reference is Stranger Things. I don't know if you watch Stranger Things, but when they're in the mall, and they have that car that they have to, and he's like physics, I'm like, Yeah, you know, just being able to look at something and go, Oh, if we do it this way, we're gonna be able to,

Michael Bycraft 51:43

And it's, I think that's a big thing for teaching our kids, right? Like, how do you reframe and look at it from that perspective and understand it? We were building towers on my robotics bus today. And I looked a kid and I was like, think of where your forces, right? And he's like, what? So you know, like, it's pushing down? How do you distribute that force? Right? And, and he was like, oh, yeah, cuz there's one leg was all kind of janky on his tower. And it's like, you forget sometimes that they don't do those problems they do. Because I, I've taught this thing a million times. And they're seeing it for the first time. Yeah. And they really, do you if some of them get it quick.

Melissa Milner 52:20

Do you teach up front the power of the triangle, or you hope they figure it out?

Michael Bycraft 52:26

I like to, whenever we do, I saw whenever I do a big challenge, like a big project, we usually have a design challenge the first day. And I try to really think of like, what's, what's the base principle we need to learn? So like, yeah, you know that, that it's kind of corny, but I love building bridges. And I think that there's always value in that. So that's kind of gone to my chair project. Because right at the end of the day, you're supporting weight, and you're mitigating forces. And so how do we mitigate forces? So I usually day one will do a challenge. And it's a quick design build, that's got some ideas in it that are keyed, or concepts or gravity or triangles or whatever. But you don't really say it and you just let them figure it out. And then do and then with, yep. 100%. We're done with it, what worked, what didn't work. And then I go, let me tell you what I really wanted. And then I'm like, Hey, so surprise, this is what we're looking for. And they're all mad at me. I shouldn't see that. But they'll look for it now. Okay. Yeah. And I think going into it a little blind there. These concepts I love because the triangle, right that appears in any kind of build a thing, when you put something together, you start thinking about? Well, I'm going to do from this side and this side, oh, and about the side. And then it's almost like they learn it themselves. But then when you point it out, and they've got an experience that they've just seen, it clicks so much more than if I'm like, here's a drawing goal. And here's how horses work. And I showed them a picture on the board like that. I don't care if they just made it a tower out of popsicle sticks, or Legos or bridges or whatever they're like. Yep, that's die. Get that now because my thing just failed. And that's why

Melissa Milner 54:08

Okay, cool. I love that way of doing it like a mini version, and then debrief and teach from it. And then yeah, gotcha. I love that. Do you use laser printers or not so much.

Michael Bycraft 54:20

Laser cutters?

Melissa Milner 54:21

Laser cut, like, you know the...

Michael Bycraft 54:23

Yeah. They're my favorite tool. So I really love designing and rapid prototyping for my kids. And so I've been really lucky right? Not every school has this by any means. But we got when we got it at my old school it was it was transformative because now right 3d printing school, but it takes forever and it'll mess up and if it messes up, right, that's eight hours gone. Yeah, the laser cutter I take a piece of MDF I stick it in there. Does their design. And then you pull it out and you're like, Here go see how it works.

Melissa Milner 54:53

Laser cutter. So what do you put? What's MDF? What are you putting in there?

Michael Bycraft 54:58

MDF is like a soup. A more dense cardboard. I forget what it means. But oh, yeah, so So Glowforge is a company that makes I think classroom ones and educational ones. And what it is, is it's so the kid that designs it in CAD or in like Tinkercad or something. And then you can just import the design. And it's two dimensional. So it'll cut it out with a laser. So if you need if we're building, right, you'd need some squares shot, and then it just cuts it out. And I give it to the kid here, go. Here's your design did work. Yeah, and again, this is this is coming from my huge place of privilege of having this beautiful giant lab, you know, my budget and technology. And so I think that like, like, a lot of my work is paperless. Because my kids that are provided for technology by the school, and so like, we'll do design briefs as Google Docs or share it out, like they can make their website. So I'm pretty lucky. But there is value. I think when you give them a piece of paper, write down your stuff or sketch your designs. But yeah, I'll send you some laser cutter stuff. Oh, it's it's super cool.

Melissa Milner 55:59

Yeah. And when you say they do sites, is that like in Google Sites? Or what do you use for the sites?

Michael Bycraft 56:05

I use Google Sites. And I love it, Google it, because we use the Google Suite for Education. So then if they've got a Google Doc, like, they'll write their reflection, it's really easy to import, it's right there. And then I always have access to it as well. And then what I love to do is once they publish it, and we can set it to private, but I share with their parents, their site, their websites, and their parents are like, because you know, all my teenagers what to do in school today. I don't know nothing. Right? And then their parents, their parents get to see this Google site, with all the stuff they've done. They're like, Oh, my gosh, this is awesome. And they see the process. And yeah, and I think that's super fun. And it's just easy and accessible and free. So always nice.

Melissa Milner 56:46

Exactly. Fantastic. Well, how can people reach you if they want to learn more about what you do?

Michael Bycraft 56:52

Um, so my big thing, even though it's it's changing a little bit these days is Twitter. I'm really active on Twitter, and I'm at @mabycraft. And then on there also has my website, which has my email address. And I'm I do a lot of talks and presentations. I'm doing one in November for a conference called Learning Too, and you do it's doing a workshop on accessibility in the makerspace and building adaptive technology, right like that. Just prosthetics, but like all kinds of stuff. And so I put a lot of that out there. And I love working with people and I've done more podcasts and people are reaching out to me and yeah, so it's really fun. But yeah, so I've got that website out there too. And I'll give you the website address and it's got an email that you can send me in there but if you drop me a message on Twitter, that works pretty well. I kind of I shouldn't use Instagram more for teaching but I just kind of I got my social media like overload.

Melissa Milner 57:48

Yeah, well, I honestly, you should probably switch to Instagram because it's all images and video like the stuff you do I just... Yeah, but I mean I'm also on what is it X now instead of Twitter?

Melissa Milner 58:02

Oh, yeah. Yeah, you can't see it because it's a podcast but I couldn't roll my eyes any harder.

Melissa Milner 58:08

I know, but you like on now Instagram has something called Thread which saw that a lot like Twitter so...

Michael Bycraft 58:16

I just started that and I need to be on it more Yeah, I could I could be Instagram influencer I could be an edufluencer.

Melissa Milner 58:24

Your stuff is really... you joke, but your stuff is really, really cool. And you know, like you said, a lot of people in the states don't have that kind of budget. So show show the ideal show the ideal, you know, and then we can figure out how to dummy it down to our finances, but show the ideal. I think that's important.

Michael Bycraft 58:43

Yeah, it is. And it's amazing to have what I have, right. And I never forget that public school teacher and public kid school kid mindset, right? We didn't have anything I went to not very good public schools. And, you know, it's easy for me to talk about the coolest stuff I do. And oh, yeah, student directed everything. You know, my classes have like, eight team. And so I, I feel sometimes I'll be presenting and somebody asked me some questions. They're like, hey, so in my class of 38 kids with my budget of $0, and I'm like, Who? But you know, I did stuff in Nevada, when we didn't have any money. And I had these physics classes are like 40. And there's ways to make it okay. Like, as long as you're still looking at the process and stuff. I think kids do. Kids can do some cool stuff. Yeah. But yeah, maybe I'll get some fancy sponsorships are something.

Melissa Milner 59:33

It all started with this podcast.

Michael Bycraft 59:34

Your my ticket to fame. Yeah, right.

Melissa Milner 59:38

All right. Well, thank you so much for taking time out. It's very inspiring stuff. So thank you.

Michael Bycraft 59:43

Aww... Thank you. It's a pleasure to be on there. You're awesome. And I'm glad we were able to finally make this happen.

Melissa Milner 59:48

For my blog, transcripts of this episode, and links to any resources mentioned, visit my website at www.theteacheras.com You can reach me on Twitter and Instagram @melissabmilner and I hope you check out The Teacher As... Facebook page for episode updates. thanks for listening and that's a wrap.