My kids have loved watching Mark Robers videos, have the subscriptions (one of both the backpack and crunchpack), and we uploaded our video for SatGus.
If you have young kids (6-15) these are perfect educational tools. Highly recommend. Only downside is some of them are a bit “mischievous”. For example a “Bobbie trap” that launches balls at whomever tripped the wire. Good times…
Aurornis 31 days ago [-]
We just started watching Mark Rober videos. I started with some random old videos and they were great. Nice educational content in the middle of an entertaining video.
Then the algorithm handed us some more recent videos and they felt like a pivot to Nickelodeon style content: We watched Mark Rober run through a green slime obstacle course with a lot of loud noises and action, but basically zero educational value.
So as someone new to this: Any tips? Should I be sticking to old videos only if I want some educational value? My kids only watch with me as an activity we do together, so I’m always looking for good videos that can keep us away from the content farm stuff.
hlfshell 31 days ago [-]
He's gone all in on the Crunch Labs brand, which is kind of built around the younger audience. This isn't a bad thing, but it does mean that older edutainment enjoyers kind of age out of his stuff. Not to say there's no value in them, but there will be more of an entertainment focus than prior edutainment focused videos.
I recommend checking out Stuff Made Here; great build videos of engineering principles in an entertaining fashion to show building cool complicated stuff.
Xyla Foxlin, a wonderful maker, also posts educational videos between her projects, like an in-depth look at how plane wings work.
ryanisnan 31 days ago [-]
> Stuff Made Here
Whenever I am feeling smart or particularly talented, I like watching Shane's videos. I'm swiftly reminded that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing and carry on.
skipnup 31 days ago [-]
He doesn't either, does he? But he's great in outlining how to get to the point of having enough idea to go through with his project.
ThePinion 31 days ago [-]
That's me reading Hacker News every day.
al_borland 30 days ago [-]
I like that he still shows the struggle, so it’s not like he’s pretending to know it all. I find this helps give me perspective when I’m in a similar situation, where everything seems to be going wrong.
aaronblohowiak 31 days ago [-]
Veritasium is cool, too!
I like practical engineering, but my kids aren't ready for how awesome Grady is... yet.
zikduruqe 30 days ago [-]
Put Technology Connections in your pocket for when they are ready.
npinsker 31 days ago [-]
Great recommendations. Steve Mould is another in that vein, and Kurzgesagt (though quite different stylistically) is one of my favorites and could be something you’re looking for.
Robotbeat 30 days ago [-]
Steve Mould has a great vibe. Combination of a sort of subdued humility and intelligence.
borski 30 days ago [-]
I’m 37, and his Hack Pack stuff has been pretty fun. Sure, it’s easy, but fun.
al_borland 30 days ago [-]
Do the skills build on each other where they need to be done in order?
I got a subscription, but wasn’t super interested in the first one, so it’s still sitting in the box. Then the other boxes started showing up. I now have a full year’s worth and haven’t done a single one, because I feel like I should start with the one I’m least interested in.
aerophilic 29 days ago [-]
They don’t… just do whichever one you are most interested in doing. Each box more or less stands alone (at least that is what I am observing from my kids assembly of them)
borski 29 days ago [-]
They use some similar ideas (a servo is still a servo in a different context), but they are totally independent of one another. Do the one you find most fun!
They’re all good though, tbh.
matthewmueller 31 days ago [-]
The first squirrel video might be the best youtube video ever. Surprising, entertaining, informative, accessible. I'd start there!
bradfa 30 days ago [-]
The best ones seem to be the year or two just before the launch of Crunch Labs. Decent educational content, lots of excitement for engineering and science, and no real shilling. Lots of the newer stuff feels like it was created or edited by the Mr Beast team.
Some of Mark’s cameos on other channels since Crunch Labs started have been good, though.
Sander_Marechal 30 days ago [-]
Take a look at the "Maker Secret Santa" series of video's. It's a yearly collaborative series between a bunch of different maker channels. It can give you a great idea as to what makers you'd like to follow.
madhacker 31 days ago [-]
Reminds a bit of Mr Beast
shemtay 30 days ago [-]
i had the same experience. my solution was to configure youtube kids to only show my whitelist of mannually approved videos.
schmichael 31 days ago [-]
Same! Mark Rober is what changed my mind about YouTube for kids. He's a wildly popular creator that's even shilling a product and yet... I'm ok with all of it? He seems to very legitimately care about sharing getting kids excited about STEM, and if he gets rich doing it: great! The product is less offensive than the sugary cereal I watched commercials for while watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid. Definitely one of the few YouTube channels I let my kids watch unattended.
hlfshell 31 days ago [-]
There's shilling a product because someone handed you a bag, and then there's building a product you believe in. You feel okay with it because it's clearly the latter versus another NordVPN commercial. Even if the product ends up failing (and I am under no predilection to believe this will) he has presented nothing but honest enthusiasm towards his goal that you can't help but root for it.
*SatGus is named after Phat Gus from Mark Robert's squirrel obstacle course.
rossdavidh 34 days ago [-]
Website has a link to a YT video that explains it, but basically free service to upload your pic, get a selfie taken on satellite in space, sent back to you. Free.
quelup 31 days ago [-]
I sent a selfie when the YT video came out. Even though it's basically a picture of a picture, I can't help but be excited that it's being taken from actual space. Great for getting the kids excited about what engineering can do.
encoderer 31 days ago [-]
My 7 year old got into rober videos about a year ago. Really hope she always prefers this kind of stuff to junk food like Mr Beast.
Brajeshwar 31 days ago [-]
A few years back, my co-founder and I thought we should try something outside of work, something interesting but that may not be useful but fun. But we disbanded after a few discussion round without building it.
A mobile app that will help you time and position yourself along the path of your "order" where a satellite flyby and take a selfie of earth with you in it. We realize that even at an expense it might not be able to make a person out of the bigger picture and the cost would be too high. Even after enhancement (our ML Model), it won't still make significant difference of value or fun.
glassofbees 31 days ago [-]
I'm really curious about the technical constraints they're working with - how much bandwidth do they have in each direction, how many images does that allow for, what resolution/format/quality are they using, how many images are in the queue, etc
iambateman 31 days ago [-]
This is pretty cool. We uploaded ours a few days ago and still waiting.
My five year old son is pumped
layer8 31 days ago [-]
From the FAQ it sounds like it may take a few months:
“The first batch of selfies should be returning mid-summer and we will email you ahead of time. If you want to jump closer to the front of the queue and not wait a few months, please make sure you are an active CrunchLabs subscriber (Build Box, Hack Pack). Or, if you're an educator, send an email to help@crunchlabs.com and let us know that your selfie is a class photo and we'll take your selfie first!”
ElijahLynn 31 days ago [-]
Yup, got that same message!
Still an amazing thing though!
My son and I watched the launch video where they sent it up to space. Highly recommend watching that with whoever you're going to take the selfie with!
pinoy420 31 days ago [-]
[dead]
jayknight 31 days ago [-]
Is there a limit to what you can upload? I figure they're not just going to let people upload a million pictures, but can I do one per kid?
roydivision 30 days ago [-]
It seems from my own upload that you are limited to one / email address. So yes you could just use a bunch of aliases, but I guess they're banking on most people only having access to a few addresses.
icameron 31 days ago [-]
Shoot it’s getting a 504 Gateway timeout. Must be trending!
curtisszmania 30 days ago [-]
[dead]
mickey475778 30 days ago [-]
[dead]
sdeframond 31 days ago [-]
[flagged]
GuB-42 31 days ago [-]
SATGUS is a 12U CubeSat, I don't know the mass, but it seems that 20kg is a reasonable assumption. As with all CubeSats, they didn't use a rocket just for it, it is an auxiliary payload to a big satellite mission.
According to Wikipedia the Falcon 9 has a payload ratio of about 4%, and assuming everything else is propellant (not that far off), that's about 500kg of propellant to launch that satellite.
But propellant is mostly oxygen, let's say between 2:1 and 3:1 oxygen:fuel, it means about 150 kg of kerosene to launch that satellite. That's your fossil fuel usage. Similar to what it takes to bring a passenger across the Atlantic on a typical airliner. It means that taking these pictures from space burns less fossil fuel than overseas vacation pictures.
Of course, there is probably a lot more fossil fuel burned during the process than by the launch itself: building and transporting the parts, business travels, powering the servers, etc... But the same can be said of most endeavors at this scale.
sdeframond 29 days ago [-]
> It means that taking these pictures from space burns less fossil fuel than overseas vacation pictures.
That's comparing grapes to watermelons. It doesn't take getting on a plane to have a picture of a picture of oneself taken from an oversea country.
tgsovlerkhgsel 31 days ago [-]
Historically, space has always also been a tool to get people, especially kids, excited for science.
dylan604 31 days ago [-]
At this point, couldn't that just comp the selfie with automation? Who would ever know if it was actually displayed in spaaaaace or not?
If you have young kids (6-15) these are perfect educational tools. Highly recommend. Only downside is some of them are a bit “mischievous”. For example a “Bobbie trap” that launches balls at whomever tripped the wire. Good times…
Then the algorithm handed us some more recent videos and they felt like a pivot to Nickelodeon style content: We watched Mark Rober run through a green slime obstacle course with a lot of loud noises and action, but basically zero educational value.
So as someone new to this: Any tips? Should I be sticking to old videos only if I want some educational value? My kids only watch with me as an activity we do together, so I’m always looking for good videos that can keep us away from the content farm stuff.
I recommend checking out Stuff Made Here; great build videos of engineering principles in an entertaining fashion to show building cool complicated stuff.
Xyla Foxlin, a wonderful maker, also posts educational videos between her projects, like an in-depth look at how plane wings work.
Whenever I am feeling smart or particularly talented, I like watching Shane's videos. I'm swiftly reminded that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing and carry on.
I like practical engineering, but my kids aren't ready for how awesome Grady is... yet.
I got a subscription, but wasn’t super interested in the first one, so it’s still sitting in the box. Then the other boxes started showing up. I now have a full year’s worth and haven’t done a single one, because I feel like I should start with the one I’m least interested in.
They’re all good though, tbh.
Some of Mark’s cameos on other channels since Crunch Labs started have been good, though.
*SatGus is named after Phat Gus from Mark Robert's squirrel obstacle course.
A mobile app that will help you time and position yourself along the path of your "order" where a satellite flyby and take a selfie of earth with you in it. We realize that even at an expense it might not be able to make a person out of the bigger picture and the cost would be too high. Even after enhancement (our ML Model), it won't still make significant difference of value or fun.
My five year old son is pumped
“The first batch of selfies should be returning mid-summer and we will email you ahead of time. If you want to jump closer to the front of the queue and not wait a few months, please make sure you are an active CrunchLabs subscriber (Build Box, Hack Pack). Or, if you're an educator, send an email to help@crunchlabs.com and let us know that your selfie is a class photo and we'll take your selfie first!”
Still an amazing thing though!
My son and I watched the launch video where they sent it up to space. Highly recommend watching that with whoever you're going to take the selfie with!
According to Wikipedia the Falcon 9 has a payload ratio of about 4%, and assuming everything else is propellant (not that far off), that's about 500kg of propellant to launch that satellite.
But propellant is mostly oxygen, let's say between 2:1 and 3:1 oxygen:fuel, it means about 150 kg of kerosene to launch that satellite. That's your fossil fuel usage. Similar to what it takes to bring a passenger across the Atlantic on a typical airliner. It means that taking these pictures from space burns less fossil fuel than overseas vacation pictures.
Of course, there is probably a lot more fossil fuel burned during the process than by the launch itself: building and transporting the parts, business travels, powering the servers, etc... But the same can be said of most endeavors at this scale.
That's comparing grapes to watermelons. It doesn't take getting on a plane to have a picture of a picture of oneself taken from an oversea country.