Interview Transcript

Interviewer: Mike Taylor (NASA GSFC, STELLA Outreach Scientist) Guests: Clara Laughlin, Ingrid Roberson, Sarah Payne

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Welcome. I’m your host, Mike Taylor. And today we will be sitting down with William Gancer and Bob Richards of Stockbridge Junior

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Senior High School.

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And William, could you start out with introducing yourself and then we’ll go on to Bob.

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Hi. My name is William Gancer. I’m in the 12th grade, and I joined Mr. Richards class when I was in eighth grade because I wanted a hands on experience that I didn’t think that I could get in any other class.

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And after a couple of years of working with upperclassmen engineers and working on them with projects like the CubeSat, I got really into aerospace. And Mr. Richards came out to us with this proposition that he was working with NASA. And, it just it kind of sparked my imagination. You never think that, like, you would get to work with NASA and do something just as cool as this in, like, high school.

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It’s very cool. So he said that he, he wanted to go back to doing underwater robotics, and I was like, how can NASA and underwater robotics work together? And then he brought up spectral sensors, and I was like, well, what’s spectrometry? You know, I learned about that in like, chemistry or like in physics class once. And then I never touched it again.

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But we went back and we learned that we can determine the health of any plant, any coral, any person, really, by just measuring the light that’s coming off of them. And I thought that was the coolest thing ever. So we used NASA’s STELLA-Q2, which we have right here, and we modified it so that we can have a camera on it.

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And in the future we’ll put a lighter on it, because we want to make all of the measurements that we have standardized. Because when I learned pretty quickly when I was just using the STELLA, taking measurements that I couldn’t really kind of quantify, I could quantify the data, but I couldn’t interpret it at all. So, we decided that the next best thing to do to help, integrate that data into, like, what real world applications was.

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We need a camera on it so that we can see what we are taking measurements of. And soon we have a leader so we can make our measurements more standardized because, we realized that the STELLA-Q2 was just a handheld device, and not every single measurement is going to be, at the same distance. So I’m just super excited to use this and see if we can determine the health of coral in Punta Cana.

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Because that’s just something that is I’m really passionate about. There’s only 1% left of the original coral down there in Punta Cana, and we want to help preserve it and see if we can make a device that can help kind of give a warning sign to the the people down there before the coral starts to have visible damage.

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Bob. Could you introduce yourself your role at Stockbridge Junior Senior High School? And what inspired you to bring open source NASA hardware into the classrooms?

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Sure. My name is Bob Richards.

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I’m the high school agriculture teacher and robotics teacher and computer science teacher here in our small rural school and Stockbridge, Michigan. We’ve been working with open source components and software and commercial off the shelf electronics parts for for several years now. We started working with underwater robots at first, and then in the last 4 or 5 years, we’ve worked with cube satellites.

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And built a cube satellite with the University of Toledo and the dream big project. And on that cube satellite, we had a STELLA sensor, working with the, the folks from the University of Toledo and the other schools on our team. That’s really what inspired me to take that STELLA and bring it not only down to earth, but underwater.

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I was challenged by President Tommy Remengesau, the president of Palau, to involve my students in working more with our underwater technology and protecting the environment and conserving the environment. At that time, we were looking for downed airplanes that had crashed during World War two that had MIAs associated with it. But President Remengesau is an environmentalist, and that created the first shark sanctuary in the world off the the island of Palau.

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And he said, boy, your kids should really use this technology to protect the ocean. And since that time, we’ve we’ve tried to do that and incorporate environmental projects along with what we do. So.

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My ultimate dream is to use a sensor to track manta rays. But we’re slowly getting to that point. So we’ve worked with the STELLA_Q2 sensor this year, and we’re modifying it to use to monitor the health of coral in the Dominican Republic.

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what was the exact moment you realized you weren’t completing a typical classroom assignment? But we’re building actual scientific hardware connected to NASA Earth observation projects.

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The moment that I figured out that this wasn’t just your everyday classwork was when Mr. Richards showed us what was going on in Punta Cana. He showed us the fragging, that was going on and the bleaching. And we had done measurements with plants just outside around the greenhouse. But that was kind of really contained. And we could already tell, like this plants dying.

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So we would test the device. And I realized that this could have real world applications with the help of NASA and their devices. That could really just make a big difference.

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why did your team decide to attach

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the

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Arducam camera module to the the Q2? And,

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how does taking a visual photograph alongside the spectrum reading help you better understand what the instrument is measuring?

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we decided that we wanted to add the Arducam because, like I said, when we were just looking at data by itself, it was kind of hard when we put it in a Microsoft Excel sheet to understand that this applied to this, we would have to bring a clipboard outside and literally right measurement one measurement to like whiteboard measurement and then like black measurements.

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So we had reference points and everything. But with the camera we can just attach on the Excel sheet like each JPEG and then open that up and we can see exactly what we’re looking at. So we found that very useful. And if we were going to want to graph this data, we would probably want images to alongside it so that when we’re showing it to other people who aren’t as kind of versed in spectrometry, that we could help them understand, what are you actually looking at?

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And the memory problem started with the Ram of the device because there was only just a tiny little bit. And when we started trying moving over all of our code that, there just wasn’t enough Ram. So we had to cut down on some other things. But the the camera itself was not that hard to integrate for memory.

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All of the JPEGs are just saved on the actual SD card, so we just need a bigger SD card if we’re going to take more measurements. And right now we’ve just been saving them to a separate SD card that we have, separately. And then we’ll delete them off of the SD card that is on the device.

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So that’s how we solved it. So how much does the like say a single like reference image. Take how much memory in the SD card on the estate card, a single JPEG file is about eight kilobytes. Okay. Each time. So and then each data file is about, only 298 bytes. So that’s saved in the Microsoft Excel.

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And we can open that up.

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So I will ask Bob the same question, though. So whose idea was it to come up with putting the camera on there?

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When did it come around? And basically, you know, how does taking the visual photograph alongside a, you know, a light spectrum reading help you better understand what the instrument is measuring? We’ll answer this, so I will ask you for Bob. Sure. I mean, the the camera, I feel, is the integral part, especially for citizen science and science communication.

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I mean, if we want people to understand what we’re doing, a graph isn’t going to excite most people. The average lay person who might want to protect the ocean really needs to see the ocean in order to, you know, to protect it. Then they’ll take that extra step and read the graph. Or at least know that there’s data there to support the thinking behind, what we discovered, whether whether it works or not, at least we’re going to go out there and we’re going to test the hypothesis, come back, reevaluate it, and then test it again and see how reliable it is.

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A lot of it’s going to be up front is just taking measurements and building reliability. And then having the students in Punta Cana at the county international school replicate the work we’re doing, so we can expand the work because they’re there every day. And then we can start to to look at the data.

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And try to make sense of it. I don’t think that we’re going to have an answer in November. I think we’re going to work on processes. And how do we I mean, making a jig to get this distance for the camera and the sensor, the exact distance away from the coral each time will help the the information be more reliable.

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It’ll make it easier to compare apples to oranges, if you will. Or apples to apples, right? If we’re going to compare one piece of coral over a 2 or 3 month period that it’s in the lab, each measurement needs to be taken the same way by the same device in order for the data to mean the same thing.

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And I think learning those procedures and how to create a standard operating procedure in a sampling protocol, or the, the little things that, that they’re going to learn that they’ll be able to take to whatever career they go into in science or engineering. Ultimately, we’d like to prove that it works, and it’s a lot easier to prove to our peers.

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Right? Our friends here at the school and our colleagues with a picture, because they’re going to look at that picture, that coral and be able to see those changes. We’re not everybody might get that from a graph. Unfortunately. But I think that’s part of opening science and exploration up to other people. We have to make it accessible to them.

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And part of it is communicating the results that we find in a photograph and video, along with the data. Those two things merge together will create a clearer picture for the average person.

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you mentioned measuring coral and you mentioned, you know, taking stuff underwater. How are you taking it under the water. Have you come up with some sort of hardened case?

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Yeah. So, we’re we’re still in the development stage, so we have a 3D printed housing.

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Similar to the one that’s that’s in GitHub and on on your web page. And Will and some of his colleagues in the class have redesigned that to hold the camera. So that’s our first step. We’re going to use the the modified STELLA-Q2 sensor in a lab down in the Dominican Republic starting next week. Actually, I’ll be there, next Friday to run our first set of tests and then to see what we need to modify further.

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The ultimate goal is to put it in a waterproof enclosure and mounted on an underwater robot or an RV. And we have the ROV up and running. I think it’s just one step at a time. You know how engineering goes. Reiterate and iterate and iterate. And that’s what we’ve been doing. So, just one step at a time and making one piece work and then adding one more piece to it.

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And, I mean, it’s just it’s the engineering process, that’s come alive in my classroom. Yeah. We hope that the device can eventually be condensed down onto like three parts, which would be the spectral sensor. We wouldn’t need the old display if it’s on the ROV, because we just send up all the data through the tether. We wouldn’t really need the button.

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You don’t really, really need the spectral sensor and the camera if unless we’re going to use another camera. Probably along with the leader, which I said before. So if we can condense, the we condense the Q2 to only a couple components we can fit it in with, what is that cylinder that is underneath the ROV?

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So that which is already enclosed to the water?

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and this is going back to your trigger button will because it is kind of it’s, it’s a, it’s a quite a feat you’ve had there, in your circuit on microelectronics code. You had to program a single button to press to take a light measurement and a snap photo at the same exact same instant, or at least close to what is the trickiest part of getting those two actions to sink without freezing?

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Microcontroller. It was probably, seeing like what was different about the code to the code. So actually I was really lucky because they’re both I see. So I mean, it’s pretty simple. After that, I just had to do like a couple of very small changes in the latency between the button press and the, the camera, because the camera was like only a couple milliseconds off if you were to like, hook it up to like literally anything, the the code of the camera was like 23 milliseconds.

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I don’t remember, but I just had to change those numbers around. The trickiest part was just integrating the camera in the first place. I mean, could I get the Raspberry Pi to actually accept the camera and like, would it run both codes at once? I guess that was the trickiest part.

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student leadership. You are serving as the student team leader for the engineering group heading to the Dominican Republic. What has it been like managing build deadlines and guiding your classmates through technical setbacks?

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So in usual classes, you have like a Google classroom and a due date, but it’s kind of a little bit harder when it’s run by students.

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So I like to just have a student meeting at the start of every class. Mr. Richards will go over what everyone’s plan is before we start the day, and then everyone just breaks off and so on things. So I’ve separated it into three groups. Right now, I’m working very closely with my colleague Alex on the Q2, with making the housing and the code for the RPI, which we are of the Q2, and then we have John Fox, who is working on the ROV component, which we hope to bring down in February.

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And then my two colleagues in Owen are working on the 1.2 to see if that if we’re going to have any chance of using that in February 2nd. So when we manage deadlines. Obviously our first deadline is when Mr. Richards goes down there in next week. So we decided that we need to get the Q2 in a new housing with all of our upgrades on it.

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Last summer, we decided that that needs to be done by October. And so we’ve hit that deadline. Now we’re finished finalizing the housing. And, we’ll just go from there one step at a time in the engineering process. Yeah, we’ll we’ll also, in addition to those engineering teams, we have a communications and marketing team and their, documenting everything with video and photography.

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And then we have a couple of other students that are managing our coral. So we have a frag tank in our classroom with coral frags in it so that we can test the STELLA sensor here in in Stockbridge before we go down to the Dominican Republic and tested and in their lab down there.

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that is a very unique class, Bob, that you got going on there and whole. Well, shoot, just, you know, class is and very multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary, if you will. So, what is it like running these classes and letting the students lead?

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Yeah, I it’s, I, I didn’t start out as a teacher.

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I spent 20 years in the military before I became a teacher. So I think that helps working with teams that are dispersed. So our our class really isn’t, doesn’t follow a linear flow like a lot of classes do. Or you got to do A and B and C it’s it’s more asynchronous if you will. Because invention and exploration doesn’t really happen on our time schedule all the time.

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It happens by following a process. And that’s difficult for a lot of people to, to, to follow that type of work. We, I’ve been operating my class like this for.

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13 years, probably, if not a little bit longer. And the process has gotten easier over time. I think as teachers, we want to jump in and fix everything for the kids, and I’m not sure they learn a whole lot when we do that other than to ask for help. So and I will tell you, sometimes he gets frustrated with me because I won’t jump in there.

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And given the the book answer, right, like, let’s figure it out. Let’s try it even even though I know what they’re going to try may not work, I’d like them to experience the results themselves in a in a non-threatening environment. Right. So that’s part of it. I’ve really moved into the role with this class that we call our Special Projects Lab into a facilitator role.

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So a lot of my time while they’re working is tied up in logistics. So I’m finding funding, talking to donors. I had a call with GoPro the other day to to get some help from them. So, and then just keeping everything flowing and keeping them moving forward. But they’re doing the work, the, the engineering work and the computer coding and everything else.

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So.

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yeah, I’m kind of like the, the man behind the curtain.

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Right. Just keeping things flowing and keeping the kids moving forward, and, and, you know, when they run into a roadblock, I let them struggle. But, I mean, that’s only productive for a little while. Right. And then then you’ve got to kind of give them hints and point them in the right direction so that they can, you know, draw the right conclusions.

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That’ll get them to the next step. So it’s it’s much more involved than filling out a worksheet, obviously.

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it really is difficult for a teacher to just hold on and not give the answer, because we always want everybody to be successful and always want to give them the correct answer, and that it’s not always the best case

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Could you explain Punta Cana of project with the local marine innovation center? What specific threats to coral health, such as ocean warming and coral diseases are your students working to monitor?

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Sure. So the Marine Innovation Center in Punta Cana is in a new building as of last year. They’re researching how to protect the corals on the reef there in Punta Cana. The the reef had in the Dominican Republic in general has been degraded, as is a lot of reefs have from overfishing, pollution runoff and then the sargassum, blocking the sun out.

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So there’s a lot of challenges, to the reef there along with tourism that are affecting it. So the scientists at the Marine Innovation Center are trying to find the corals that, have the highest rate of survivability is one thing they’re looking at, and they’re growing coral in the lab that gets transferred out to a nursery and then is eventually out planted on to the reef to replace coral that’s lost.

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So they’re really doing quite a bit along with working with mangroves. And and then the sargassum problem that a lot of islands in the Caribbean have with the seaweed getting blown in at certain times of the year. So they’re really looking at sustainability for their island, and how they can, protect the environment because tourism is a large part of their, their economy.

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But also the agriculture in the rural areas is, is a big part of their economy. So they need to protect the limited resources they have on their island and hope to preserve those for future generations. So the Marine Innovation Center is, state of the art facility. And it’s it’s right there on the ocean, which makes it easy to not only work in the lab, but hopefully to get the students out on the reef.

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And when we have a watertight version of the STELLA sensors, we hope to have the students out there on the reef with them as well.

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All right. Perfect. So here, I’ll open up. Thonny And this is where I’ve been doing most of my editing. I get a bunch of errors all the time, and so most of my time is spent. Not really like making new stuff, but fixing the errors that I’ve made along the way for anything I add.

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So if you see over here, I’ve gotten rid of a lot of the extra files that I don’t need to clear up some space on the Ram. And, this is exactly what’s on the root of the Python device. And so here’s kind of what the inside of it looks like right now. We’ve just got the female male wires and show me the, the the inside.

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Can you stop screen sharing because it’s massive. Oh, okay. Yeah. We can we can do that later then. Okay, I’ll just run the code right now. Okay. So I’m just going to control D to reset and then soft reboot. Here. Let me reconnect to the.

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To it plugged in. Yeah. Now I’m going to re soft reboot. And.

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Initializes just about everything. The spectral sensor just flashed in my face. That was nice. So we’ve got everything’s ready graphs ready. And then it says at the end, manual single shot mode ready. Short click of one short click equals one spectrum shot plus one jpeg. So that means that we get the 18 spectral measurements for one JPEG.

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And I can run the code. Oh shoot, I think it just oh there we go. Okay, one more time I’m going to press the button here on the actual device and it’s going to take a photo. Do you want me to stop screen sharing at this point? No. I’m interested. So, yeah, I see it again. And integration time.

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What’s that all about?

00:24:06:14 – 00:24:30:04

When you see that. Sorry. The gain set to 16 times and integration time. Yes. So we this was just all edited so that it could be that everything was used at the same time that the camera was taking the photo. We we didn’t want any latency on it. So I just ran that through like a search engine. And I was like, okay, when does the auto cam like when does it take the snap?

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And then so I just shifted it wouldn’t it didn’t have very many adverse effects on the actual device, but it just made it a little bit simpler for us. So.

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When you press the button because originally set to three burst mode. Yeah.

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Do you know what the trade offs between the three burst versus the one is. So yeah we’re taking I could have it at three burst equals one jpeg, because that would give us three measurements at once that we could compare against other three measurements. But I just wanted to first prove that I could do one measurement with one camera at the same time.

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I think for the November trip, after Mr. Richards goes down, I might switch it back to the three burst method so that I can take three bursts of the the coral, three bursts of just black, you know, three bursts of the whiteboard. So we can, use our equations, like to figure out what is what is the actual data mean?

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You know, when we graph it, we might have to set up a separate graph within the NASA one so that we can put our JPEGs on there too, but that’ll come later down the line. So here I just pressed the button and it shows me the new lowest memory free on the SD card, and it gives me all the spectral data points there right below that.

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And then it says the image is saved, how big the image was. And then it prints single shot complete waiting for the next button click. So that’s just one button. Click equals one JPEG and one spectral measurement.

00:26:03:03 – 00:26:21:08

all I’ve done here is just add female male wires to the RPI. Started the other end of it down so that it’s stable, you know, doesn’t move anywhere. And then everything else I kept just basically the same. It still has the OLED display. So this was the last measurement I took still on there. It’ll stay on there.

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And so I pressed the button again, which I can just do right now on my face. And then there we go. Should say next batch on the code. It said wait for next button click. So that was successful. And then if I go into my files and I take out the SD card, put it in my computer, it’ll have the JPEG on there along with the measurements in Excel.

00:26:41:08 – 00:27:02:11

So fantastic. And then that’s that’s great. And then so who’s designing the the restructure of the case? Oh, that’s my colleague Alex. And we had a prototype which I might just go grab right now. So you don’t mind waiting a couple of seconds? Yeah. 3D printers running right outside this room right now. That’s what an amazing class.

00:27:02:14 – 00:27:24:09

We have a video editing bay back here where the kids can work on, on editing video and a sound booth. So this this works good for this type of thing. So actually just finished 3D printing was the back housing, which is so this is what we had designed. And then you can see in the housing right now I made the prongs.

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I don’t know how clear it’ll be, but I made the prongs right here, just a little bit taller so that the camera will sit right in those prongs right there. I haven’t I don’t have the soldered one with me right here, but it’ll sit like this and then this will go over it. And, that’ll be it. We just we had a couple of design changes initially.

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We had like three holes so that the wires could go through and we were like, wait, this is going to be by the ocean. It’s going to get wet. Or like there’s much more room for error. So we just changed that. So I think by Monday we’ll have the soldered, in complete Q2 for Mr. Richards to bring.

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Now

00:28:04:00 – 00:28:23:12

Bob, testing in the school frag tank, how was the team using your school’s indoor coral frag tank? Which is a small aquatic nursery tank used for coral, right. To calibrate the instruments before deploying them in the ocean waters. Yeah. So we’re just getting started on that this week.

00:28:23:13 – 00:28:46:07

I, I think right now we have eight different frags in the six gallon tank. And we’re getting ready to take our first measurement. We’re waiting for that to, to finish up. We’ve, we’ve taken photographs. We’ve, we have a, a BaseScope, if you will, that we can put the camera in to cut down on the reflection.

00:28:46:08 – 00:29:07:08

So we’re thinking we’re going to have to modify the STELLA-Q2 again to break the water tension and get the camera lens down, and cut back on the reflection from the sun, on the water into the sensor and the camera. So so that’s what we’re trying to figure out next week.

00:29:07:09 – 00:29:26:00

In my head, I got it figured out how we’re gonna do it. But ultimately, I’d like to get that the the imager and the camera below the surface of the water just a little bit to cut back on the reflection.

00:29:26:01 – 00:29:45:03

We’ll we’ll kind of in on it now. I was going to let him. Well, he’s already done it a little bit and got the reflection. Yeah, I used the the Base-whatever. Yeah. It’s the BaseScope. A couple of times I took measurements and they were all over the place. Obviously I don’t have the leader yet, so I couldn’t determine what, like if there was exact same.

00:29:45:03 – 00:30:09:07

I was, like, moving the camera around, trying to get it to where it wouldn’t make, like, a big reflection. But, so I think the next step is, like Mr. Richard said, trying to get it just below the surface of the water. How could we do that with like a 3D printer part, or maybe adding our own, like sapphire glass or something, you know, so that we can get it on there without getting any of the components wet.

00:30:09:09 – 00:30:37:09

So but those are, you know, engineering challenges. We have the enclosures and underwater camera housings and that type of stuff for them to play with and figure out the best solution. But that’s, you know, how do we take those measurements is part of our first two experiments. You know, what’s the distance, what’s the angle that the camera’s at from the object?

00:30:37:11 – 00:31:01:09

And I mean, we’re going to play a little bit and take, take the measurements at 3 or 4 different angles and at different distances, and try to figure out which works the best are. Come up with a new standard operating procedure. And then in February and March test the new new plan. So, it’s I guess that’s science, right?

00:31:01:11 – 00:31:21:06

One step at a time. Throw your hypothesis out there, test it and then evaluate it and come back at it. So yeah that’s. Yeah. And it beats filling out worksheets in the classroom. Yeah.

00:31:21:07 – 00:31:41:12

Your team planning document candidly lists areas you want to improve this year, such as team professionalism, public speaking, and social media outreach. What lessons from past field trips have helped shape these goals? Sometimes when we would go in the lab and we were talking with the scientists there, we had no idea what they were talking about.

00:31:41:12 – 00:32:01:00

And our first trip down, we had a very base knowledge of what is coral, what’s going on down there to Punta Cana? We kind of we sold this idea, but we didn’t have all the answers yet because it was our first time down there and we were kind of just testing the waters. But this year we want to go back with a clear plan and acting like real scientists and engineers.

00:32:01:01 – 00:32:29:15

We aren’t just really high school students anymore. When we were in this class, we’re actually professional. We’re acting like a real scientists, and that kind of helps all of our students figure out, like, what is it really going to be like in the real world when they are in professions that require this level of professionalism? Yeah. So I think, professional vocabulary was was what I was, angling for from the students when they talk like they’re talking to their friends in the classroom.

00:32:30:00 – 00:32:53:01

That’s at one level. But if you’re speaking with professionals, you need to up your vocabulary and use the the language of the science. And I think the students figured that out. The last time we were in Punta Cana. At first, the coral scientist was looking at us like we were a bother. And she was busy, you know, working with her coral, trying to grow it out.

00:32:53:04 – 00:33:21:07

And then one of the students asked a really intelligent and in-depth question. The scientists stopped, and then she wasn’t busy anymore. And she she goes, oh, these kids really care and they really want to do something. And then, they, they were able to communicate. You know, we got her attention with not being tourists and being there with a purpose other than sightseeing and playing in the water.

00:33:21:08 – 00:33:44:10

So I think the kids realize that, oh, if I ask good questions, I’m going to get good answers. And they noticed right away that her demeanor changed, and she treated them, like she would a one of her students and, and brought them into the group and then and now invited them back for this year. So.

00:33:44:11 – 00:34:14:07

Just that level of improving your communication skills, being clear, concise and using the language of the industry. Our social media outreach. I mean, we’ve, we’ve got a pretty good program going. But we want to be respectful of their culture and what goes on in, in the Dominican Republic. I think professional dress is something that we, we discussed.

00:34:14:08 – 00:34:34:07

The students at pieces were a polo shirt and and slack. So basically a school uniform. And that’s foreign to our school. We had team shirts. But sometimes we look like we were going to gym class, right? Because it’s it’s 30 degrees in Michigan and it’s 80 down there. So we had we weren’t acclimated to the temperature.

00:34:34:07 – 00:35:06:09

So. So we’re we’re cleaning up our professional appearance a little bit. For this coming trip. And, and we have more than one team polo shirt, to wear and we, we all have, lightweight slacks and and dress shorts as opposed to gym shorts, so. Right. I mean, just that lends credibility to what the students are doing, that professional appearance and, and improved quality of vocabulary, I think is going to make a big difference not only for this project, but but going forward.

00:35:06:10 – 00:35:21:10

we’ll and then Bob. So this is for both of you. But so what advice would you give to another high school student or teacher who wants to build NASA open source technology, but feels intimidated by microelectronics and software programing?

00:35:21:11 – 00:35:43:13

I would say that the GitHub is a great place to start. Not a lot of people know what GitHub really is. It’s just like the greatest place to start from because it’s all open source code. There’s you can ask any question on there, because I was having trouble just sending my Q2 last year and one meeting with you, Mike and I had it working and I was just off from there and it was great.

00:35:43:14 – 00:36:02:12

For intimidating coding, there’s a lot of resources out there today that use artificial intelligence, but also just have databases of like, where can you start from here? So when I was going through and I had an error. I would test things myself. And then I’d ask, like I would ask AI if like, what is this error really mean?

00:36:02:12 – 00:36:23:10

And then it would be like, oh, this is what’s wrong. And kind of learning the process through, GitHub and using AI intelligently. Not just asking you to do the job for me, but really, like, can I learn something from this? And like, what is the actual problem here? Finding that out with AI’s help me come a long way.

00:36:23:12 – 00:36:47:12

So, yeah, I would, My voice is always follow your passion. If you’re a teacher and you’re passionate about a subject or a topic, your enthusiasm will. Your students will see that and they’ll jump on board your project. I always ask my students in the winter, like, what do you want to do next year if you’re coming back?

00:36:47:12 – 00:37:08:04

We got to have a project, because if we don’t have a project, we’re not going to have a class. And, and they were all around, you know, had all sorts of great ideas. But our experience with the cube satellite and the STELLA on that, kind of pushed me in this direction, and I. And then when I said, what do you think you could use that on coral?

00:37:08:05 – 00:37:39:11

Just the curiosity piece right there. We’re all curious what we’re. I don’t know. Well, how are we going to know? Nobody else has done it. Let’s let’s see if we can do it. So we, I think, be curious, ask questions. As well said. There’s tons of resources out there. I’ve encouraged them to to see what artificial intelligence will do, because ultimately, I’d like to put an AI camera on that to help speed things up to, and we’re playing with AI cameras and other projects.

00:37:39:12 – 00:38:05:14

But I think, you know, you AI can speed up the coding process tremendously. Once you know the basics of Python, even for just helping find errors and debugging code and speeds the process up. But you have to have a base knowledge of what’s going on first. You can’t get one before the other necessarily, but it has helped speed up the process for us dramatically.

00:38:06:01 – 00:38:19:14

There’s tons of resources on the internet. There’s tons of people such as yourself that are great help, ask questions, be curious, and follow your passion.

00:38:20:00 – 00:38:38:13

Fantastic. Thank you so much. And thank you very much for spending some time with me and answering questions. And please don’t be stranger and tell me all about what you’re doing. And if you need help, like with the 1.2, I have no problem helping you. Maybe not quite at the minute, but anytime. So please reach out. Yeah.

00:38:38:14 – 00:38:54:05

And continue this amazing, amazing work. Thanks again for your time. So all right. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Yeah. You too. Take care. Bye.

00:38:54:06 – 00:39:06:14

I think my friend Taurin just got the 1.2 to work! Yeah. Come on. Yeah, I just got it working! Here. Sit in here, buddy. Fantastic. This is my friend. He’s my colleague who’s working on the 1.2. Mike,

00:39:06:15 – 00:39:11:03

This is exciting. I’m just. Because I just got this working. Finally.