Ep. 38 | Comedy, Shocks, and Educating EEs on YouTube with ElectroBOOM's Mehdi Sadaghdar

11/23/21 • 42 min

Moore's Lobby: Where engineers talk all about circuits

"Want to subconsciously learn while being entertained?" says the ElectroBOOM YouTube page. "Then subscribe!!"

Mehdi Sadaghdar is well-known for several things: his YouTube videos, his habit of accidentally shocking himself in said videos, his sense of humor, his impressive unibrow. But Sadaghdar is also one of the few electrical engineer celebrities alive today and he's made a name for himself by creating electronics educational videos on YouTube.

Just as his YouTube page promises, ElectroBOOM makes over 4.8 million subscribers laugh with his particular brand of hijinks while also teaching them about concepts like current limiting and magnetic fields in BLDC motors. The result is somewhere between Bill Nye, Mythbusters, and the Marx Brothers.

In this episode of Moore's Lobby, Mehdi and Daniel chat about the role of YouTube and social media in modern engineering education, especially the idea of teaching by showing (occasionally shocking) mistakes.

Also included in this episode:

The story of that one time Mehdi nearly died building a Jacob's Ladder
Answering the question, "Is it the current or the voltage that kills you?"
Throwing shade at mechanical engineers
Rage at "free energy" products
The challenges of being an introverted engineer in the limelight

"Want to subconsciously learn while being entertained?" says the ElectroBOOM YouTube page. "Then subscribe!!"

Also included in this episode:

The story of that one time Mehdi nearly died building a Jacob's Ladder
Answering the question, "Is it the current or the voltage that kills you?"
Throwing shade at mechanical engineers
Rage at "free energy" products
The challenges of being an introverted engineer in the limelight

Previous Episode

Ep. 37 | Hypergiant and Colossal's Ben Lamm on Industrial AI and Resurrecting Woolly Mammoths

Turning science fiction into engineering reality is a complex business, but Ben Lamm has made it into a career.

In this episode of Moore's Lobby, Daniel chats with Lamm, a serial entrepreneur who has founded several technology and science startups all through his 20s and 30s. One of these companies is Hypergiant, which helps governments and companies integrate cutting-edge AI into their aerospace, defense, and infrastructure.

Now, Lamm has set his sights on bioengineering, where he's partnered with one of the leading experts in genomics, George Church, to bring back woolly mammoths in the form of engineered arctic elephants designed with mammoth DNA.

Yes, Ben has seen Jurassic Park. Yes, they get that question all the time. And, yes, you have got to hear how they're pulling this off.

Join us to hear Ben recount his favorite projects throughout his career (so far) and explain his addiction to what's next in pursuing "the art of the possible."

Next Episode

Ep. 39 | General Motors’ Vehicle Chief Engineer on the Tech and Passion of Automotive Design

Everybody knows cars are becoming more like computers than mechanical devices. Few know this better than Mark Allen, Global Vehicle Chief Engineer at GM, a company that’s been defining the American automotive business for a century. As an engineer who is also a car nut raised in the heart of American automotive manufacturing, Mark has a long view on the history and challenges of vehicle design.

The engineering that goes into making modern cars has changed enormously, to the point that Mark claims there are few purely mechanical systems left as electromechanical systems take over. This trend has also resulted in a blending of mechanical and electrical engineering tasks and skill sets, to the point that Mark says they barely distinguish between the two disciplines on the job. But, no matter what field they hail from, he says, engineers will never stop perfecting their craft, which is why the automotive industry has the performance and safety it does today.

In this episode of Moore’s Lobby, catch conversation between Daniel and Mark about:

How new technologies like backup cams evolve from novelties to luxuries to expected to mandated
The cost of electronics in modern cars (and why that’s harder to quantify than you might think)
Designing cars vs. designing smartphones and how durability impacts product lifespan

Mark’s pure love of automotive carries through in this episode as he explains the lofty goals of the automotive industry, the difference having an EE CEO can make, and the (sometimes literal) highs and lows of vehicle testing.