Shop Class Podcast

After working in the Toy & Children’s Product world for over 25 years combined, Sabre Mrkva and Eric von Stein started their dream company, Bright Stripes, in 2018. With a shared love of all things craft and DIY, they believe in the power of creative play to empower kids to create the world they want to live in.

Sabre brings her 15+ years of experience of nuts & bolts kids’ product development and a strong business analysis to every decision and design choice. As ecologically minded as she is business-savvy, Sabre studied Industrial Design at the Pratt Institute in NYC with a focus on sustainable design.

Sabre’s love of all things DIY and her experience as a mom of 2 gives her the passion to create wholesome, satisfying play experiences for every child.

Kyle Thompson has 14 years of experience teaching every grade from kindergarten to adult education, with 12 of those years dedicated to building construction technology & carpentry. Kyle spent several years working in material handling services for residential/commercial construction, tools and materials sales, mobile electrical install services, and industrial submersible pump systems.

He is an OSHA 500 authorized trainer for the construction industry who places a high priority on safety. With a master’s degree in applied behavior analysis & autism, a bachelor’s in psychology, Kyle has also worked as a professional in the field of behavior analysis which directly correlates to task analysis and keeping workers safe.

With a crew of over 150+ secondary students and adults, Kyle operated a 100% incident and accident-free workplace for 11 years as the sole supervisor. His primary focus was on transitioning students into high demand careers in the construction industry.

Peter Wachtel is an award-winning creative director & design educator, inventor, and author. Award Winning Design “Innovention” for: Toys, Products, Graphics, Video Games, Theme Park & Entertainment Design, Design Education & Cartoon Voice-Overs. • Designed & Developed over 500 Toys & Products (Multiple Patents), and works with some of the Best Toy & Product companies in the World & Invented the World Famous GRILL WRANGLER BBQ & ZOMBIE Tool. • Taught Toy, Product, Set & Exhibit & Graphic Design at: Pratt Institute, Columbus College of Art & Design, Ai Hollywood, Otis College of Art & Design, Parsons School of Design, MIT & Adolfo Camarillo High School. • Wrote numerous articles for Toy & Edu magazines, blogs, and 2 books on Toys, and was President of The Southern California Toy Association. • Speaker & Presenter on Innovation in Education at various National educational venues: SkillsUSA, ACTE, Makerbot, EIS, CTE, OxnardU

Join the fun every Wednesday 8 pm (EST) 7 pm (CST) Google Meet ID: https://meet.google.com/vut-afhh-nfv

The New York Society of Model Engineers is dedicated to educating the public and preserving the history of American Railroads through models, exhibits and memorabilia.

Join the fun every Wednesday 8 pm (EST) 7 pm (CST) Google Meet ID: https://meet.google.com/vut-afhh-nfv

Carpenter, business owner, and trades educator and advocate Nolee Anderson-Hendren has been dedicated to teaching women and young girls tool skills and getting more women interested in trades work since she helped to found GRIT : Girls Representing In Trades, in 2017. Her dedication to her craft also gets exercised in small renovation builds with her company Joist Studio which has kept her busy renovating the homes and businesses of Central Montana where she resides.

Join the fun every Wednesday 8 pm (EST) 7 pm (CST) Google Meet ID: https://meet.google.com/vut-afhh-nfv

What started out as a one-person operation in Marin County, California, has grown into a dynamic machine shop occupying an 8,000 square foot building in Richmond, California over the last 40 years.

Paragon Machine Works manufactures and stocks a wide variety of bicycle frame building components. They are a leader in bicycle frame building technology, constantly innovating and providing new products to meet the demands of the industry and the needs of the frame builders.

Join us for a round table discussion with special guest, CNC milling machine teacher: Jenny Bannink.

For those interested in product design also known as industrial design, this is the episode for you. We're going to go deep on the life career of Bruce Hannah a well-known Pratt Institute industrial design professor and prolific designer.

Mark Weller talks about his EV Cart.

Salt City Steel is a metal fabrication shop located in South Salt Lake City, Utah.

Weston has been in the metal fab game for over 15 years. Wes has a full-time job as a ski lift mechanic and runs Salt City Steel in his “spare” time. The shop crew includes his wife Emily and their 3 kids… Lulu, Eva, and Hank. When they are not working in the shop you can usually find the Spencer family out on an adventure like camping, skiing, or biking.

Weston came up with the Picket Master Pro tool idea after using a similar tool earlier in his career. He decided to create his idea of the design and fabricate one for himself. The Picket Master Pro has become a staple in his shop and many other shops all over the world!

We’ll discuss Brandon’s journey from his first EV conversion to his teaching days at BCC to his career building his own products for the EV industry.

Gregory Abbott, known as Reverend Gadget, is a steel fabrication artist, industrial designer, prop builder, and media personality. He is best known as a pioneer in converting vintage cars to electric, featured in Reverend Gadget’s Garage, Who Killed the Electric Car and alongside Elon Musk in the documentary Revenge of the Electric Car. Television audiences recognize Reverend Gadget as part of the build teams on the Discovery Channel series Big!, Monster House, and Smash Lab.

Join us Wednesday on the Shop Class Podcast where we’re talking to a veteran wood shop teacher, Steve Richards and new teacher Taylor Boehmer.
We’re going to get a shop tour and an overview of what these two Powerhouse teachers do in their classroom workshop.
Steve Richards, 24year veteran of teaching fine woodworking and tech ed. in NJ. Father, remodeler, and general nerd about woodworking and building.
Taylor Boehmer teaches fine woodworking, tech ed, and robotics in NJ. Taylor enjoys milling lumber and honing his design skills in the shop.

Featuring Jeff Boliba from Snow Partners and Chris Davis from Henry Ford II Woodworking.

Join us for a round table discussion. We have our guests all the way from Southern California who are Auto Shop Teachers.

Tonight on the shop class podcast. Cybertruck versus traditional. Whose side are you on? Let's discuss it.

Special guest, Director Tae Kang, talks about Harbor Freight Tools for Schools.

Shop teachers creating their own professional development with the shop class podcast.

Join us as we go through a presentation given at the annual NJTEEA conference that will give an overview of our professional development we created summer before.

Last summer we went to Taylorville Illinois to install a solar battery off-grid system for a teacher to use in their job site trailer to build a house.

By popular demand we did a Workshop safety episode. This attracted a lot of teachers from around the country. We had at least three from California, about five from New York State, and two from Pennsylvania.Shop safety is a universal topic that everyone can relate to. We shared a lot of ideas. And learned from each other. Tune in as we discuss one of the scariest topics but very necessary.. Shop class safety...  how do you keep your students safe? Join the conversation.

Welcome back to another episode of the shop class podcast, tonight we have a update from a very unique shop class program in Taylorville Illinois, Matt Blomquist is the teacher. Instead of the student having a shop class inside of a building, they go outside where they actually build a building as the class. In this episode you get to see an update on what it's like to run a shop class as a job foreman pouring the foundation for a house built in the town close to the high school.

We also have special guest and commentator Adrian Lopez, former student turn friend and colleague in the world of engineering. Currently Works in research and development for Tesla.

Join us as we talk about Maker Camp 2023.

Join us as we talk about Maker Camp 2023.

It's time to address the elephant in the workshop. AI language and image generation is a new tool that is proving useful and widespread. How are you using this as an advantage in your workshop? We discuss the ins and outs and use live examples in this episode of the shop class podcast.

This past summer 2023, I traveled to California and led a conversion from gas to electric. We did this in a compressed amount of time: 5 weeks with all volunteer crew along with the help of EV West.

It was an incredible journey from start to finish.

Join us for the 1st Annual Shop Class Podcast In-Person Conference, where we will be installing an off-grid system. This system will provide power for our Mobile Classroom, a student-built and community-donated facility.

The primary objective of this conference is to bring together both members of the Shop Class Podcast for an in-person event, marking our first-ever gathering. We envision this event becoming an annual tradition where we collectively engage in building a project that helps a trades program.

Join us for the 1st Annual Shop Class Podcast In-Person Conference, where we will be installing an off-grid system. This system will provide power for our Mobile Classroom, a student-built and community-donated facility.

The primary objective of this conference is to bring together both members of the Shop Class Podcast for an in-person event, marking our first-ever gathering. We envision this event becoming an annual tradition where we collectively engage in building a project that helps a trades program.

Join us for the 1st Annual Shop Class Podcast In-Person Conference, where we will be installing an off-grid system. This system will provide power for our Mobile Classroom, a student-built and community-donated facility.

The primary objective of this conference is to bring together both members of the Shop Class Podcast for an in-person event, marking our first-ever gathering. We envision this event becoming an annual tradition where we collectively engage in building a project that helps a trades program.

Manny Mena is a 2002 memorial high school graduate and self-taught mechanical engineer. After having graduated Lincoln Tech, and Wild Tech Automotive Technical schools, he completed a tool and die apprenticeship. He moved on to designing and building custom race cars for small private racing teams. As a result of the economic fall, out of 2008, Manny moved on to a career in the industrial equipment sector. He began this journey at a small, packaging equipment manufacturer as a welder and ended his 10 year as a design engineer. Seeking out drier pastures, he moved to Nevada where he opened FIMC, a mechanical engineering and design consulting company. This career path has led to mechanical exploits around the world. He currently resides in the greener pastures of North Carolina practicing his craft.

Originally published on March 16, 2023

Audree M Grubesic, an offsite construction expert and the owner of Modular Sure Site. This consulting Construction company collaborates with traditional builders and land developers looking to build their first offsite project. She has first-hand experience of project management on site of their offsite projects. Over the past 20+ years, she has excelled in marketing, sales, new business development, and homebuilding.

Audree is also the Executive Editor at OffsiteDirt.com, which is devoted to bringing Offsite Construction professionals the most recent, relevant, and useful information available on industry trends, technology, design, volumetric, events, panel discussions, and more.

https://www.offsitedirt.com/

Originally published on March 17, 2023

Tonight a Shop Class Podcast O.G. is on the show!!! Matthew Barbercheck joins us to highlight his Capable Maker app. Barabercheck has teamed up with Harbor Freight Tools for Schools to create an app that will help relieve the pain points of project documentation and distribution for project base teachers. Tonight he'll be giving the highlights and inviting shop teachers to start test driving the online app for feedback as he prepares for an official launch.

https://capablemaker.com/

Originally published on March 16, 2023

This week's special guest is Connor Malloy will be LAUNCHING the the 2023 Wall Assembly Competition (Student Edition). This is a great opportunity to have your students participate and be involved with some of the residential construction industry's best of the best professionals. Jump over to the Wall Assembly website for more details, but first jump on to the Shop Class Podcast (Wednesday Night) and listen LIVE as Connor gives all the goods on what, when, where and how to participate. Inside secret...ssshhhh... the prize packages is gonna be better than last year and it was pretty killer last year!!!

https://www.wallassembly.com/

Originally published on March 12, 2023

Brittney has been fortunate to do what she loves as a career. Since 2014, She has worked in the Greater Boston area as a middle school art teacher. As a Woburn native, it is quite special that Brittney gets to work in a neighboring town to where she grew up.

After completing her masters, she yearned for something more. Brittney made plenty of artwork with her students but it wasn’t until her thesis work that she realized how much she missed being an artist and creating work for herself. She wanted to learn a new medium, and in her search she stumbled across epoxy resin. As a predominately two-dimensional artist, Brittney saw how epoxy resin has the capability beyond what she could create with paint and collage on a flat surface. It amazed her how a liquid form could be manipulated and set into a permanence that could capture more than she had been able to do through traditional art forms.

https://www.brittneycarboneart.com/

Originally published on March 12, 2023

Tonight's Shop Class Podcast topic is Tormach CNC machines in the classroom. Our Guest lineup is huge. We got 3 teachers, 2 sales reps, and an educational representative from Tormach.

Leif Sorgule, shop teacher from upstate New York

Matt Garrera, shop teacher from New Jersey.

Dave Richards, shop teacher from New Jersey

kyle Lavieri, sales representative from Allegheny

Rob Link, sales representative from Allegheny upstate New York.

Jennifer Bannink, educational representative from Tormach.

Originally published on December 3, 2022

This week we have Eddy Borysewicz of Revolt Systems joins us to talk shop and what it's like to build the world's fastest electric car.

https://revoltsystems.com/

https://www.teamvesco.com/

Originally published on November 14, 2022

Go to https://hftforschoolsprize.org/

The Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence

awards $1.5 million to 25 outstanding skilled trades teachers and programs in U.S. public high schools.

Tae Kang is the show to talk about the 2023 prize and application process. Don't be surprised to see some past and current prize winners on the show giving some insider tips on how their applications won big money for their programs and them personally!!

Originally published on March 3, 2023

State of the art, State Tech Education Conferences

Originally published on November 7, 2022

In this episode we interview 2 of The Harbor Freight Tools for Schools 2022 Award winners. Matt Blomquist and Leif Sorgule. To Kick-off the episode we have Tae Kang, program director for Harbor Freight Tools for Schools.

As you may know, Matt has been on a roll bringing awareness to the shop classes by connecting the industry to his unique shop class. Matt's students build a house from scratch ground up every single year.

Leif Sorgule has advanced skills in a diverse group of machines. Everything from robotics. We're glad to have him on the podcast he is an inspiration and provides many resources for other shop teachers.

Originally published on October 23, 2022

Maker Camp 2022 was so good we had to have a post-game. It's a recap with a Roundtable discussion about how good make a camp was and what we're going to do next year.

Originally published on October 15, 2022

"The Catskill Mountain Maker Camp is a gathering of curious, creative people who like to learn and share what they can do. It is a place where creators can show their work, learn new skills/techniques, and meet like-minded makers.

It encompasses a gathering of artisans, educators, do-it-yourselfers, hobbyists, engineers, writers, artists, students and commercial exhibitors to show what they do and to share what they offer to the community.

Originally published October 6, 2022

George Vondriska has been teaching woodworking since 1986. In addition to running his own woodworking school, George has taught woodworking courses for woodworking shows, woodworking schools, retail stores, the U.S. Peace Corps, the Pentagon, Northwest Airlines, and Andersen Window. George is the primary instructor for Vondriska Woodworks woodworking classes. You may also know George from his work as the Tools and New Products Editor for American Woodworker Magazine, his articles in Fine Woodworking, WOOD, and Woodworkers Journal Magazines, or from his current position as Managing Editor of WoodWorkers Guild of America. If you're looking for woodworking classes in Minneapolis and the surrounding area, please come and visit Vondriska Woodworks. Originally published on October 4, 2022

Kevin Lieberman, Harley-Davidson software engineer. Wednesday September 14th on the shop class podcast. This week we have Kevin Lieberman, Harley-Davidson software engineer. He got his humble beginnings working as a software engineer. "I wrote software on ancient DOS based computers that answered 800 and 900 phone numbers for sports, horse racing and psychic lines before the internet was a thing" A graduate of Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. Kevin did internships at GE Aerospace and an industrial robotics company. Kevin is a versatile engineer, building his own DIY electric vehicle to do research and development of monitoring the batteries. Kevin also volunteers at the electric vehicle earning Center in San Marcos California. Helping the Next Generation to learn about electric vehicles. YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/6YqIzDvP4Lk
Originally published September 15, 2022

Tonight Mark Brems joins us tonight to talk more about converting cars into electric. Follow Marks EV conversion story at... https://allmylinks.com/mcbrems

Originally published on August 12, 2022

Tonight Thomas Baisch the inventor of the FrogPod joins us!! Tonight join the discussion of inventing, manufacturing, Kick Starting, and just thinking outside of the box. Solve a problem, save the world!!

Originally published on August 3, 2022

Tonight Mr. Barbercheck joins us to catch up and let us in on what's happening with Capable Maker project!! Join us tonight!! Hope everyone's summer is going awesome!

Originally published on July 28, 2022

John Stack, Multi-disciplinary Engineer Originally published on July 21, 2022

Michael Bream is the founder and owner of EV West. It is an electric vehicle parts supplier that fits the category of a hot rod shop.

Michael uses the spirit of DIY and racing to offer solutions for classic cars turn Electric.

In most cases, the electric parts will double or triple the horsepower of a classic car.

Michael and EV West have shown lots of support for high school shop teachers over years. Providing electric vehicle parts that can bolt directly into the stock vehicles.

So if you are a shop teacher looking to do an electric vehicle conversion to bridge the gap from gas to electric, Michael and EV West can help with that process.

Originally published on July 14, 2022

This week's guest is JT Kostman, artificial intelligence expert extraordinaire, Wednesday June 22nd 8 to 10 p.m. Eastern on the shop class podcast.

This might be the world's most interesting man.

JT stated his career as a team leader of a Scout Sniper Recon Team with the United States Special Forces. Then moved into data science for the government and then Private Industry. He spent several decades as board advisor to large companies.

In his own words, "spent the first part of my career as a data scientist looking for serial killers and the second part looking for people that really like cereal."

JT is a supporter of shop teachers and is happy to join our podcast.

We are looking forward to hearing what JT has to tell us about the world of AI and how it relates to shop class.

Originally published on June 25, 2022

In this episode, we talked with Greg Quirin, a shop teacher coordinator in San Diego County. He has a great YouTube channel that covers the land speed racing team and engine designer Pete Aardema and Kevin Braun. https://www.youtube.com/c/GregQuirin/videos

We also spoke with shop teachers about their summer plans.

Originally published on June 19, 2022

This week's guest is Jim Johnsen the Auto and Metal Shop teacher at Long Beach New York High School. Jim grew up working with his hands, surfing and riding BMX and has been teaching shop for the last 17 years and brings that rad attitude to the shop class. Each year him and his students restore a vehicle and these things are AWESOME!!!

Jump on tonight as Jim gives us the inside scoop of his high school shop class and the students that make these oldies into head turners.

Originally published on June 12, 2022