happy new year and welcome to new beginnings with karen dell i am so pleased to have with me monica burch who is an educator an engineer and an entrepreneur yes and an author yes i am thank you very much yes so i want to have you discuss all of your gadgets your books ok we're going to kind of how you got into this role as you transition from engineering to helping younger kids understand the principles of engineering well i started out when my youngest son was two years old really what happened is that i decided to stay home till with my kids and one of the things that happened they got into a lot of different game and systems and doing things and in my book i actually explain everything i started but one of the things that happened is that i picked my oldest son up from a play date and he had been on the computer they had been on t v all day playing games and like you know it was it was a cold day and i understand why they were there because you know they're not the same kids out in the in the code so i took him to radio shack which was my favorite store they have a lot of have closed down now but and got him a little electronics kit and we started working on it that day and from there i just notice a lot of things that boys i think were missing because when i grew up boys used to tear things apart put met together and i did too because i have that whole engine here and component i loved so i wanted to make sure kids still did that so my goal was always to do hands on activities with my kids i started in i think two thousand and three with my business and i've been doing it every cent i start off part time and i just actually went to a point where it's full time now still part time trying to get more full time depending on what i do i do after school programs i have a home school in the contingent that i work on i also do some curriculum development and i do programs for the parks and rec so i do a lot of different programs with it and one of the things that i do and i love is building things with the kids because i want my kids to come out with hands on things and i always go into the engineering component of stem so stem you know the science technology engineering and math and with construct you which is my business we always lean towards the which is the engineer and component because our engineer and i like that that part of it so my kids actually below different things and this is some of the items we build last year was mike called the year of the spider robot because i found this great spider robot now my kids built that i've been starting off  not doing as much and i became a complaint to the kids because they just love building it it's a nice little robot it's very easy and a simple for the kids to understand one of the things i do is i go boleh tricity and i teach him  works you know what conductors insulators all that and then how to build a circuit and what a circuit is and then i actually go over motors not talk about motors because a robotics to me the basically gears in your motors and electricity just no on that  so i stop them out with that then once we do that the kids build this so they start off first build what we call the gear box which is very simple has a motor and gears and then a has the electrical circuit that attach to the battery that makes it work and then the kids build the gears and they set everything up here so this is very simple very simple robot like kids just love it very simple and they like taking it home and you know it's a home project just the introduction to robot is a great program so i do that with my kids i also have this is another thing i did the summer i do a workshop during the summer so i do summer camps in june and what my summer camps are they're all hands on and each day the kids bring something home that they each year we do hands on projects so this is one that they did with electricity one is just a little sample car very simple same thing they've got a circuit they have a motor they put up the police system and that's how this work a magnet turn this on because it's fast but it's just very simple the kids can easily build it it does take time but you know i think i work from five year olds up to high school because i do robotics i do vex robotics and i do that my older kids another thing  teach and they actually do when they see it they understand it and then what we do to put a switch in the switch turns it on and off so that's what this is it's a very nice very simple circuit the kids take it home and they put it out like a night light so they take that home this year actually i'm going to be adding the what we call a capacitor to it so it's can be a little bit different so our but eight year what i try to do is to something different so i start my kids off with just the l e d and a battery then i put it in a circuit and then we added the so each each time they come to me they do something different so they're learning as they go and i'll get to do everything at once it's it's a building process because i stuff a can of darkness right so the yellow wire is the to control the ok this resistor has looks like being yeah that's how the resistance look what happens the resistor is that they're shaped like that they have different colors and around them they have these low stripes and each stripe tells you what the if kids can actually put it together and stop operating system and then attach all the components to it so they understand it they understand how everything works just using this love computer is not as sophisticated as a real computer it is a real computer i should say that really is not sophisticated as a big a computer search but they can do everything they want to do on this so they install it they set everything up and then they start playing they have games on it they play with it in awe so i started programming and one of th they have this is scratch program which is a very simple program form for younger kids and we do that with the raspberry pi i also have another which i didn't bring i do program in code which is called spiro which is a nice  and they can just change it and they learn if then statements they learn everything just use and block so it's really nice is an excellent and to duction to coding for the kids so i do that with my kids too ok so let's go back to the rez berry part because you said they c everything yes what does that mean well when you what happens is that when you set it up in the first thing is you put in this low case it actually here in the raspberry pi you have us be you have your power right over here and you also have my which is the display and they have a display then you also have your speaker that's set up here so this is hooked up to the monitor th this is your power that they set the power up and then what we do with u s b as i actually do a wireless u s b there has keyboard and a mouse so they put their little wireless use to be they attach it here and attach a key point a mouse that way so now they have a computer that has their display the keyboard or mouse and they have a speaker on it and they can then when they bring it up raspberry pi actually has an operating system ok so they stop operating system when operating system comes up it has a lot of nice little things on it form like i was saying this program called scratch which is another block type program and that the kids learn it and it's all cat base is a cat that you change it does things in and then they work with that also i have another one i also do introduce my kids to python which is another programming language is very versatile in a really really really nice nice likely i really love it's a nice language so i introduce them to that because i want to see what's out there they also have a job or we haven't done that yet because i know a lot of kids do jobs when you get older so i try to introduce them to do things and i have younger kids i have older kids and it just depends on what type of you know what my group looks like when i am teachin so when you do after school who are your i actually put them in groups of their ages so they're great so our final what you know is kindergarten first grade second grade i do that and then another thing i do and i'm not i've been doing for years is actually i separate girls i put the girls at a girl table and  don't get that many girls but when i do i try to get them at a separate table and have working together and i do use and you do that the reason i do that because of some time technology is scary and i have my some girls are very very aggressive and some girls who are not and so when they're with a lot of boys i know sometimes the boys are taken over and doing a lot of the work so when i separate the girls the girls are working with each other and they're not scared to talk they're not scared to talk about their ideas and that's scared of an things they just were going to get it done and they're excellent great job but sometimes when i mix with the boys to some of the time the boys are more aggressive with what they know and boys are just aggressive sometime they know more than they are they think they know more than they do  and i may have a girl who knows more they had this one great this girl who's been with me since she was five years old very very smart you know future engineer she's very smart and i put it with this boy one time and i knows all that side and she wasn't doing but i do have working groups on projects there's a lot of things i put in there too i try to blend in a little bit a leader share i blend in other things for my kids to have to do too and when they're working in stem because you know you have the kids there you want to teach them a lot of things and you have to just know focus on the things you want to teach you know it makes sense makes sense let's talk a little bit about your book what led you to write books you know what was the thought behind that when my first book is called inside robotics and i wrote this a couple years ago the reason i wrote this is one of things when i started doing robotics i used to i used to kid car robots with an axe it's a nice of the older kit but i liked it because it was all math base it has a lot of angles and polygons actually the connector itself is an octagon and i like that and i thought it was great for it introduction to robots for kids as motors and skiers and that has a lot of building so i when they start out with the stem and talk about stem and put in stem and school system and all the environment there's a lot of things you can do is stand them is so broad it's just the science technology engineering math the just the breath of it there are so many avenues of passion you can take with that i was trying to come up with something that people could do to bring stem in their environment best are going to cost a lot and teaches the kids you know the whole science technology engineering math and robotics is great because it does that's one of the you know i always say with stem which is i know some time when i say this everybody systemise interest because think about when i talk about it because you think about a person a map map they really don't need technology but we do use it you know they don't need the engineering and they don't need the science behind it but math is actually kind of on a sound but when we blend together with everybody else it comes out with stan millet excellent so abbott's in my book to tell the kids about that and then i have projects in here that their parents can do with their kit so i have an engineering project like i was telling you with the basic like tricity and circuits in here that they can do i have the kit where they can build just something given a certain criteria the things they can build that said they're in this is using the robot with an x yes robotics with an x lesser x and then i have the whole mass section in here and i also have a section where the cure is build a car using a gears and motors separate from the kid itself so i put all that in this book so if some i wanted to br term vironment if you use this book and they can do it easily so the book really accompanies the kit yes and the kit people get separately yes they do ok and is this geared towards where age group case through it's actually a k through eighth age group but it really depends on your kids some kids they need a bit more and this is one those kids said does that for them some kids pick up things really really quick sure and what happens with that is i actually start movement to another robotics that i use vex robotics and will make it because that's a nice i love that too because it's it's really nice nice blend it has a cold in there has every hour that science the technology everything in it excellent kit to use with all ages and i do that with vex but this is my start a kit this is what i start if you want to start kids with that i've actually used that what high school students to which is i'm interested i worked in trenton with some of the high school students there and i did the introduction to robot issues and that kids it just depends on the kids so now we're computer purchase your books they can go at i actually started off another book which is a book i had in my head for several years and when my kid who's now twenty one was five so it's been there and i wrote it and i rewrote and i wrote in a roll and this time i actually  decided the pups and i want to impress the books again and have it published and this is actually about fish it's about a beta fish and it's a nice pile of fish and what i wanted what i did with that is i used it when my son was growing up he brought home swimmer and a high jumper so he changed what he was bred to be and that's up and you know i want to teach my kids that you don't have to be this way you can be who you want to be you know and then in the book he also comes into a vine where he's taken out of his environment his family and he's put into a bowl fishbowl and now he thought he was in his environment changes no longer that and i did that because as  and i said this book's been with me forever as my kids grew up my son we moved from one school district to another school district and he left his friends they started over both of them did my my younger son was in first grade and my oldest son was in fifth grade so speedy did the same thing he actually you know he was taken home he put into a bowl and now he has to figure out who is going to be the still that fast jumper that high you know is he is just presley still is still is and he finds out in the book at the beginning he was not so something happens in the books where he sees another fish and he realizes that he is and he does a lot of training and i put that into because so this book has gone through  things because i put in the train because i wanted my kids to know that you have to work hard to do things to be something to be who you really want to be a do what you really want to do it's not easy it takes work it takes persistence and that's what speedy does and that as he changes and he was very hard in he overcomes what he plans on the become in the book so so that's what that book is about it's actually a more personal development then it's to go but i do have a page in a talking about the fish so i added the whole science component to it and my oldest son actually wrote that oh wonderful and so this is available where that is the same place in the amazon on my website and also on barnes and noble and i think it's all on books for me and there's other sites at  they saw where he you know he's with his family but they want to know bit more of his background so what i decide to do i'm changing him somewhat because the beta fish they do change it they're beautiful fish so species chang writing a book another book about him actually i have two i have one with speed change and just as personally as change and how he looks he's maturing in it that's all in a book and then he actually meets a spi ones and one of the things that we look into as a place to civil is the bridges in new jersey because there are so many bridges in new jersey and there's so many different type of bridges i would love and i'm thinking about doing a book on the bridges and literacy and just new and different bridges and talking about a little bit about their background and then maybe have something how the kid could build the bridge and talk about some parts of the design of the bridge so that my goal for this year i don't know how far the go is still in my head but i just love seeing it this is great bridge i you when you drive on route one is slow walking bridge it's really cute i love that and my favorite bridge of all is the brooklyn bridge and i love the brooklyn bridge because of the background when you read about the brooklyn bridge in the background of the br great bridge and i think it is still standing it's just this but it's phenomenal so that i didn't actually have a whole workshop about the brooklyn bridge really that yeah i was just building the brooklyn bridge a lot about the brooklyn bridge and everything so it's a really nice workshop there so that's on the expand that into other bridges and so is that also towards its aim towards youth yes it is it is actually built i actually i did it i started it for the  jersey state museum they were bringing in someone to talk about the brooklyn bridge and they want to do a stem project around it so i sat down with them and we kind of talked about what they wanted and i designed a stem program for them and actually was building a bridge and talk about the bridge and i found a really great things online to tell about the background about the bridge so and then they built a popsicle sticks in popsicle sticks and tape it all very now as in this story bridge and they talk about all the great things and how they added different things to the bridge and all that's in that workshop so wonderful so that's a nice one you know that's great we'll wish you much success on your plans for twenty two seventeen and you know you touched on being an electrical engineer so just as we wrap up tell us a little bit about you know where you went to school when i graduated from university of alabama ok and why was there i i started off wanting to be air aerospace engineer and that's michael i want to go to space and what happened is that i went to my program with a minority introduction to engineering technology to ski university i spent a summer there and why i was there they were then they started to do smith to all these different disciplines in engineering and i i like electrical so i decided i was going to be electrical so i went to university alabama that accepted there and i like that university of alabama got there and then they start talking about all the components of electrical engineering you know if you go communication power the electronics is always just in different disciplines and electrical and i said i wanted to power so i focused on because i specialized in power i found out there was more components of power so there was like the line engine in substations there was a power plant so there was all these different places i could work so what they do they put people in rotation so i got on a rotation while i was there and while i was gone with rotation i worked at a power plant i worked in substations i worked in line engineering and then i worked with a couple puter interdicted applications and i kind of like that so i said ok i'm go do you know computer applications so i went to that and met my husband sided with a move back to north east and i came back here and i like the programming component but i said i want to do work in the background i want to work on the systems that work for companies that do in the background just work in you know system engineering doing that component of it while i was there i actually liked some of the teaching they had teaching us we were doing this it was a cad cam program called the company  called the salt system and they had this kind of cam package cockatiel and i start working on that teaching that and i like that so i decided i wanted to do more systems then and do more of  teaching component what i did with them but then i decided also i lie database so and moved into database once i was a database i like that i went to work for i do jones and i like dow jones and that was actually before the internet was really popular tells you my age but they actually were going to the internet so at that point in time i actually moved to merrill lynch and when merrill lynch i was doing  r programming and i like that and then i start one of my own group and i love that too but i had my first son i said i want to do something to because it was it was a lot i remember when i would pick julian up from daycare and go home cut you off because we're out of time but clearly clearly you're an expert in the electrical engineering and you've moved through yeah many components of engineering i have so your books are from an expertise base in you have developed a business and you have great plans in terms of what you're planning for twenty seven time i do so i thank you again monica for joining us and bringing all of this richness around electrical engineering well thank you very much yeah and thank you for tuning in