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Mark Rober (former NASA) launches a 30 day Creative Engineering Class

134 points by O_H_E 6y ago

joshdance 6y ago
I bought the course and did the first day. It is pretty good so far. And definitely a great way to get yourself to actually work on the 'idea' you have had for a while. Dropping money motivate people, including me.
bigbubba 6y ago
This guy sure gets a lot of milage out of his past employer. It's rare to hear him mentioned without NASA being mentioned in the same breath.
- vernie 6y ago
  Hey I'd milk it, too.
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- uponcoffee 6y ago
  It definitely lends credibility; versus the introduction from the other comment - that this is the guy that glitter bombs package thieves on youtube - which makes me take this less seriously.
  - enobrev 6y ago
    I'd recommend watching those videos before knocking him for the glitter bombs. They are impressively engineered, with entertaining videos which contain a good deal of detail about how, why, and in the most recent version, how they are working with law enforcement to crack down on package thieves.
    - projectileboy 6y ago
      Just adding a +1 to this comment. Those glitter bombs were non-trivial, so say the least.
    - TheGallopedHigh 6y ago
      If you’re into this type of engineering check out “stuff made here” or “BPS Space”.
      - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
        "Stuff Made Here" is amazing. I can't believe how talented that guy is. And he seems much less edited/fake than Rober (who I also enjoy). I watch both of their videos whenever they upload a new one, but "Stuff Made Here" appeals much more to my engineering side, and I appreciate the lack of "showmanship" that is so prevalent in Rober videos.
        lozaning 6y ago
        Stuff Made Here guy's workshop is peak envy. The tools he's got there are just incredible.
        wyldfire 6y ago
        Rober cuts to the chase. I think it's tuned for a different audience. "Stuff Made Here" guy is willing to show all of the "wrong turns" on the way to a good design. Rober's audience doesn't get a chance to get bored with one of those wrong turns and change the channel. But "Stuff Made Here" will attract an audience that is curious about the process that got him there.
        usepgp 6y ago
        not to mention he's gotten almost 2m subscribers in less than a year on ~20 purely engineering focused videos.
      - JaggedJax 6y ago
        I hope Joe is doing alright. He just announced he's burned out and taking a break. I'm sure he could use it. He's done some impressive stuff.
  - wyldfire 6y ago
    Those packages are designed incredibly well, IMO. There's a lot of things that can go wrong and he seems to reliably get footage of it being opened and recovers most of the packages, too.
- GloriousKoji 6y ago
  Don't forget he also worked for Apple.
  - dvdbloc 6y ago
    Which to me seems way more impressive than working for NASA
    - 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
      Really, what’s your reasoning? I’d rather have NASA on my resume than any of the FAANGs. Especially if I was an engineer. Building spaceship bits? Sign me up.
      - Serious_Cheese 6y ago
        Not OP, but NASA is very old school and the tech stack is old, not to mention that things move slower than a turtle (so much bureaucracy) and the fear of losing funding. It's just not a great place to work for anecdotally speaking. At best, it's an ok place to work for. Oh and I forgot to mention the crazy low salaries across the board, and yearly raises that are below inflation rate.
- ballenf 6y ago
  I think he just tries hard to market his content to a very broad market unlike many science/engineering Youtubers. I would enjoy content from him that doesn't have that feeling of being watered down, however.
- gowld 6y ago
  He has to differentiate himself from the posters, because he's too good-looking and laid-back-looking for people to not prejudge him before seeing his impressive engineering talent.
- satysin 6y ago
  It's pretty common for YouTubers who have a big past employer or specialist career. Ali Abdaal is one I have seen pop up a lot this year. Every video of his mentions he studied at Cambridge and is a Doctor. Clearly it works quite well for the audience he is targeting as he has over 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube with an highly engaged subscriber base. His content isn't anything special when you look at it and he plays a lot on his "socially awkward" personality which seems to work well with people seeking out self-improvement advice. These people sure are excellent at marketing so I guess fair play to them. Ali isn't hurting anyone with his generic advice, probably quite the opposite in fact so I fair enough to him.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    On the other hand you have channels like Applied Science where he rarely ever mentions that he's employed by Google, except in rare Q&A videos. His channel is popular because he shows off really neat stuff in good detail, rather than dazzling people with his credentials.
    - satysin 6y ago
      I love Ben's videos however perhaps if he followed the marketing strategy of Mark Rober or Ali Abdaal he would have more than 700k subscribers. Not that 700k is bad at all, it is just an observation at how many subscribers some of these people can get primarily through name dropping. However I don't think Ben is all that fussed about chasing every subscriber like Mark and Ali.
- pchristensen 6y ago
  Unlike the founders that went to Stanford MIT, or who are ex-Apple/Google/FB etc. Headlines are short, and you have to get a lot done with as few words as possible. NASA is strongly associated with "smart engineering and problem solving" - good branding for a course like this.
khuey 6y ago
Since it's not mentioned until pretty far down the page I'll say that you likely know Rober as "the guy who glitter bombs package thieves on Youtube".
- mdoms 6y ago
  That first one the catapulted him into Youtube stardom turned out to be fake, right?
  - stevenpetryk 6y ago
    The porch pirates were fake, but it wasn't Rober's fault. Several people he chose as test subjects (aka, people with doorsteps) ended up paying friends/neighbors to steal the package. Once Internet sleuths found this out and informed Rober, he removed the fake reactions from the video.
  - ballenf 6y ago
    The device was not at all if that's what you meant. He got friends help to get the devices placed at different homes. Some of his "friends", however, staged thefts and didn't tell him. He pulled that footage within hours of the video going live.
  - mgbennet 6y ago
    Not exactly. He had volunteers who placed the packages in front of their houses, and one of the volunteers had a friend or neighbor come by and take the package, faking the footage. It doesn't sound like Marc had anything to do with the incident and he has mentions the issue in the description of the video, though it's also a bit unclear why the volunteer would want to do this.
  - jld 6y ago
    After his latest video I was wondering if his recording of the thieves in their homes runs afoul of wiretapping laws. I can appreciate that someone who just stole a package probably isn't likely to try to press charges, but made me wonder if he is just assuming that risk. Maybe the box has a 'shrinkwrap' license agreeing to be recorded?
natenthe 6y ago
I saw this and found it interesting. As a CS guy and software engineer, I've always wanted to combine that knowledge with actual physical engineering (i.e. mechanical and electrical) in order to build cool stuff and complete my knowledge base as an engineer. I've always seen his videos and wanted to be able to prototype and engineer actual physical things like him, rather than spending my whole life building software (although software pays the bills - nothing wrong with that). I wonder how far the course would actually be able to take me - it would be interesting to see. The course seems a bit high priced and I don't have time at the moment, but I'll definitely keep my eye on it and wait to see the reviews.
- fastball 6y ago
  For people that want to learn "physical engineering", I recommend the same thing I do when people ask people the best way to learn software engineering: you need a project. Find something in your life that you want to automate, and automate it. Motivation is easier to maintain ("I still want this problem fixed") and you'll learn so much more from failure and iteration than you will following someone else's tutorial about "how to build X".
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Dirlewanger 6y ago
Looks great, but I'm skeptical on the "bringing 3 of your own builds to life" at the end of 30 days, especially if you lack the tens of thousands of dollars of tools that Mark has.
- twis 6y ago
  You don't need 10s of thousands of dollars worth of tools to build something.
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    Especially if those things were specifically chosen because they don't require 10s of thousands of dollars worth of tools.
abhisuri97 6y ago
From the FAQ: > Throughout the class, you’ll share your ongoing work and give and receive peer feedback. Mark will also be able to check out students’ work, and may occasionally answer questions and give feedback. > We can’t guarantee that Mark will comment on your work directly, but we’ve designed the class so that you’ll get thorough feedback from your peers. You’ll get personalized feedback by submitting your projects on time, documenting your process, and playing an active role in your group. > Mark will also have access to the peer groups to answer questions, give feedback, and post responses during class. You will have complete access to all the feedback and answers Mark gives within your peer group and even within the other peer groups in the class. There’s a lot to learn from this ever-growing library of real student feedback. This kind of sounds like a potential recipe for disaster. $250 for some pre-recorded videos and peer (i.e. a group of other learners randomly assigned to you) assessment? I could also see people being easily upset by a relative lack of direct involvement from Rober (esp given how much this course page hypes up his involvement outside of the FAQ).
- projectileboy 6y ago
  $250 does not seem at all unreasonable even if the product consists only of high quality videos. I’ve spent $100 on good sets of videos before and was happy to do so.
  - abhisuri97 6y ago
    I'd spend money on high quality videos (e.g. buying an egghead subscription was well worth the money a couple of years ago for me because there wasn't anything that came close to that resource at the time), but I doubt I'd really spend $250 on stuff that (at least from the subject titles + video descriptions) seems to be very general/somewhat intro level material. Then again, I don't think I'm the intended audience here :/
djmips 6y ago
Gets a lot of mileage out of working at NASA for 8 years. Personally I'd save the $250 and just go watch Ben Krasnow @ YouTube Applied Science.
- MatthiasWandel 6y ago
  if you are a self starter or a self directed learner, an online course is not the way to go. Start with a desire to do something, then search online for how to do it.
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fastball 6y ago
I've enjoyed Mark Rober's content over the years, but I'm skeptical for two reasons: 1. I think people frequently underestimate how useful it is to do the "boring" parts of engineering (or any discipline). The unfortunate reality is that a lot of learning (that can be applied generally) comes from failure / mistakes, and you don't really get that if you're taught "this is how you can make this particular cool thing". In other words: I don't think you can learn how to do the stuff Rober does on YouTube by Rober telling you how he does the stuff on YouTube. He is capable of that precisely because he studied engineering in school and worked at NASA etc and experienced failures and setbacks which, though not obviously related to making a glitter bomb or w/e, taught him lessons and skills that are helpful under the surface. This is generally why I'm skeptical of anyone that thinks they can distill down their success in a given field into a single book or video series, when invariably their success is a result of 10+ years of experience, practice, and overcoming obstacles. 2. Creativity is near impossible to teach, which effectively just makes this a 30 day engineering course, in which case see point (1). Hopefully my skepticism is misplaced though and this is a very worthwhile course for a lot of people!
- avmich 6y ago
  > Creativity is near impossible to teach After "Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others" I'm not so sure about that. The idea this book talks about - I think central, but not the only one - is that creativity at least closely related to combinations and transfer between fields.
  - lnwlebjel 6y ago
    "Where Good Ideas Come From" is similarly useful in this regard. "To form fresh ideas, it is necessary to explore the adjacent possible, and to have the widest adjacent possible, it is necessary to have the widest list of available ideas for recombination, the biggest list of spare parts available for recombination" ... quoting from my notes.
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    Thank you for the next book on my reading list :)
freetime2 6y ago
Rober just put out a new video with version 3.0 of his Glitter Bomb, and the engineering is seriously impressive. I’m sure he gets lots of help on his projects from others at this point, but I still have a lot of admiration for this guy. The video is pretty funny, too! https://youtu.be/h4T_LlK1VE4 https://youtu.be/h4T_LlK1VE4
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  I agree it is very impressive, but I wish he'd do something new for the holiday season. I feel like v3 is basically v2, but you can't put the lid back on. I wish he'd shake things up a bit.
fxtentacle 6y ago
This is clearly marketing, and clearly good one. From what I can tell, it's a course that was mostly produced by someone else and will be delivered by someone else, but they recorded Mark Rober - the guy famous on YouTube for glitterbombing people - as the instructor. But their FAQ already states that he will "be able to" look at what students are doing and "may occasionally [..] give feedback", so most likely he won't be around to run the course. Also, from watching the videos, I had the impression that the technical work is mostly done by other people, e.g. the famous glitterbomb was built by Sean Hodgins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI So first and foremost, it appears that Mark Rober is a great showman and a great narrator. Plus he's collaborating with people like Mr Beast who have the power of a skilled agency behind them (nightmedia.co) to produce just the right narrative to go viral. And his first videos appear to be sponsored by a marketing agency. So I'm not surprised that this course is hyped up and not actually done by Mark Rober. I'd treat this more as a case study on how to perfect your social marketing ;) That said, their core promise of building 3 own projects within 30 days sounds reasonable if they have skilled instructors running the course. And the price seems reasonable for such a learning experience. When I was younger, my dad built some technical projects with me. Over the course of a weekend, I would learn more about electrics and physics than in a year in school. And once you built something that actually works in the real world, you'll never go back to observing technology as a passive bystander. That attitude change alone might be worth the $250. Plus, I believe Mark Rober to be a great showman. This course will likely be entertaining to watch, and paced just like a good movie.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  It’s increasingly common for online courses and other material to be attached to famous influencers. Leveraging the influencer’s audience and credibility is a shortcut to gaining massive traction. People really, really trust their favorite influencers. I was shocked when a semi-famous influencer admitted that one of the businesses that bears his name actually receives zero input from him, yet he takes 60% of the profits. He was approached by someone who wanted to use his name to jumpstart the audience and the deal was too good to pass up. I wouldn’t be surprised if the recently publicized “Mr Beast Burger” is a similar collaboration. It’s pitched as something Mr Beast came up with, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some entrepreneurs were already building a ghost kitchen business and shopped it around to influencers who were willing to claim it was “theirs” in exchange for some of the profits.
jamestimmins 6y ago
I'd love for Mark Rober to make an accredited physics class for high school students. It would be a huge undertaking, but I could see it becoming the standard for distance learning. He could even do it in pieces, in partnership with Khan Academy. Heck, I'd pay for a Kickstarter for this. Similarly, it would be amazing for Randall Munroe (of XKCD fame) to write a physics textbook.
- glandium 6y ago
  Relatedly, he did some classes in March/April this year, live on Youtube. The first one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPn-Bay_ANU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPn-Bay_ANU
TedShiller 6y ago
This guy is doing a lot to pollute the environment just to get views on YouTube. Filling a swimming pool with plastic balls is one example. Has he heard of plastic pollution?
- dawnerd 6y ago
  Also the guy that helped and donated $50,000 to team trees. Clearly you're trying to find a point to hate on him without acknowledging the good he's done.
  - TedShiller 6y ago
    So if I pollute a lot but donate to a good cause then it's ok?
unreal37 6y ago
I think he's brilliant, and don't get the hate being directed at him here. He deserves his success. Seriously surprising, actually. I'd love to understand the source of it. Why people want to reduce his success to "showman", "milking it", "not actually done by him", etc? Why diminish something that makes the world a better place and is not taking anything away from others?
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  In the context of an electronics course, I consider it relevant that he asked someone else to do his electronics project. Apart from that, I see "great showman" as a compliment. I watch BBC nature documentaries because David Attenborough is an amazing narrator. I don't care how much work he does on the movie apart from narrating it. I have the same view on Mark Rober. I don't usually care what or if he does something, I just want to see him present it in an interesting way. And he is amazing at the latter.
- stolenmerch 6y ago
  > I'd love to understand the source of it. I certainly don't hate Mark Rober and am not at all trying to reduce his success - so take this as one opinion in response to your question. There is something about his YouTube content I don't personally enjoy. It's a little hard to articulate, but to me it feels cheesy. I understand his schtick is creating overengineered solutions to life's little annoyances, but his on-screen persona seems put on to me. I get the sense he's a super talented guy who also has an amazing crew and network of friends. I just don't have a swimming pool or access to a trillion orbeez, so perhaps I am more drawn to normal engineers making youtube videos about them hacking on their raspberry pi.
syntaxing 6y ago
Seems like this is more about teaching about application engineering rather than the engineering theories. If this is the case, I don't think the $250 is worth it? You'll probably get much further mileage by just using that $250 to make stuff. Get some cardboard, popsicle sticks (or even wood) + arduino and sensors with grove connectors.
Osiris 6y ago
> Former NASA engineer and YouTuber Mark Rober teaches you everything he knows in this one-month class Why do they need to exaggerate like this? Obviously he cannot share everything he learned over years of study and practice in a month. 1) the statement "everyrging be knows" is wholely unnecessary. 2) these exaggerated claims are really off putting to me and make me less, not more, likely to buy the service.
- cambalache 6y ago
  They need to exaggerate to get your sweet sweet 250 dollars
balls187 6y ago
The comments hating on Rober are way off base. He has been on youtube for nearly 10 years making videos, and as he gained success, he started to work with more and more people to do even more amazing work. Watch one of his initial videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1P6K_PaS0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1P6K_PaS0A) and compare to his work now.
- gmiller123456 6y ago
  Agree that his Youtube content is great, I think the skepticism is about whether or not having a cool Youtube channel translates into being good at teaching an engineering course. I hope it turns out to be something that's great and worth the money, but if I were a betting person, based on my past experience with a lot of on-line courses, I'd bet it's not. It's unfortunate that in order to tell if a course is actually any good, you'll have to invest a considerable amount of time an effort before you realize it's not any good. I've wasted so many hours into bad courses that I have to wait until one is recommended over and over again before I'll give it a chance.
wdr1 6y ago
I like Mark Rober, but $250 is a bit steep.

134 points by O_H_E 6y ago

I bought the course and did the first day. It is pretty good so far. And definitely a great way to get yourself to actually work on the 'idea' you have had for a while. Dropping money motivate people, including me.

bigbubba 6y ago

This guy sure gets a lot of milage out of his past employer. It's rare to hear him mentioned without NASA being mentioned in the same breath.

vernie 6y ago
Hey I'd milk it, too.
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uponcoffee 6y ago
It definitely lends credibility; versus the introduction from the other comment - that this is the guy that glitter bombs package thieves on youtube - which makes me take this less seriously.
- enobrev 6y ago
  I'd recommend watching those videos before knocking him for the glitter bombs. They are impressively engineered, with entertaining videos which contain a good deal of detail about how, why, and in the most recent version, how they are working with law enforcement to crack down on package thieves.
  - projectileboy 6y ago
    Just adding a +1 to this comment. Those glitter bombs were non-trivial, so say the least.
  - TheGallopedHigh 6y ago
    If you’re into this type of engineering check out “stuff made here” or “BPS Space”.
    - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
      "Stuff Made Here" is amazing. I can't believe how talented that guy is. And he seems much less edited/fake than Rober (who I also enjoy). I watch both of their videos whenever they upload a new one, but "Stuff Made Here" appeals much more to my engineering side, and I appreciate the lack of "showmanship" that is so prevalent in Rober videos.
      - lozaning 6y ago
        Stuff Made Here guy's workshop is peak envy. The tools he's got there are just incredible.
      - wyldfire 6y ago
        Rober cuts to the chase. I think it's tuned for a different audience. "Stuff Made Here" guy is willing to show all of the "wrong turns" on the way to a good design. Rober's audience doesn't get a chance to get bored with one of those wrong turns and change the channel. But "Stuff Made Here" will attract an audience that is curious about the process that got him there.
      - usepgp 6y ago
        not to mention he's gotten almost 2m subscribers in less than a year on ~20 purely engineering focused videos.
    - JaggedJax 6y ago
      I hope Joe is doing alright. He just announced he's burned out and taking a break. I'm sure he could use it. He's done some impressive stuff.
- wyldfire 6y ago
  Those packages are designed incredibly well, IMO. There's a lot of things that can go wrong and he seems to reliably get footage of it being opened and recovers most of the packages, too.
GloriousKoji 6y ago
Don't forget he also worked for Apple.
- dvdbloc 6y ago
  Which to me seems way more impressive than working for NASA
  - 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
    Really, what’s your reasoning? I’d rather have NASA on my resume than any of the FAANGs. Especially if I was an engineer. Building spaceship bits? Sign me up.
    - Serious_Cheese 6y ago
      Not OP, but NASA is very old school and the tech stack is old, not to mention that things move slower than a turtle (so much bureaucracy) and the fear of losing funding. It's just not a great place to work for anecdotally speaking. At best, it's an ok place to work for. Oh and I forgot to mention the crazy low salaries across the board, and yearly raises that are below inflation rate.
ballenf 6y ago
I think he just tries hard to market his content to a very broad market unlike many science/engineering Youtubers. I would enjoy content from him that doesn't have that feeling of being watered down, however.
gowld 6y ago
He has to differentiate himself from the posters, because he's too good-looking and laid-back-looking for people to not prejudge him before seeing his impressive engineering talent.
satysin 6y ago
It's pretty common for YouTubers who have a big past employer or specialist career. Ali Abdaal is one I have seen pop up a lot this year. Every video of his mentions he studied at Cambridge and is a Doctor. Clearly it works quite well for the audience he is targeting as he has over 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube with an highly engaged subscriber base. His content isn't anything special when you look at it and he plays a lot on his "socially awkward" personality which seems to work well with people seeking out self-improvement advice. These people sure are excellent at marketing so I guess fair play to them. Ali isn't hurting anyone with his generic advice, probably quite the opposite in fact so I fair enough to him.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  On the other hand you have channels like Applied Science where he rarely ever mentions that he's employed by Google, except in rare Q&A videos. His channel is popular because he shows off really neat stuff in good detail, rather than dazzling people with his credentials.
  - satysin 6y ago
    I love Ben's videos however perhaps if he followed the marketing strategy of Mark Rober or Ali Abdaal he would have more than 700k subscribers. Not that 700k is bad at all, it is just an observation at how many subscribers some of these people can get primarily through name dropping. However I don't think Ben is all that fussed about chasing every subscriber like Mark and Ali.
pchristensen 6y ago
Unlike the founders that went to Stanford MIT, or who are ex-Apple/Google/FB etc. Headlines are short, and you have to get a lot done with as few words as possible. NASA is strongly associated with "smart engineering and problem solving" - good branding for a course like this.

khuey 6y ago

Since it's not mentioned until pretty far down the page I'll say that you likely know Rober as "the guy who glitter bombs package thieves on Youtube".

mdoms 6y ago
That first one the catapulted him into Youtube stardom turned out to be fake, right?
- stevenpetryk 6y ago
  The porch pirates were fake, but it wasn't Rober's fault. Several people he chose as test subjects (aka, people with doorsteps) ended up paying friends/neighbors to steal the package. Once Internet sleuths found this out and informed Rober, he removed the fake reactions from the video.
- ballenf 6y ago
  The device was not at all if that's what you meant. He got friends help to get the devices placed at different homes. Some of his "friends", however, staged thefts and didn't tell him. He pulled that footage within hours of the video going live.
- mgbennet 6y ago
  Not exactly. He had volunteers who placed the packages in front of their houses, and one of the volunteers had a friend or neighbor come by and take the package, faking the footage. It doesn't sound like Marc had anything to do with the incident and he has mentions the issue in the description of the video, though it's also a bit unclear why the volunteer would want to do this.
- jld 6y ago
  After his latest video I was wondering if his recording of the thieves in their homes runs afoul of wiretapping laws. I can appreciate that someone who just stole a package probably isn't likely to try to press charges, but made me wonder if he is just assuming that risk. Maybe the box has a 'shrinkwrap' license agreeing to be recorded?

natenthe 6y ago

I saw this and found it interesting. As a CS guy and software engineer, I've always wanted to combine that knowledge with actual physical engineering (i.e. mechanical and electrical) in order to build cool stuff and complete my knowledge base as an engineer. I've always seen his videos and wanted to be able to prototype and engineer actual physical things like him, rather than spending my whole life building software (although software pays the bills - nothing wrong with that). I wonder how far the course would actually be able to take me - it would be interesting to see. The course seems a bit high priced and I don't have time at the moment, but I'll definitely keep my eye on it and wait to see the reviews.

fastball 6y ago
For people that want to learn "physical engineering", I recommend the same thing I do when people ask people the best way to learn software engineering: you need a project. Find something in your life that you want to automate, and automate it. Motivation is easier to maintain ("I still want this problem fixed") and you'll learn so much more from failure and iteration than you will following someone else's tutorial about "how to build X".

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Dirlewanger 6y ago

Looks great, but I'm skeptical on the "bringing 3 of your own builds to life" at the end of 30 days, especially if you lack the tens of thousands of dollars of tools that Mark has.

twis 6y ago
You don't need 10s of thousands of dollars worth of tools to build something.
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  Especially if those things were specifically chosen because they don't require 10s of thousands of dollars worth of tools.

abhisuri97 6y ago

From the FAQ: > Throughout the class, you’ll share your ongoing work and give and receive peer feedback. Mark will also be able to check out students’ work, and may occasionally answer questions and give feedback. > We can’t guarantee that Mark will comment on your work directly, but we’ve designed the class so that you’ll get thorough feedback from your peers. You’ll get personalized feedback by submitting your projects on time, documenting your process, and playing an active role in your group. > Mark will also have access to the peer groups to answer questions, give feedback, and post responses during class. You will have complete access to all the feedback and answers Mark gives within your peer group and even within the other peer groups in the class. There’s a lot to learn from this ever-growing library of real student feedback. This kind of sounds like a potential recipe for disaster. $250 for some pre-recorded videos and peer (i.e. a group of other learners randomly assigned to you) assessment? I could also see people being easily upset by a relative lack of direct involvement from Rober (esp given how much this course page hypes up his involvement outside of the FAQ).

projectileboy 6y ago
$250 does not seem at all unreasonable even if the product consists only of high quality videos. I’ve spent $100 on good sets of videos before and was happy to do so.
- abhisuri97 6y ago
  I'd spend money on high quality videos (e.g. buying an egghead subscription was well worth the money a couple of years ago for me because there wasn't anything that came close to that resource at the time), but I doubt I'd really spend $250 on stuff that (at least from the subject titles + video descriptions) seems to be very general/somewhat intro level material. Then again, I don't think I'm the intended audience here :/

djmips 6y ago

Gets a lot of mileage out of working at NASA for 8 years. Personally I'd save the $250 and just go watch Ben Krasnow @ YouTube Applied Science.

MatthiasWandel 6y ago
if you are a self starter or a self directed learner, an online course is not the way to go. Start with a desire to do something, then search online for how to do it.

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fastball 6y ago

I've enjoyed Mark Rober's content over the years, but I'm skeptical for two reasons: 1. I think people frequently underestimate how useful it is to do the "boring" parts of engineering (or any discipline). The unfortunate reality is that a lot of learning (that can be applied generally) comes from failure / mistakes, and you don't really get that if you're taught "this is how you can make this particular cool thing". In other words: I don't think you can learn how to do the stuff Rober does on YouTube by Rober telling you how he does the stuff on YouTube. He is capable of that precisely because he studied engineering in school and worked at NASA etc and experienced failures and setbacks which, though not obviously related to making a glitter bomb or w/e, taught him lessons and skills that are helpful under the surface. This is generally why I'm skeptical of anyone that thinks they can distill down their success in a given field into a single book or video series, when invariably their success is a result of 10+ years of experience, practice, and overcoming obstacles. 2. Creativity is near impossible to teach, which effectively just makes this a 30 day engineering course, in which case see point (1). Hopefully my skepticism is misplaced though and this is a very worthwhile course for a lot of people!

avmich 6y ago
> Creativity is near impossible to teach After "Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others" I'm not so sure about that. The idea this book talks about - I think central, but not the only one - is that creativity at least closely related to combinations and transfer between fields.
- lnwlebjel 6y ago
  "Where Good Ideas Come From" is similarly useful in this regard. "To form fresh ideas, it is necessary to explore the adjacent possible, and to have the widest adjacent possible, it is necessary to have the widest list of available ideas for recombination, the biggest list of spare parts available for recombination" ... quoting from my notes.
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  Thank you for the next book on my reading list :)

freetime2 6y ago

Rober just put out a new video with version 3.0 of his Glitter Bomb, and the engineering is seriously impressive. I’m sure he gets lots of help on his projects from others at this point, but I still have a lot of admiration for this guy. The video is pretty funny, too! https://youtu.be/h4T_LlK1VE4 https://youtu.be/h4T_LlK1VE4

buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
I agree it is very impressive, but I wish he'd do something new for the holiday season. I feel like v3 is basically v2, but you can't put the lid back on. I wish he'd shake things up a bit.

fxtentacle 6y ago

This is clearly marketing, and clearly good one. From what I can tell, it's a course that was mostly produced by someone else and will be delivered by someone else, but they recorded Mark Rober - the guy famous on YouTube for glitterbombing people - as the instructor. But their FAQ already states that he will "be able to" look at what students are doing and "may occasionally [..] give feedback", so most likely he won't be around to run the course. Also, from watching the videos, I had the impression that the technical work is mostly done by other people, e.g. the famous glitterbomb was built by Sean Hodgins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI So first and foremost, it appears that Mark Rober is a great showman and a great narrator. Plus he's collaborating with people like Mr Beast who have the power of a skilled agency behind them (nightmedia.co) to produce just the right narrative to go viral. And his first videos appear to be sponsored by a marketing agency. So I'm not surprised that this course is hyped up and not actually done by Mark Rober. I'd treat this more as a case study on how to perfect your social marketing ;) That said, their core promise of building 3 own projects within 30 days sounds reasonable if they have skilled instructors running the course. And the price seems reasonable for such a learning experience. When I was younger, my dad built some technical projects with me. Over the course of a weekend, I would learn more about electrics and physics than in a year in school. And once you built something that actually works in the real world, you'll never go back to observing technology as a passive bystander. That attitude change alone might be worth the $250. Plus, I believe Mark Rober to be a great showman. This course will likely be entertaining to watch, and paced just like a good movie.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
It’s increasingly common for online courses and other material to be attached to famous influencers. Leveraging the influencer’s audience and credibility is a shortcut to gaining massive traction. People really, really trust their favorite influencers. I was shocked when a semi-famous influencer admitted that one of the businesses that bears his name actually receives zero input from him, yet he takes 60% of the profits. He was approached by someone who wanted to use his name to jumpstart the audience and the deal was too good to pass up. I wouldn’t be surprised if the recently publicized “Mr Beast Burger” is a similar collaboration. It’s pitched as something Mr Beast came up with, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some entrepreneurs were already building a ghost kitchen business and shopped it around to influencers who were willing to claim it was “theirs” in exchange for some of the profits.

jamestimmins 6y ago

I'd love for Mark Rober to make an accredited physics class for high school students. It would be a huge undertaking, but I could see it becoming the standard for distance learning. He could even do it in pieces, in partnership with Khan Academy. Heck, I'd pay for a Kickstarter for this. Similarly, it would be amazing for Randall Munroe (of XKCD fame) to write a physics textbook.

glandium 6y ago
Relatedly, he did some classes in March/April this year, live on Youtube. The first one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPn-Bay_ANU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPn-Bay_ANU

TedShiller 6y ago

This guy is doing a lot to pollute the environment just to get views on YouTube. Filling a swimming pool with plastic balls is one example. Has he heard of plastic pollution?

dawnerd 6y ago
Also the guy that helped and donated $50,000 to team trees. Clearly you're trying to find a point to hate on him without acknowledging the good he's done.
- TedShiller 6y ago
  So if I pollute a lot but donate to a good cause then it's ok?

unreal37 6y ago

I think he's brilliant, and don't get the hate being directed at him here. He deserves his success. Seriously surprising, actually. I'd love to understand the source of it. Why people want to reduce his success to "showman", "milking it", "not actually done by him", etc? Why diminish something that makes the world a better place and is not taking anything away from others?

fxtentacle 6y ago
In the context of an electronics course, I consider it relevant that he asked someone else to do his electronics project. Apart from that, I see "great showman" as a compliment. I watch BBC nature documentaries because David Attenborough is an amazing narrator. I don't care how much work he does on the movie apart from narrating it. I have the same view on Mark Rober. I don't usually care what or if he does something, I just want to see him present it in an interesting way. And he is amazing at the latter.
stolenmerch 6y ago
> I'd love to understand the source of it. I certainly don't hate Mark Rober and am not at all trying to reduce his success - so take this as one opinion in response to your question. There is something about his YouTube content I don't personally enjoy. It's a little hard to articulate, but to me it feels cheesy. I understand his schtick is creating overengineered solutions to life's little annoyances, but his on-screen persona seems put on to me. I get the sense he's a super talented guy who also has an amazing crew and network of friends. I just don't have a swimming pool or access to a trillion orbeez, so perhaps I am more drawn to normal engineers making youtube videos about them hacking on their raspberry pi.

syntaxing 6y ago

Seems like this is more about teaching about application engineering rather than the engineering theories. If this is the case, I don't think the $250 is worth it? You'll probably get much further mileage by just using that $250 to make stuff. Get some cardboard, popsicle sticks (or even wood) + arduino and sensors with grove connectors.

Osiris 6y ago

> Former NASA engineer and YouTuber Mark Rober teaches you everything he knows in this one-month class Why do they need to exaggerate like this? Obviously he cannot share everything he learned over years of study and practice in a month. 1) the statement "everyrging be knows" is wholely unnecessary. 2) these exaggerated claims are really off putting to me and make me less, not more, likely to buy the service.

cambalache 6y ago
They need to exaggerate to get your sweet sweet 250 dollars

balls187 6y ago

The comments hating on Rober are way off base. He has been on youtube for nearly 10 years making videos, and as he gained success, he started to work with more and more people to do even more amazing work. Watch one of his initial videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1P6K_PaS0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1P6K_PaS0A) and compare to his work now.

gmiller123456 6y ago
Agree that his Youtube content is great, I think the skepticism is about whether or not having a cool Youtube channel translates into being good at teaching an engineering course. I hope it turns out to be something that's great and worth the money, but if I were a betting person, based on my past experience with a lot of on-line courses, I'd bet it's not. It's unfortunate that in order to tell if a course is actually any good, you'll have to invest a considerable amount of time an effort before you realize it's not any good. I've wasted so many hours into bad courses that I have to wait until one is recommended over and over again before I'll give it a chance.

wdr1 6y ago

I like Mark Rober, but $250 is a bit steep.