WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:27.383 --> 00:00:31.523 Dale: I'm joined today by Jasmine Florentine who just published 00:00:31.523 --> 00:00:35.853 her first book and it's called Hex Allen and the Clanksmiths. 00:00:36.383 --> 00:00:38.093 It's a book for middle schoolers. 00:00:38.412 --> 00:00:39.702 First of all, welcome Jasmine. 00:00:39.702 --> 00:00:40.532 Nice to talk to you. 00:00:41.222 --> 00:00:42.252 Florentine: Thank you so much. 00:00:42.429 --> 00:00:43.858 It's an honor, honestly. 00:00:44.611 --> 00:00:48.680 Dale: Tell me when in your life did you start making stuff or how did that 00:00:48.740 --> 00:00:51.876 sort of emerge as part of who you are? 00:00:51.883 --> 00:00:55.743 Florentine: So I basically, as long as I remember, but a lot of it was 00:00:55.743 --> 00:00:59.973 channeled into arts and crafts at first, just cause I didn't really know 00:00:59.973 --> 00:01:03.656 about, I don't know, like engineering and like electronics or any of that. 00:01:03.656 --> 00:01:05.336 I wasn't quite introduced to that. 00:01:05.336 --> 00:01:09.736 So I was doing a lot of things like drawing and origami and scavenging 00:01:09.741 --> 00:01:13.106 things around the house and assembling them into weird things. 00:01:13.162 --> 00:01:16.114 And it wasn't really until I got to college that I found out what 00:01:16.114 --> 00:01:19.743 engineering was and was oh, it's just making things like this is great. 00:01:19.785 --> 00:01:20.115 Yeah, 00:01:20.115 --> 00:01:20.765 Dale: It's funny. 00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:25.051 It is that simple in a way, but sometimes, it gets portrayed as well. 00:01:25.051 --> 00:01:27.931 You gotta be this math person, you gotta do all these other things. 00:01:27.936 --> 00:01:32.041 And sometimes I find in some of the schools in their recruitment of 00:01:32.046 --> 00:01:36.151 engineers end up with people who actually don't have a desire to make things. 00:01:36.301 --> 00:01:38.949 They just found their way into engineering because they had good 00:01:38.949 --> 00:01:42.332 math scores and which is fine, but it's just a different path. 00:01:42.672 --> 00:01:43.386 Florentine: That's fair too. 00:01:43.433 --> 00:01:47.123 Like engineering is a hugely broad field and there's parts of it that 00:01:47.123 --> 00:01:50.693 are like much more theory and math heavy and parts of it that are much 00:01:50.963 --> 00:01:53.675 more hands on and making heavy. 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:58.395 Like, I went into mechanical engineering with a focus on product design, so 00:01:58.395 --> 00:02:02.381 then there's a lot more of an emphasis on -- okay, most of math is gonna be 00:02:02.381 --> 00:02:04.271 back at the envelope calculations. 00:02:04.281 --> 00:02:06.771 And then you're gonna actually be prototyping something 00:02:06.771 --> 00:02:07.641 to figure out if it works. 00:02:07.641 --> 00:02:11.787 But if you're doing something that's I don't know, complicated fluid analysis, 00:02:11.787 --> 00:02:13.197 then you're probably diving the math. 00:02:13.202 --> 00:02:14.817 Dale: I don't mean to disparage math. 00:02:15.117 --> 00:02:17.464 I think it's another tool in the tool chest. 00:02:17.491 --> 00:02:20.581 And actually that back of the envelope calculation thing is 00:02:20.602 --> 00:02:23.229 quite a good way to look at things. 00:02:23.297 --> 00:02:27.256 It sounds if you were in product design, essentially that's prototyping, isn't it? 00:02:27.327 --> 00:02:31.737 I always felt like the maker movement really is a revolution, not so much 00:02:31.737 --> 00:02:33.537 a manufacturing, but in prototyping. 00:02:33.671 --> 00:02:38.346 And that you can make things faster, easier, and therefore if they don't 00:02:38.346 --> 00:02:40.416 work out, you just make it again. 00:02:40.425 --> 00:02:44.452 Where there used to be a penalty to having to start over and you had to 00:02:44.452 --> 00:02:49.252 get the design perfect before you made the thing, and that was a different 00:02:49.402 --> 00:02:51.973 way of looking at developing a product. 00:02:53.108 --> 00:02:56.005 Florentine: Whenever anybody asks me about 3D printing I'm always like 00:02:56.088 --> 00:03:00.758 originally I saw it as just a fun toy until I actually was seeing how it was 00:03:00.758 --> 00:03:02.798 getting used in product development. 00:03:02.858 --> 00:03:08.165 And seeing how, like I was, I guess I was still working at places that were 00:03:08.213 --> 00:03:12.173 doing it the way they used to, which is they would send the CAD model to 00:03:12.173 --> 00:03:16.313 get milled in China and then shipped over, and that was an expensive process. 00:03:16.313 --> 00:03:19.613 And then suddenly with 3D printing, you just print it and the next day you're 00:03:19.613 --> 00:03:21.593 like, oh, great, this prototype works. 00:03:22.188 --> 00:03:22.804 Dale: Or it doesn't, 00:03:23.294 --> 00:03:28.484 Florentine: or it doesn't, more likely it doesn't the first few times. 00:03:28.667 --> 00:03:33.623 Dale: So you went into MIT and you got a BS and an MS in mechanical 00:03:34.013 --> 00:03:34.643 engineering, is that right? 00:03:34.710 --> 00:03:36.115 What was that experience like? 00:03:36.159 --> 00:03:39.559 I'm not an MIT person and what is that like? 00:03:39.586 --> 00:03:42.814 Also as a woman going into MIT these days. 00:03:43.209 --> 00:03:44.056 Florentine: I loved it. 00:03:44.116 --> 00:03:48.316 I was really nervous going in because I wasn't one of those people 00:03:48.316 --> 00:03:52.155 who was like on the math team and hardcore math sciences in that way. 00:03:52.169 --> 00:03:55.859 I liked math and science as much as I liked any other subject. 00:03:55.864 --> 00:04:00.539 I think senior, no, junior year in high school, it really started to make sense 00:04:00.539 --> 00:04:02.279 to me and I really started to enjoy it. 00:04:02.279 --> 00:04:06.835 But I applied to engineering schools sort of from encouragement from 00:04:06.835 --> 00:04:09.595 friends and teachers who were like, oh, you're good at math and science. 00:04:09.595 --> 00:04:12.040 You should at least visit and see what you think. 00:04:12.040 --> 00:04:15.890 And once I visited and saw like robotics and product design and all that, it 00:04:15.890 --> 00:04:20.824 seemed really exciting, but it really took me the first year there to actually 00:04:20.829 --> 00:04:22.775 feel like I deserved to be there. 00:04:22.787 --> 00:04:26.302 I guess for a long time I had this I dunno, a chip on my shoulder of, oh, 00:04:26.302 --> 00:04:28.197 I only got in because I was a woman. 00:04:28.227 --> 00:04:30.010 Maybe I wasn't qualified enough. 00:04:30.035 --> 00:04:34.944 And unfortunately part of that actually came from something that somebody had told 00:04:34.944 --> 00:04:39.174 me, which was basically, oh, you're only getting in --first they said, you won't 00:04:39.174 --> 00:04:41.000 get in with those SAT scores in math. 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:44.330 And I said, okay, wait till the SAT2 comes back or my AP scores. 00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:49.580 Because for whatever reason, I handled the higher level math 00:04:49.580 --> 00:04:51.440 better than the like basic SAT math. 00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:54.920 Those came back and then she said, oh, you'll get in because you're 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:56.210 a woman, but you won't like it. 00:04:56.990 --> 00:05:02.090 And so that entire first year I guess I was really nervous and it wasn't until I 00:05:02.090 --> 00:05:05.930 started realizing that I was doing well in my classes and I was really enjoying 00:05:05.930 --> 00:05:09.361 things and I was being challenged, but everybody was being challenged 00:05:09.361 --> 00:05:13.353 and we were all working together that I really felt like, oh I belong here. 00:05:13.443 --> 00:05:17.103 And then when I started taking more mechanical engineering and 00:05:17.103 --> 00:05:21.393 product design classes, I was like, this is really fun and a way 00:05:21.393 --> 00:05:23.433 for me to also use my creativity. 00:05:23.637 --> 00:05:24.687 Dale: Which is a strength. 00:05:24.692 --> 00:05:28.502 I like to think that MIT is looking for those kinds of people. 00:05:28.627 --> 00:05:32.993 If you go to RSDI or other schools where they get the creative people 00:05:32.993 --> 00:05:35.783 that don't have necessarily, they get the design background, but 00:05:35.783 --> 00:05:36.983 they don't have the engineering. 00:05:36.998 --> 00:05:39.488 You go to the engineering side and you get people that don't 00:05:39.488 --> 00:05:41.433 have that design or creativity. 00:05:41.539 --> 00:05:45.304 They're kind of two worlds that want to meet the middle somewhere more often. 00:05:46.474 --> 00:05:47.824 Florentine: Yeah, I think so. 00:05:47.824 --> 00:05:48.539 I didn't get it. 00:05:48.539 --> 00:05:52.214 I've never taken courses at RSDI but my senior year at MIT I took 00:05:52.244 --> 00:05:56.414 courses at Mass Art, which also has an industrial design program. 00:05:56.804 --> 00:06:00.612 And it was really cool seeing what product design looks like from their perspective. 00:06:01.577 --> 00:06:06.107 And I think for me, I really wanted to be somewhere in the middle. 00:06:06.107 --> 00:06:10.148 Like I wanted to think about the user design and how it looked, but I also 00:06:10.148 --> 00:06:13.431 wanted to make it work or understand from a technical perspective. 00:06:13.431 --> 00:06:15.644 To me, it's like the two of them go hand in hand. 00:06:15.772 --> 00:06:17.620 And I wanted to be somewhere in the middle. 00:06:17.880 --> 00:06:21.227 Dale: Give me an example of a project you did at school that it was a product. 00:06:21.227 --> 00:06:23.711 Where did the idea come from and how did you develop it? 00:06:24.311 --> 00:06:25.101 Florentine: Yeah. 00:06:25.125 --> 00:06:29.290 So one of my favorite projects, this was actually a graduate school project 00:06:29.339 --> 00:06:34.605 was for a product design class where the challenge was so we were working 00:06:34.605 --> 00:06:38.466 with this nearby place that sort of did puzzle adventures for kids. 00:06:38.538 --> 00:06:41.805 This was before escape rooms, but it had a similar vibe and they 00:06:41.805 --> 00:06:44.325 were making a new one that was gonna be science fiction themed. 00:06:44.625 --> 00:06:49.410 So the challenge for the class was, go and make something science fiction themed. 00:06:49.410 --> 00:06:52.676 And our team was just wow, we get to feel like Disney Imagineers here. 00:06:52.680 --> 00:06:58.740 And so we decided early on that we just wanted to make a really ridiculous 00:06:58.800 --> 00:07:00.630 over the top science fiction door. 00:07:00.630 --> 00:07:02.261 I'm not really sure how we settled on that. 00:07:02.261 --> 00:07:04.811 I think it was just, because whenever you watch all those sci-fi movies, 00:07:04.811 --> 00:07:08.836 they always have all the extra movements and the lights and just extra 00:07:09.196 --> 00:07:11.086 pneumatics and movements and stuff. 00:07:11.536 --> 00:07:14.837 And so the process we went through, actually I had a really amazing 00:07:14.837 --> 00:07:18.077 team, including people who came from an industrial design background 00:07:18.077 --> 00:07:21.287 and people who came from a mechanical engineering background. 00:07:21.287 --> 00:07:23.563 And the product design process we went through was textbook 00:07:24.788 --> 00:07:26.138 in the way we went through it. 00:07:26.199 --> 00:07:28.493 And it was a really great learning experience for me, 00:07:28.493 --> 00:07:29.783 learning from my teammates. 00:07:29.783 --> 00:07:33.263 So we started with all the drawings of all of our ideas and stuff. 00:07:33.267 --> 00:07:36.658 Originally we wanted to make like an aperture style door, a 00:07:36.663 --> 00:07:38.384 camera shutter with six leaves. 00:07:38.451 --> 00:07:39.844 We built some prototypes of that. 00:07:39.844 --> 00:07:43.709 We realized it wasn't gonna work because to make a proper one you actually 00:07:43.714 --> 00:07:47.136 have to have some of the leaves go underground which wouldn't have worked. 00:07:47.165 --> 00:07:49.595 Even though we tried different ways of fudging it and in the end what 00:07:49.595 --> 00:07:54.231 we had was something that was like two leaves that rotate and open and 00:07:54.264 --> 00:07:58.204 have these lights go and it's all driven by pneumatics, so it makes this 00:07:58.204 --> 00:08:00.724 really satisfying, like "SHHH" sound. 00:08:01.314 --> 00:08:04.865 So it's not product design in the traditional sense of something 00:08:04.865 --> 00:08:06.425 that a consumer would buy. 00:08:06.493 --> 00:08:11.773 We went through basically the same process and it was just such a fun project. 00:08:11.900 --> 00:08:14.835 Dale: It's consistent with what I will see, like at a Maker Faire that 00:08:14.835 --> 00:08:19.718 always interests me is, and I think it's a new area it's really interactive 00:08:19.817 --> 00:08:23.556 installations in a way, things that you come up to and say what does it do? 00:08:23.583 --> 00:08:25.555 It's not a product, it's an experience. 00:08:25.605 --> 00:08:29.497 It plays with us that thing, and a lot of times in a humorous way, 00:08:29.497 --> 00:08:32.999 it makes us laugh or it makes us associate something like fantasy. 00:08:33.389 --> 00:08:38.266 So what did you do when you got out of school, finished your Master's program? 00:08:38.936 --> 00:08:42.550 Florentine: I went and worked for First Robotics, which, I think you, 00:08:42.640 --> 00:08:46.400 I'm sure you know about for anybody who doesn't, it's a great nonprofit. 00:08:46.400 --> 00:08:50.278 And so I was there on the engineering team as a mechanical engineer, designing 00:08:50.278 --> 00:08:52.468 the fields that the robots would play on. 00:08:52.485 --> 00:08:56.115 One of the fun things for me was like during the interview they were 00:08:56.115 --> 00:08:57.885 like, oh, we saw you also do art. 00:08:57.971 --> 00:08:59.811 Recently we've started theming the games. 00:09:00.171 --> 00:09:02.906 How would you feel about doing art, as part of your job? 00:09:02.906 --> 00:09:07.644 And I was like, This is the dream job because one of the struggles I had when 00:09:07.644 --> 00:09:12.219 I came out of college before going back for my master's, was finding a way to 00:09:12.249 --> 00:09:14.139 bridge that gap of engineering and art. 00:09:14.139 --> 00:09:16.918 And a lot of companies were like yeah, but it says you're an engineer on your 00:09:16.918 --> 00:09:19.058 degree, so you're doing engineering. 00:09:19.058 --> 00:09:22.521 And so this case I got, I think 80% of my time was engineering, but 00:09:22.521 --> 00:09:26.001 20% was also making it look themed and making it look really cool. 00:09:26.001 --> 00:09:30.337 So we had Steampunk field and like a space themed field. 00:09:30.337 --> 00:09:32.833 And it was a really fun and fulfilling job. 00:09:32.838 --> 00:09:35.298 And then I left the US so I had to leave the job. 00:09:35.303 --> 00:09:36.893 Dale: That sounds like a fun experience. 00:09:36.944 --> 00:09:39.104 Maybe First Robotics could be a little more fun. 00:09:39.150 --> 00:09:40.810 Not just functional, but fun. 00:09:40.860 --> 00:09:45.960 One of Maker Faires I really like is our Maker Faire in Tokyo, and they have lots 00:09:45.960 --> 00:09:47.760 of robots, but they're all in costume. 00:09:47.760 --> 00:09:51.880 They're all characters and might be a sumo robot, it might be 00:09:51.917 --> 00:09:53.297 something along those lines. 00:09:53.297 --> 00:09:54.578 But that's very playful. 00:09:54.600 --> 00:09:57.841 And getting that sort of connection together of the 00:09:57.841 --> 00:09:59.954 play and the function is nice. 00:10:00.704 --> 00:10:02.354 Florentine: That sounds really cool. 00:10:02.451 --> 00:10:04.523 Dale: So you moved to Israel at that point 00:10:04.653 --> 00:10:05.608 Florentine: Ireland first, yeah. 00:10:05.608 --> 00:10:06.008 Ireland. 00:10:06.038 --> 00:10:06.528 Okay. 00:10:06.888 --> 00:10:10.950 And then as in Israel spouse is in academia, so we move around a lot. 00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:12.370 And we're gonna be moving again. 00:10:12.502 --> 00:10:16.353 Shortly as well, so yeah, that was actually when we found out we were 00:10:16.353 --> 00:10:19.713 moving again from Ireland to Israel, that's when I decided to actually try 00:10:19.713 --> 00:10:23.395 freelance just because I was starting to get a little silly looking for work. 00:10:23.395 --> 00:10:24.634 Dale: What kind of freelance work do you do? 00:10:25.334 --> 00:10:28.004 Florentine: I've done some just engineering design. 00:10:28.056 --> 00:10:33.957 So like I worked on a race car helmet that like had a EEG built into it. 00:10:33.988 --> 00:10:35.998 And so that was a very interesting design challenge. 00:10:35.998 --> 00:10:39.058 But a lot of what I've been doing lately has actually been 00:10:39.058 --> 00:10:41.276 more in STEM content creation. 00:10:41.326 --> 00:10:45.051 When I worked at FIRST, I really fell in love with STEM education. 00:10:45.051 --> 00:10:47.521 I was already moving in that direction with the book. 00:10:47.521 --> 00:10:51.896 And so with freelance what happened was actually I started making paper 00:10:51.896 --> 00:10:53.846 robots for fun with the micro: bit. 00:10:53.899 --> 00:10:55.302 And those sort of took off. 00:10:55.420 --> 00:10:59.170 I guess because of that, I got introduced into to a lot of people 00:10:59.170 --> 00:11:02.950 and organizations working in the STEM ed space for younger kids than 00:11:02.950 --> 00:11:04.660 what I was working with at FIRST. 00:11:04.675 --> 00:11:07.365 And so yeah, I've been doing everything from the project design 00:11:07.365 --> 00:11:10.946 and curriculum design and working on like different kits and stuff. 00:11:10.946 --> 00:11:12.656 So it's been a lot of fun. 00:11:12.876 --> 00:11:14.821 Dale: Let's go into your book a little bit and then we'll come 00:11:14.826 --> 00:11:16.942 back to maybe the education ideas. 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:20.651 But so you just published a book a graphical book called 00:11:20.701 --> 00:11:22.891 hex Allen and Clanksmiths. 00:11:23.365 --> 00:11:26.991 Tell us about your idea for that book and how it developed. 00:11:27.801 --> 00:11:32.652 Florentine: Yeah, so I came up with the idea around graduate school and I 00:11:32.652 --> 00:11:36.195 think part of it was just based on my own experience of feeling like I fell 00:11:36.195 --> 00:11:38.369 into engineering by lucky accident. 00:11:38.449 --> 00:11:42.349 Before I applied to MIT, I didn't even really know what engineering was. 00:11:42.499 --> 00:11:47.382 And then again, I think especially women are not necessarily 00:11:47.792 --> 00:11:48.702 encouraged in the same way. 00:11:48.754 --> 00:11:53.747 So I wanted sort of something that like made engineering fun and approachable 00:11:53.747 --> 00:11:58.806 and also just showed kids what it was because like again, I didn't really know 00:11:58.806 --> 00:12:02.046 until college and even when I'd go home and tell people what I study and they'd 00:12:02.046 --> 00:12:03.426 be like, oh, so you're building bridges? 00:12:03.426 --> 00:12:06.598 I'm like that's civil engineers, there's other parts of engineering. 00:12:06.603 --> 00:12:06.843 Yeah. 00:12:06.843 --> 00:12:12.455 So I wanted to make a book that was showcasing STEM with a focus on 00:12:12.460 --> 00:12:17.241 engineering and kind of came to the idea of a fantasy world where engineering 00:12:17.294 --> 00:12:22.365 feels more like magic, to make the engineering centered and something that 00:12:22.365 --> 00:12:24.675 it is the thing everybody wants to do. 00:12:24.742 --> 00:12:26.905 As opposed to a real world where it's oh, normal things. 00:12:26.905 --> 00:12:28.394 And then like magic's so cool. 00:12:28.829 --> 00:12:33.059 So I actually, the original idea was gonna be a graphic novel and then I 00:12:33.384 --> 00:12:36.834 thought that it would be too difficult to illustrate a graphic novel and thought, 00:12:36.864 --> 00:12:38.359 oh, a book will be easier to write. 00:12:38.359 --> 00:12:38.972 I was wrong. 00:12:38.972 --> 00:12:43.172 Books are really hard to write and it took a long time. 00:12:45.152 --> 00:12:45.632 Whoops. 00:12:45.662 --> 00:12:49.137 Glad I didn't know how hard it was or not sure would've attempted it. 00:12:49.307 --> 00:12:49.897 Dale: It's true. 00:12:49.967 --> 00:12:51.217 A lot of things, isn't it? 00:12:51.887 --> 00:12:52.377 Florentine: Yeah. 00:12:53.427 --> 00:12:56.917 So it went through a lot of iterations. 00:12:57.007 --> 00:13:00.912 What finally came out was like it originally had a, inverse wizard 00:13:00.917 --> 00:13:04.549 school kind of thing where it was like the engineering school that was 00:13:04.549 --> 00:13:06.419 hidden within like the magical world. 00:13:06.419 --> 00:13:10.066 But what it is now is more of like a fantasy adventure where the main 00:13:10.066 --> 00:13:13.876 characters don't actually have magic in a world where everybody else does. 00:13:14.206 --> 00:13:21.251 So they wind up having to use the secret mystical arts of STEM and engineering 00:13:21.251 --> 00:13:23.219 to overcome different challenges. 00:13:23.299 --> 00:13:26.568 Obviously the magic is all fiction and the adventures fiction, but everything 00:13:26.573 --> 00:13:30.048 they build is something that is actually possible to build in real life. 00:13:30.115 --> 00:13:34.505 Most of the projects are actually described in the end of the book. 00:13:34.505 --> 00:13:38.130 There's instructions that are in the form of the main character's design notebook. 00:13:38.376 --> 00:13:38.676 Dale: Nice. 00:13:38.773 --> 00:13:40.484 So you could build what's in the book? 00:13:40.624 --> 00:13:43.435 Florentine: There's a couple of projects because one of the characters is the 00:13:43.435 --> 00:13:46.345 chemist where she uses more explosives. 00:13:46.345 --> 00:13:49.705 So those are not given instructions in the book. 00:13:50.185 --> 00:13:53.426 But even for those, I actually consulted a friend to just make sure 00:13:53.426 --> 00:13:55.106 I was getting the details accurate. 00:13:55.164 --> 00:13:55.656 Dale: That's good. 00:13:57.621 --> 00:14:02.302 It is this challenge and like you could characterize a challenge of getting women 00:14:02.302 --> 00:14:06.412 into STEM, but it's probably a broader challenge of getting more different 00:14:06.412 --> 00:14:08.615 kinds of people into STEM, right? 00:14:08.661 --> 00:14:13.671 That for some people it looks like a great space that as you turned on to 00:14:13.671 --> 00:14:15.945 it -- a place to explore an adventure. 00:14:16.275 --> 00:14:19.039 Other people, they get pushed away as almost you did too. 00:14:19.084 --> 00:14:20.074 That's not for you. 00:14:20.194 --> 00:14:20.744 You won't like it. 00:14:21.229 --> 00:14:23.039 You get told those things. 00:14:23.046 --> 00:14:26.106 And it's just like, how do you swing people in that little space 00:14:26.106 --> 00:14:28.731 where, be open to what's there. 00:14:28.731 --> 00:14:29.862 People say, oh, it's hard. 00:14:29.862 --> 00:14:30.719 You won't like it. 00:14:30.769 --> 00:14:34.154 It's not so much they'll say it like, you don't have the ability to do it, but you 00:14:34.154 --> 00:14:39.037 won't like doing it, which is a preference more than a statement of talent. 00:14:39.077 --> 00:14:41.787 Florentine: I was actually just having a conversation with somebody 00:14:42.217 --> 00:14:46.781 yesterday who she was saying that, the issue for women as well as a lot 00:14:46.786 --> 00:14:51.731 of underrepresented minorities isn't just the pipeline, but also like you 00:14:51.736 --> 00:14:56.891 get to the stage where you're maybe finally in this career and people are 00:14:56.891 --> 00:15:02.299 still getting treated differently or judged, for who they are and not their 00:15:02.299 --> 00:15:06.619 qualifications or told they're not qualified when they already have more 00:15:06.679 --> 00:15:08.880 qualifications than a lot of people. 00:15:08.880 --> 00:15:13.800 The place I'm focusing on is the pipeline, cuz that's where I feel my skillset suits. 00:15:13.920 --> 00:15:17.203 But I do think it's definitely a broader problem. 00:15:17.273 --> 00:15:20.252 Dale: And pipeline, you mean kids in school that choose 00:15:20.252 --> 00:15:22.435 to focus on STEM subjects. 00:15:22.435 --> 00:15:23.305 Florentine: Exactly that. 00:15:23.305 --> 00:15:25.675 Because especially a lot of them even get lost. 00:15:25.675 --> 00:15:29.898 I think middle school is usually commonly cited as the age where a lot 00:15:29.898 --> 00:15:35.917 of again mostly girls start to lose interest or feel like, for whatever 00:15:35.917 --> 00:15:40.247 reason or another and their scores start to drop comparatively to guys. 00:15:40.279 --> 00:15:44.122 And one of the things that I've loved actually doing a lot of the freelance 00:15:44.122 --> 00:15:47.624 I've been doing, especially with the micro:bit, is I've seen, like you 00:15:47.629 --> 00:15:49.925 were saying earlier, how it, some people are just like, oh, you're 00:15:49.930 --> 00:15:51.419 good at math, go into engineering. 00:15:51.420 --> 00:15:55.650 But with a lot of the stuff I've been seeing that's more maker oriented, 00:15:55.650 --> 00:15:59.380 it's become more of this creative free-form activity that's more hands 00:15:59.380 --> 00:16:05.024 on and suddenly, I feel like you don't see a lot of the discouragement and 00:16:05.035 --> 00:16:08.192 more of the encouragement of wow, you made this really awesome thing. 00:16:08.192 --> 00:16:13.726 And approaching STEM in a whole bunch of different ways that are all equally valid. 00:16:13.751 --> 00:16:18.109 Making a robotic pet is like a super cool, fun thing that might 00:16:18.319 --> 00:16:22.764 appeal to some kids more than like pencil and paper, textbook math. 00:16:22.764 --> 00:16:26.536 Dale: And I think what you're describing is that there's a lot of different ways 00:16:26.536 --> 00:16:30.780 and a lot of different expressions of this rather than the straight, narrow 00:16:30.785 --> 00:16:32.622 road sometimes, which STEM looks like. 00:16:32.650 --> 00:16:35.770 It's like you gotta align with that and you have to do 00:16:35.770 --> 00:16:37.120 what everybody else is doing. 00:16:37.190 --> 00:16:38.540 And I think making opens it up. 00:16:38.780 --> 00:16:42.886 And says there are a lot of different ways and you can also think of yourself 00:16:42.886 --> 00:16:45.196 as having strengths and weaknesses. 00:16:45.219 --> 00:16:46.298 You're good at some things. 00:16:46.316 --> 00:16:49.949 But there are other things that you wanna improve on, but you're part of a community 00:16:49.949 --> 00:16:54.571 that can help you get through certain challenges as well your colleagues can 00:16:54.571 --> 00:16:56.506 help you address some of your weaknesses. 00:16:57.076 --> 00:16:58.336 Florentine: Yeah, for sure. 00:16:58.422 --> 00:17:02.532 One of the makers I like talking to a lot who was on the cover of your 00:17:02.952 --> 00:17:05.682 magazines is Jarvon Moss or OddJay. 00:17:06.042 --> 00:17:09.543 And one of the things that I find amazing about him is he's always, 00:17:09.560 --> 00:17:12.740 he is oh, I need to learn facial recognition to build this cool new robot. 00:17:12.740 --> 00:17:15.770 I'm just gonna ask my other maker friends and I'm gonna learn how to do it. 00:17:15.930 --> 00:17:16.420 Yeah. 00:17:16.429 --> 00:17:19.976 And it's just like that attitude of there's this great community and 00:17:20.596 --> 00:17:22.186 I'll learn, I'll be able to do it. 00:17:22.236 --> 00:17:26.677 Dale: I think if you probably saw a bit in FIRST, this idea of being part of a 00:17:26.682 --> 00:17:32.193 community, a part of a team as opposed to just this is a highly competitive 00:17:32.943 --> 00:17:36.957 individual academic pursuit I think can make a difference in how people 00:17:37.457 --> 00:17:42.218 consider this, that they belong, they can achieve both their own goals and also 00:17:42.398 --> 00:17:44.740 some goals in common with other people. 00:17:45.520 --> 00:17:46.570 Florentine: Yeah, definitely. 00:17:46.630 --> 00:17:51.160 I think one thing I would hear a lot from coaches and mentors would be, oh, this 00:17:51.160 --> 00:17:55.660 student struggled academically and then blossomed when they joined the FIRST team. 00:17:55.690 --> 00:17:55.750 Yeah. 00:17:56.535 --> 00:18:01.305 I think part of that was just for some kids it's harder to learn in like the 00:18:01.305 --> 00:18:06.315 more traditional setup and having the team and the hands on aspects and all 00:18:06.315 --> 00:18:08.495 that, it clicked with them a lot better. 00:18:08.509 --> 00:18:13.550 Dale: You could make the argument that every job out there intersects 00:18:13.580 --> 00:18:18.100 with technology and increasingly with art and so getting familiar 00:18:18.107 --> 00:18:21.748 with things, which might be at the core of problem solving is something 00:18:21.928 --> 00:18:23.968 that's a pretty generalizable skill. 00:18:24.088 --> 00:18:29.342 And it doesn't matter whether you're in the furniture business or in SpaceX, 00:18:29.342 --> 00:18:32.892 you have these challenges ahead and they're pretty interesting challenges. 00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:33.950 Florentine: Yeah, definitely. 00:18:33.976 --> 00:18:39.739 I think I found a lot of the process that I used to write a book was the same sort 00:18:39.739 --> 00:18:45.487 of mentality I approached an engineering or a maker project, of design and iterate. 00:18:46.147 --> 00:18:50.405 And I think to your point also what do you do for kids especially, I think one of the 00:18:50.405 --> 00:18:56.920 messages I took from from product design originally, but applies to making, applies 00:18:56.920 --> 00:19:02.170 to so many things is the acceptance of failure as part of the process. 00:19:02.620 --> 00:19:05.200 And that's something that I try and get through in the book as well, 00:19:05.205 --> 00:19:10.380 which is like, almost nothing you make is going to work the first time. 00:19:10.430 --> 00:19:13.700 And so that's where the whole like iterative process 00:19:13.700 --> 00:19:15.230 comes in of try it again. 00:19:15.230 --> 00:19:17.090 Try and learn from what you did wrong. 00:19:17.095 --> 00:19:20.753 If you need to do back of the envelope math to help you, that's 00:19:20.758 --> 00:19:22.223 one more tool in your tool set. 00:19:22.253 --> 00:19:24.023 Sometimes it's faster to just build it. 00:19:24.713 --> 00:19:29.218 And I think that is one thing that I've been seeing when I've been working with 00:19:29.255 --> 00:19:33.078 like STEM educators, is that they're bringing that mentality to the classroom. 00:19:33.078 --> 00:19:37.749 The other thing that's important is some schools have access to amazing maker 00:19:37.754 --> 00:19:42.221 spaces that have 3D printers, laser cutters, like whole electronic labs. 00:19:44.021 --> 00:19:44.921 And some don't. 00:19:44.921 --> 00:19:48.834 And teachers have asked what do we need to do to get started with a 00:19:48.834 --> 00:19:50.604 maker space on a minimum budget? 00:19:51.204 --> 00:19:53.644 And the answer is just make. 00:19:53.697 --> 00:19:56.778 Dale: I always thought there's an organic model for maker spaces, which 00:19:56.783 --> 00:20:00.097 is, teacher once said, I sent a note home to parents and said, just send me 00:20:00.097 --> 00:20:04.777 anything that they're discarding and we'll put that in and organize it in 00:20:04.782 --> 00:20:06.517 bins for kids to make stuff with it. 00:20:06.607 --> 00:20:10.065 And especially with younger kids, it's just, like you said, art 00:20:10.065 --> 00:20:13.275 experiences or assemblage and collaging and things like that. 00:20:13.325 --> 00:20:17.623 It really is the practice of making, of doing this practice over and over 00:20:17.623 --> 00:20:21.575 with different materials, different tools maybe as it, as you, in high 00:20:21.575 --> 00:20:25.786 school or later, you begin to get access to more powerful tools. 00:20:25.906 --> 00:20:27.106 But that's not where you start. 00:20:27.111 --> 00:20:30.316 And in fact, I, and this might relate to your book a bit, I've often 00:20:30.316 --> 00:20:35.155 thought that sketching is one of the ways, how do you take an idea that's 00:20:35.155 --> 00:20:39.065 working in your head and express it so that someone else can see it? 00:20:39.065 --> 00:20:40.954 A rough sketch is a great way to do that. 00:20:42.339 --> 00:20:43.389 Florentine: Yeah, definitely. 00:20:43.389 --> 00:20:48.009 So that actually is a big thing in the book of the main character starts 00:20:48.009 --> 00:20:52.657 by sketching out all these ideas and she very rarely builds them and when 00:20:52.657 --> 00:20:56.417 they do they fail because she feels discouraged the first time they fail. 00:20:56.452 --> 00:20:59.973 And she gets bullied cause she doesn't have magic like everyone else. 00:20:59.973 --> 00:21:03.516 And so part of her character arc and meeting these other people, 00:21:03.606 --> 00:21:09.356 the Clanksmiths who have got experience in STEM and engineering 00:21:09.356 --> 00:21:13.306 and science is bridging that gap from, oh, you, you've already been 00:21:13.306 --> 00:21:16.636 thinking about problem solving when you're drawing these things out. 00:21:16.996 --> 00:21:20.236 Here's the process to actually go and make them, and here's the confidence 00:21:20.236 --> 00:21:23.626 to understand that it's okay that it's not gonna work the first time. 00:21:24.376 --> 00:21:28.619 And then even in real life, one of the things that like was drilled into 00:21:28.619 --> 00:21:33.959 me with the ideation process of like brainstorming is draw the ideas down. 00:21:34.169 --> 00:21:35.789 They might look like chicken scratch. 00:21:36.149 --> 00:21:37.049 That's okay. 00:21:37.049 --> 00:21:41.669 Just drawing it down will help you start to visualize it and will help 00:21:41.669 --> 00:21:44.699 you communicate the ideas while, even if it's just stick figures, 00:21:44.699 --> 00:21:46.049 Dale: It requires to make choices. 00:21:46.139 --> 00:21:49.319 And that's part of how you get it to be real. 00:21:49.321 --> 00:21:50.375 It can't be everything. 00:21:50.375 --> 00:21:52.958 It has to have some shape to it and things. 00:21:52.958 --> 00:21:53.918 That's a really good point. 00:21:53.918 --> 00:21:55.508 I'm glad that to see that's in your book. 00:21:55.558 --> 00:22:00.457 Florentine: A lot of what I learned at MIT and what I even, and at FIRST, in 00:22:00.457 --> 00:22:05.354 everything I tried like putting that into the book in a simple way for kids. 00:22:05.354 --> 00:22:08.286 So it's it was something that was constantly on my mind for a while of 00:22:08.286 --> 00:22:10.746 like, how do I distill all these concepts? 00:22:10.769 --> 00:22:11.181 Dale: That's great. 00:22:11.248 --> 00:22:13.108 Give us some more information on the book. 00:22:13.132 --> 00:22:13.742 It's available. 00:22:13.742 --> 00:22:17.328 It is looks like it's available in the usual places. 00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:21.150 But it's categorized under juvenile fiction action and adventure. 00:22:21.232 --> 00:22:22.981 So you in the young adult area. 00:22:23.031 --> 00:22:25.971 Florentine: Yeah, like middle grade, which is like eight through 12. 00:22:26.061 --> 00:22:27.251 Eight through 14, yeah. 00:22:27.312 --> 00:22:32.732 Hilariously the UK Amazon algorithm categorized it in the tool section 00:22:32.732 --> 00:22:35.442 because the title is Hex Allen. 00:22:36.332 --> 00:22:36.822 Dale: That's funny. 00:22:36.885 --> 00:22:37.095 Good. 00:22:37.095 --> 00:22:38.295 Do you think you'll do more books? 00:22:39.135 --> 00:22:41.565 Florentine: Yeah, I originally, like I said, I been planning to 00:22:41.565 --> 00:22:45.084 do graphic novel and chickened out from the amount of illustration. 00:22:45.464 --> 00:22:48.434 And I went back and read the original script and was like, oh, 00:22:48.434 --> 00:22:50.174 this is actually pretty hilarious. 00:22:50.183 --> 00:22:54.773 So when my book originally got postponed because of Covid and so I 00:22:54.773 --> 00:22:56.483 decided to pitch the graphic novel. 00:22:56.483 --> 00:22:58.263 And now I'm working on that as well. 00:22:58.263 --> 00:23:01.242 And it's similar like bringing the STEM into the story. 00:23:02.452 --> 00:23:03.122 Dale: Same characters? 00:23:03.122 --> 00:23:05.417 Florentine: Different characters, different plot, 00:23:05.417 --> 00:23:07.817 but like still the STEM thing. 00:23:07.947 --> 00:23:09.969 Dale: And you'll continue to do freelance work? 00:23:10.019 --> 00:23:12.567 Florentine: Yeah, I've been doing freelance for two years, so I'm 00:23:12.567 --> 00:23:14.927 figuring out like where I want to be. 00:23:14.977 --> 00:23:17.051 Everything I've done I've enjoyed so far. 00:23:17.056 --> 00:23:18.439 So I'm just look see where this goes. 00:23:18.439 --> 00:23:22.043 Dale: I just think we're all aligned in trying to really get 00:23:22.043 --> 00:23:24.949 more kids exposed to this hands on. 00:23:24.949 --> 00:23:29.399 10 years ago I felt like there was a dearth of this in education meaning 00:23:29.399 --> 00:23:32.012 hands on had been left behind somehow. 00:23:32.012 --> 00:23:36.393 And that focus on testing and other things, a desire to be efficient in 00:23:36.393 --> 00:23:39.060 education has led them away from hands on. 00:23:39.088 --> 00:23:43.694 And when the teachers and others get back to it, they realize this is 00:23:43.694 --> 00:23:47.984 how kids learn and they really like learning this way and they do well. 00:23:48.108 --> 00:23:52.683 It really motivates them to to learn subjects that otherwise they might not. 00:23:52.739 --> 00:23:54.833 And again I've been talking to someone recently that. 00:23:57.953 --> 00:23:58.463 Florentine: Yeah. 00:23:58.463 --> 00:24:02.487 And it's also more concrete than test is like right or wrong, but if 00:24:02.517 --> 00:24:05.866 you're building or making something, I think you might have an idea of 00:24:05.866 --> 00:24:09.436 what your right or wrong is, but it's not concrete in that way. 00:24:09.536 --> 00:24:13.477 Dale: The other thing is things like understanding, just understanding 00:24:13.477 --> 00:24:16.664 science and engineering might take a lifetime really, it's really big 00:24:16.664 --> 00:24:18.925 and hard, doing something, you can. 00:24:19.260 --> 00:24:24.595 You can get some result that is maybe not the result you expected. 00:24:24.625 --> 00:24:25.705 Maybe it's not perfect, 00:24:26.065 --> 00:24:27.226 Florentine: but you learn along the way, 00:24:27.676 --> 00:24:28.216 Dale: parallel path. 00:24:28.219 --> 00:24:30.729 Like when people lecture us, we don't often understand 00:24:30.729 --> 00:24:31.801 what they're talking about. 00:24:31.801 --> 00:24:35.288 We might over time, but when we're doing stuff, we have our own 00:24:35.288 --> 00:24:37.473 sense whether we get it or not. 00:24:37.523 --> 00:24:40.883 Florentine: At least for me, also like having, so for me it's more 00:24:40.883 --> 00:24:42.863 fun learning as part of the process. 00:24:42.921 --> 00:24:46.541 If somebody's go and learn about resistors in a vacuum and 00:24:46.541 --> 00:24:47.801 I just have to read a textbook. 00:24:47.801 --> 00:24:49.123 It goes in one ear and out the other. 00:24:49.128 --> 00:24:51.763 If I'm building something and I'm like, oh, now I need to figure 00:24:51.763 --> 00:24:55.363 out how to use resistors, then I actually have a reason to learn it. 00:24:55.368 --> 00:24:56.923 And it becomes a lot more fun. 00:24:57.013 --> 00:24:57.763 Dale: Exactly. 00:24:57.763 --> 00:24:59.277 It's applied learning and. 00:25:00.027 --> 00:25:03.627 And we live in an era where you can command information from anywhere, 00:25:03.627 --> 00:25:05.634 at any time to learn something. 00:25:05.844 --> 00:25:08.435 But the context of building something and saying, oh, I'm 00:25:08.435 --> 00:25:09.515 trying to work on a circuit. 00:25:09.515 --> 00:25:11.923 Where does the resistor, what kind of resistor I need? 00:25:11.923 --> 00:25:13.522 That's, a real specific task. 00:25:13.912 --> 00:25:15.322 That you can figure out. 00:25:15.415 --> 00:25:18.128 I appreciate talking to you today, Jasmine. 00:25:18.194 --> 00:25:21.689 Is there any final thought or is there something I didn't cover 00:25:21.689 --> 00:25:23.249 that I should have with you? 00:25:24.569 --> 00:25:25.139 Florentine: Oh man. 00:25:25.256 --> 00:25:27.086 I think that covered a lot. 00:25:27.164 --> 00:25:31.857 I guess the overall message of everything is anyone can do STEM regardless of their 00:25:31.857 --> 00:25:36.128 gender, their race, their background and I think that's what I really try 00:25:36.128 --> 00:25:41.409 to communicate with everything that it shouldn't be this scary, oh, math it. 00:25:41.409 --> 00:25:41.783 Yeah. 00:25:41.783 --> 00:25:46.133 It's core, it's creative problem solving, and that takes so many different forms. 00:25:46.200 --> 00:25:48.223 Dale: And everybody has the ability to do it. 00:25:48.337 --> 00:25:53.106 A pleasure to talk to you today and I wish you well with the book, and it is. 00:25:53.276 --> 00:25:55.086 Hex Allen and Clank Smiths. 00:25:55.356 --> 00:25:58.439 If you have a young person in your life, please go out and check it out. 00:25:58.508 --> 00:26:03.694 And it's great to see books out there that are a little bit of fantasy, but also 00:26:03.694 --> 00:26:06.257 grounded in the reality of making things. 00:26:06.257 --> 00:26:07.607 A nice combination there. 00:26:08.597 --> 00:26:08.927 Florentine: Cool. 00:26:08.927 --> 00:26:10.277 Thank you so much.