Ep. 38 | Comedy, Shocks, and Educating EEs on YouTube with ElectroBOOM's Mehdi Sadaghdar
"Want to subconsciously learn while being entertained?" says the ElectroBOOM YouTube page. "Then subscribe!!" Mehdi Sadaghdar is well-known for several things: his YouTube videos, his habit of accidentally shocking himself in said videos, his sense of humor, his impressive unibrow. But Sadaghdar is also one of the few electrical engineer celebrities alive today and he's made a name for himself by creating electronics educational videos on YouTube. Just as his YouTube page promises, ElectroBOOM makes over 4.8 million subscribers laugh with his particular brand of hijinks while also teaching them about concepts like current limiting and magnetic fields in BLDC motors. The result is somewhere between Bill Nye, Mythbusters, and the Marx Brothers. In this episode of Moore's Lobby, Mehdi and Daniel chat about the role of YouTube and social media in modern engineering education, especially the idea of teaching by showing (occasionally shocking) mistakes. Also included in this episode: The story of that one time Mehdi nearly died building a Jacob's Ladder Answering the question, "Is it the current or the voltage that kills you?" Throwing shade at mechanical engineers Rage at "free energy" products The challenges of being an introverted engineer in the limelight