Sean Tibor: Hello, and welcome to teaching Python. This is episode 101, the 2022 Holiday Gift Guide. My name is Shannon on Tibor. I'm a coder who teaches. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: My name is Kelly Schuster, printed, and I'm a teacher who codes. Sean Tibor: Wow. I'm out of practice on that. It's been a while since I've introduced myself for the podcast. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: It has been way too long. We're working on a little bit of a time, getting through a lot here and there for both of us, so it's good to be back talking to you. Sean Tibor: Yeah. But it's been a really good, really busy month or so since we last recorded. I mean, I think you and I were on the Python Bytes podcast last week, sharing some updates from the education community. You've traveled. You met Nick Tollervey in London. I went to Las Vegas for reinvent. It's been a busy month or so. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: It has been crazy. But you know what? We're always learning. That's true. Sean Tibor: That's true. And it's been a lot of fun to kind of take the time to really focus on learning and on the things that are right in front of us. But I'm ready to podcast again. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah, let's do it. Sean Tibor: All right. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: This is my favorite episodes. Sean Tibor: Oh, these ones are so much fun. And every time we come together and we share our ideas for this, I'm like, where's my credit card? I have to go get that. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Well, I've got some good ones. I did have to reshare the one I shared with Michael Kennedy and Brian because you know what? I just love it. Sean Tibor: It is really good. So more to come on that. But before we get into the holiday gift card, why don't we start in the same place that we always do with the wins of the week? And Kelly, I'm going to make you go first. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Oh, good. I'm so excited. Well, for those that don't know, I started a data science boot camp course, six Months of Pure Death, because that's why I look so exhausted. And I can tell you, I successfully mastered Excel for the first time ever in my life. And I am a whiz at pivot tables and charts and everything and my epiphany about Excel and how the functions are laid out. I never realized I've used Excel all my life, but never at this level. And I've become not an expert, but definitely able to hack a few VBA scripts. And I tell you what, there was a reason why I didn't code 20 years ago. I'm just telling you that. Sean Tibor: You have to do it at the right time. And Kelly, I do have something for you with us. I want to see if I could share. Let's see here. Oh, no. It's like sharing all my entire screen. I'll add this. I have an extra gift guide idea that I saw here just for you because you're now an Excel master. There's a coffee mug that has the Excel logo on it and it says Freak in the sheets. And I just thought it's such a great throwback, I will put it in the gift guide. It's pretty good. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That's hilarious. Yeah, I'm pretty excited. I'm almost finished with my homework a week ahead of time, two weeks at a time with this. Sean Tibor: Oh, nice. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I'm going through a million points of data. Talk about big data. It's nice to be able to actually teach kids and talk about big data when you have really played with some not. And this isn't huge, but that's still big data for us. It's good. Sean Tibor: Nice. And that's the fun thing, is that and I like the fact that they're starting with Excel for data science, because in so many ways, Excel is definitely like the granddaddy of all of this, right? But it has its limitations and there's only so much you can do. And there's a lot of famous examples of kind of overflowing what Excel can do. But to start there and then say, okay, well, now, yes, you could do this in Excel, but now here's a million rows of data, or here's 5 million rows or 20 million rows. What are you going to do with that? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Well, just prove that then Python doesn't seem so slow once you sat and wait for VPA to script. Sean Tibor: Fair point. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: There goes my spinning wheel. Any day now I'll get a result. Sean Tibor: Exactly. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Definitely. I do recommend this to anyone who learnt pints on recently who was a learner, a newbie like me, to go back and do some of the stuff that you might not have done with VBA and just the idea of appreciating the simplicity and the beauty of Python. One of our listeners even said that one of his students called Python a comfort blanket. And I definitely have to concur that Python is a comfort blanket, but there you go. Enough about me. Let's go on with you. I could talk all day. Sean Tibor: Well, my one of the week was a LinkedIn post, so something that happened about a month ago is that I gained a new employee on my team. So I am starting a team. I have someone who's reporting to me and really the whole goal is not that I need to do a lot of management for this person, it's more about the onboarding experience. And really the way we talked about it was, how do we make sure that everyone comes onto the team feeling like they've got a really clear path to competency, understanding and contribution, right. So that they can feel knowledgeable, they are knowledgeable and that they can do something meaningful with that. And so I've been working with my new employee who's based in Greece, so the time zones have been fun, but she's amazing. She's a really solid engineer and just is picking up things really quickly. And I think about two weeks in, she said to me, okay, so we've been doing a lot of learning. I want to go build this thing that we need to do. She's like, I know it'll take me longer, but I just need to start building something. And I said, Absolutely, go for it. Whatever you need, I'm here to help. And so I got this. Like she hit her one month anniversary this week and posted just the nicest post on LinkedIn about how welcome she felt, not just from me, but the entire team, that she's really excited about the work she's doing. She's really interested in it. She talked about being a part of Mondelize as a whole and how her first day she had to go in and fill out some HR paperwork. So it was like, here's some coffee, and here's a whole bag of sweets and chocolate. And she just felt welcomed, and I felt really good about that because that was the outcome or the experience I was hoping she would have, that this is a great place for her to learn, grow, and contribute and do something really great. So I can't wait to keep working with her and keep growing what she's doing. But that was a really good sign that we're hopefully on the right track. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That's very cool. It's very nice. It kind of goes in line with that Simon's Neck post I just did with being vulnerable and the fact that you're allowing her to learn, you're allowing her to get right in and start building and being part of the team. What a great leader you are. I never doubted that, though. Sean Tibor: Well, it is a lot of fun. And as we continue to grow, we are going to add more engineers and we are going to add more leaders. And as our organization grows, we have to be very deliberate and thoughtful about how we grow that organization so that we keep all the best parts and create this culture of learning and growth and contribution, because it's still a business. We still have things we have to deliver, but why not deliver it in an environment that's warm, supportive, and high expectation setting? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Very cool. Sounds like a classroom. Sean Tibor: You can't take it away from me now. I've become a teacher, I'm taking it with me everywhere. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Sounds good. Let's get started. I'm so excited. Sean Tibor: Yeah. So today we're going to be going through our holiday gift ideas for 2022, and we've done this the last few years, but what I've always liked about this episode is that it's not about the stuff, it's about the possibilities. Right. It's about what you could do with each of the gift ideas. So, Kelly, I'm going to let you go first, or I'm going to ask you to go first. I don't think I let you do anything, but I'm going to ask you to go first. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Where do I start? Because we know we have these numbers, and I have a method to my madness on this kind of stuff. Sean Tibor: I will let you start wherever you want. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I'm going to just go ahead and share the one that I have already shared, because why not? So my first item on the list is the Evo ozobot in Python. And I shared this on the episode with Michael Kennedy and Brian ONCAN and to be honest, I just love this little guy. This is an old school robot. It's a tiny little handheld ball that lights up, uses sensors. It follows lines on a path. It's something that's been in the classroom for quite a while right now, but they made a new version of it and they wrote a Python for it. So it's the Evo ozobot and Python, and it's just the cutest little thing. They're a little bit on the costly side. $175. And you might get a little back order on it because it is a new version of it. But the editor is great. They give you five programs that have already been written. One where you could follow a square, the other one where it can make a sound. And it's just a little powerful bot. The kids love how cute it is. You can't go wrong with it. It's a little it goes in your pocket and it's great. Sean Tibor: Yeah, it's about the size of a golf ball, I guess. It's fairly small, has a clear plastic shell around it so you can see the insides. But what I think is amazing, and we don't really talk about the hardware that much, but for something the size of a golf ball, has a huge number of sensors inside of it. This thing's just jampacked with little tiny motors and IR sensors and color sensors. I think there's a gyro in there. It's just amazing how much they've packed into this little tiny robot. And then they added all this software that allows it to do really cool stuff. Like this entry kit pack that you can get for Azobot comes with four color markers with it, and you can draw on whiteboards or on paper, and it will follow the lines. But if you add different colors to the line, it will change its behavior. And we talked about this with Brian and Michael on Python Bytes, but that whole idea of programming a robot with a marker is brilliant. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah, it is. And the fact that it was used and it's been used in the classroom just shows that it's a stable product. It's something that I know a lot of people be like, oh, yeah, the Ozobot, it came out with the spiro, and there were these balls, and you program them, but this little guy just keeps on going. And the fact that they made a great documentation, it's a beta, so you have to be gentle with it. It does have some glitches, but now you can Bluetooth and update via Bluetooth instead of having to do it the original version with an iPad and get it close, and it's all this other stuff. So just great. Easy to use. Sean Tibor: Yeah. If anyone's seen a lower school computer science classroom, you can be assured that they are battle tested. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I know we have Pine Crest, we have a lot. We have a lot in the little in the lower school, and they're like, no, you can't borrow them. We use them every day. Sean Tibor: Yeah, they are well loved. So that's a fantastic gift idea. I know it's a little bit on the pricey side, but honestly, you get a lot for the cost. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Absolutely. What do you have next? Sean Tibor: So, I've been getting a lot of questions for the holidays around 3D printers and 3D printers for the home. So my gift idea is a 3D printer. It's a relatively new one. It's from any cubic. It's called the cobra. And what's great about it is the price point. So it's not the biggest printer out there, it's also not the most feature packed. But what it does really well is for printing at home and for beginners, you have a relatively good size print bed. It comes mostly preassembled, so you don't have to do a lot to put it together. And it has some really nice features, like some bed leveling with it. And the print bed is easy to remove items once they cool down. It has the SD card slot so your child can put their designs on the card and just plug it right into the printer. So just all of that and it's about $260 on Amazon. So relatively pretty affordable for 3D printers on as far as the size and feature set go. But the recommendations are looking like it's a really good printer for beginners, which is helpful compared to a printer like my Prusa, which is amazing and really, well, good to use, but it's about four times the cost. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Wow. Yeah. My son keeps asking for one. You made those Octopus and then those movable parts and all that other stuff, and the kids are always like, we want a 3D printer. We don't need a 3D printer. We have Mr. Tibor. Sean Tibor: Well, and that's the best part about this gift idea, is that you can print other gifts with it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Now you just made it affordable. Now we have to go get one. Sean Tibor: See, now you're screwed. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I know, it's so bad. All right. Yeah. My next one. This one's a costly one, too. I'm sorry, but I love it. I have it in my classroom. It's my emo pet. And we got this I think we found this prior to you leaving, or maybe not. I think so. We saw it on Kickstarter or something and it came in. We love kickstarter. A couple of my stuff are from Kickstarters, but the Emo pet, this little desktop pet, I might have shared it about it a couple of times in our couple of previous episodes, but I just love this guy. And the kids have been training it. I'm trying to keep him nice. Not like the Vector who went all psycho angry. So when you pick him up, he does get mad and he does not like to be picked up with his feet dangling. Obviously, who wants to be picked up by their headphones? So you have to be very nice and put your hands underneath his feet. But it starts learning as you go and you get to investigate more games. And I tweeted when they were talking, I had two of them talking to each other. Now they're kind of separated and they're just developing their own personality, we found out. One of my colleagues, he took it home and with his daughter, they found some new games where you can go bang bang and it goes and falls down. It just keeps developing. And the personalities have become so different between the two. It's amazing that the same bot can go obviously down a different tree. Path of algorithms. Sean Tibor: Yeah. So this is really cool just to describe it for people who may be listening. If the Ozobot is about the size of a golf ball and shaped that way with two wheels on the bottom to roll around, the emo pet is almost like a little TV cube, right? So it's like a cube with a little OLED screen on the front of it and eyes that are on all the time. But then it's wearing a pair of headphones, which are quite stylish, I might add, as well as it has 2ft that kind of like shuffle along and he or she can walk. It can walk and they have a little charging pad for it. If you want to have it, like, go to its home station and charge. There's a little skateboard for charging, but it's very cute and the screen makes it able to emote. So it's all black and gray with these blue eyes. It looks very cool. And don't tell my daughter this, but they also have costumes for it. No, there's a corgi and a cow costume and it's like super adorable. Especially since they made the emo look like it's barely tolerating wearing the costume. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That's hilarious. I love this thing. So it gets sick, which mine has not gotten sick, but it's quite funny. The one in the classroom, you would think it would do so much more with all the different kids, but all it does pretty much the majority of the day, unless it's interacting with somebody, is type on the keyboard. I wonder why, at least. So it really picks up on what you're doing. The dance booster on par. It's quite cute. Sean Tibor: Nice. Yeah, this is great. This is definitely something where you can use it to prompt a lot of questions about what is really AI versus what is programmed. What does it mean for a machine to learn something? So what does it do out of the box versus a few months in that you've taught it to do. So it's pretty cool to be able to use a robot like this to not just experience AI, but to start asking good questions about it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah, we don't have the email go home feature, which is brand new, but it's the home station. But the email, with its light and its charger and everything, is $279. Sean Tibor: Yeah. So it's a little bit on the price, your side, but it's actually, I think, about the same price point or a little bit less than the vector was when that came out. So this is looking like a viable replacement for that. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Absolutely. Oh, and the Corgi is really cute. $19. I think I have to get one. Sean Tibor: Yeah, it might have to happen. All right, so my next one is a little bit along the same lines of the maker space. So I saw these on Amazon and I was curious because they're clearly coming from some manufacturing plant where everyone's rebranding them, but there are really good quality lightsabers on Amazon. I got one of these because I'm basically still a twelve year old kid, but it's a metal lightsaber hilt with a clear plastic blade, and it has just a single Led that shines down the length of the blade. It also has an accelerometer in it and it can make really good sound effects. And you have different sound fonts, apparently, so it makes different sounds. But the reason why I'm putting on the Gift guide is not because I'm a huge Star Wars nerd, or not just because I'm a huge Star Wars nerd, but you can unscrew the parts for this. And inside the lightsaber is a lightsaber core. So it's all the electronics, the battery, the light, everything is encapsulated in this core and then everything else around it. The hilt, the blade just attaches to this. So the reason I'm putting this in there is for the hackability of this. So here you have a USB C, rechargeable lightsaber, core with a battery with the Led, and a blade that goes with it for about $80, which, if you tried to go buy all these parts individually, you'd probably spend about $80. But you wouldn't be able to see how it worked or how to take it apart, or how to do anything with it. This allows you to have some fun with a lightsaber and then take it apart and maybe use your 3d printer to print a new hilt for it. Or make some of your own designs, or wrap it in different things, or just make it part of cosplay or just regular play, but also make it a really cool kind of builder hacking sort of experience. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That's really cool. Now the real question is, is it better than the one that you built. Sean Tibor: Or just I'm always going to be proud of the lightsaber I built. Technically, this one is better, but I programmed my own lightsaber. I did all the soldering, I did the printing, I feel like I earned the lightsaber. I made a lot more than this one. But I am excited to take this core and start printing my own parts from scratch. I think it'll be really fun. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Very cool. Yeah, I'm not going to get that one. I think I would have to bang it. Kids would take it away. I'm sure they would start hitting each other with but it does sound cool. I can see them going near oh, of course. Too many noises. Too many noises. But I love it. I love it. Sean Tibor: My neighbors are for outdoor play. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Outdoor play, that's what we'll do. All right, so the next one yeah, I'm going to do this one. So the next one I just found and it's on order, I can't attest for it, actually. And it's out until January 2. So just full disclosure right there. It's called the Xtron Pro and it is a gaming device made on the platform of make code. And it looks like a little Game Boy. I've seen them before. This one is a fully funded Kickstarter as well. And they got funded in 2021. And it was something that I saw and I was like, wow, that's really cute. It literally looks like not an Xbox, a Game Boy, right? And it's got the AB button and the arrows up and down and full graphics look great. What I like about is you can pop off the video screaming area and you can literally reconnect it and twist it around. It's got its own accelerometer. You can put it on your wrist and wear it as a smartwatch. They've got speech recognition and it's all programmable with, like I said, make code, which you can do the blocks of JavaScript or Python. Not a big fan of the Python blocks because they don't really read as well. But they're there 16 megs and it just runs these little cute little arcade games. And what's cool is they already have retro arcade games built for you, so you can also install those. But it really does look like Scratch in the background, sort of that make code Scratch feel. And it's just really cute. Sean Tibor: This is really cool. It looks like a really nice design. And I love the modularity of it. That is really differentiated. I know that one summer when I was teaching Stem camp, we were using the Ada Fruit version of this. They had a make code arcade handheld that's pretty nice. It's got a little buttons and everything with it and some controller controllers that you can use to joystick. And what's really great about Make Code Arcade and why it should be part of your teaching toolbox is that you can go from writing code in the browser with Blocks or Python or whatever you want to use for this, but really using Blocks and then play the game in the browser and then download the game to the handheld. So I had a student who made her game. Over the course of a few days, she tested it in the browser so she could quickly get it working, and then we downloaded it to the handheld. And then she took it to her mom who worked on campus and was like, hey, mom, look what I made. That. Hey, mom. Look what I made. And being able to hand it to someone was really powerful for her and for her mom to be able to see something tangible that she had created rather than just something on the screen. It was something they could hold and play and feel really good about. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Just that ability to get something up and running in a couple of days and even a couple of hours. It's pretty cool. What I really like about this, though, is it's got a lot of potential for the classroom. So it's got your sensors in there. It comes with some ideas, sort of like the micro bits where you can use some sort of text to speech, or you can use a humidity sensor. You can build some projects. It's got the pedometer, and these are projects that are transferable. So you come and play with this, you can make it with the micro bit. You can then transfer it to the circuit playground. And you just have this ability to do the same projects on different devices and have students make that connection of what's going on and accelerometer and all that stuff. So, yeah, it's just really cute, and I can't wait to get mine and see how it works. I love the fact that you can play play against each other. You can actually plug it in and have a two player situation. Sean Tibor: It's so great. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Asteroids. I'm in it. I'm ready to win it. I love asteroids. Sean Tibor: So good. It's so good. Yeah. I'm looking at it. They've got a sensor module kit, but everything is sold out right now. I'm hoping that by the time we get into January, it'll come back around. But there's some really good stuff here. Soil moisture sensors, servo controllers, all sorts of things. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: It's pretty cool. Sean Tibor: Nice. All right, so my next one is a book, right? Who loves getting a book for the holidays? But I love books. And honestly, this is a great book and definitely something for aspiring programmers that need a little bit of extra help. There's a new, brand new this month edition of Python Crash Course by our good friend Eric Mathis. So the third edition is out. I have not admittedly cracked the COVID on the third edition. But having read through the first two editions, I can assure you that whatever Eric does is very well thought out, very well reasoned. And by the time he's getting to the third edition. He's continuing to iterate and make sure that it stays really modern, fresh, and embraces the best self learning styles that are out there. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: And he's an educator. So we love him even more. Sean Tibor: Exactly. And what's interesting is I know that Eric's been working on a lot of other projects, and including this, his productivity has gone up considerably, I think, since he stopped teaching. Shocking, right? This is really new, really current, really fresh. And Eric is a fantastic human being. And I'm really hoping that this will continue to sell well. It's one of the best Python books out there. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Very cool. We hope to definitely need to pick one up for the classroom on that one. They do get used a lot. All right, where to next? I'm going to save the best for last. I've tweeted that one out, and I'm going to go back to the relatively cheap side, which I love, love. And this is kind of a maker kind of idea. So in the classroom, I had bought these cute little sewing kits. And the kids sewed it with the sewing machine, and they stuff it, and then they put some lights on it and everything. And so now that they've officially learned how to sew using the sewing machine, I'm going and giving them Crocheting kits. I've seen these with a couple of students already, and we've hacked them a little bit. So it's a beginning Crochet kit. And you literally have a ball of yarn and some stickers for some eyes, and you crochet them on, and it has instructions, and the kids learn how to crochet. And then why not stick an Led light in it, hook it up to either a microbet or something similar, and then you have those cute little neo pixels eyes. Or you can put a sensor in there, shake it up, and you've built your own programmed toy and you made it from Crochet. And these kits are so great. They're 29 99 on Amazon, but they have a $10 coupon. You can make a fox, you can make a bear. You can make a little reindeer. You can make what else? Sean Tibor: The Corgis. Adorable. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: The corgi dog. And what is up with the Corgis and this little sort of white foxish? But you can also get these at Target. I heard the kids told me that they found them at Target. And there are all kinds of different variations. But I love this kit. It's called the wool balls. And the kit, it comes in a little bag, and it has everything there. Sean Tibor: So this is a sleeper gift. So, yes, you can add sensors to it. Yes, you can add electronics and make it wearable or make it livelier. But Crochet and a lot of textile arts are algorithmic, right? So the idea of having these small, repeated movements that create something larger is very much a computational thinking idea. But we completely overlook it because it's hundreds of years old or thousands of years old. Why would anyone use that in teaching computational thinking? But this is very practical. It's very hands on for kids who like. To use their hands and connect that with their brains. This is a great way of teaching that concept of small, repetitive movements or small bits of action that become something larger when they're assembled in the right order. So I've always loved knitting and crochet and things like that. I'm not terrible at it, but I appreciate how it translates directly into this idea of an algorithm. Right. It is small parts. It's a computational thinking model. And it absolutely works to help a lot of students, maybe not every student, but a lot of students feel and understand the idea of computational thinking at a deeper level. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah. And you should just see them in the classroom. So you have sometimes these really, really hyper kids who have a lot of energy. You put them in front of a sewing machine or you put them with a crochet and the mindset changes. There's like a calming effect. I definitely recommend it for social emotional learning. There's got to be I'm sure that I can find a study somewhere where your diffused brain comes on and your excited hormones reduce or something, because it is just that thing where it's like that repetitive moment and it just sends out everyone. So it's one of the things I love in the exploratory classroom. Sean Tibor: Yeah, it's fantastic. It's a great find. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Good. Yay. Sean Tibor: So I've got more on the path of learning, so I'm going to plug for a few course subscriptions, and I'm sure there's a ton more out there, but give more of the gift of learning. Right. So Real Python has a subscription that you can get. Talk python. Python morsels. There are definitely dozens of different places where you could get one of these course subscriptions. But the idea is that give someone who's learning the gift of access to really high quality instructional materials. I know there's a lot of free things out there. There's a ton of YouTube videos, there's a ton of free courses, everything's out there. But someone was asked me the other day, why do you still prefer books to YouTube videos? Or why do you prefer learning from this website over all the others? And my answer was that it's all curated, right? It all fits together when I go to the book, because someone had to write the whole thing, someone else had to edit and review it. And so I know that at least within the book, especially a good one, it will be internally consistent. I don't have to worry about do it this way or do it that way or five different ways to solve the same problem unless that's part of the learning. So, by comparison, if I'm looking at this YouTube video over here and they tell me to do it one way, and then I go over to stack overflow and it says to do it another way, and then I realize that stack overflow is ten years old and maybe there's a newer way of doing it. This removes all of that inconsistency and gets us back to a place where, okay, at least it's all consistent. It works together. So for each of these areas, real Python Talk, Python and Python Morsels, there's a higher level of consistency and curation that's happening to make sure that you're getting really good content. Each of them have annual plans. They have monthly plans in a lot of cases where you can buy things in smaller pieces. But definitely the idea of a full course where it all fits together is a great way for someone to learn something new. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah, I totally agree. And the fact that I love these courses is I think you get a little bit more than what you signed up for. More tricks of the trade. For example, I did the Fast API course with Michael Kennedy, and yeah, it was about Fast API. Yeah, it was about MongoDB. But there was just also the way that he codes and he breaks down a problem to solve it. You can't really learn that from Stack Overflow. You just see the code and you can copy here's my Async function. But watching other people or reading other people's way of coding, you can't get that from from a snippet. So I'm a lover of those kind of workshops and books. Sean Tibor: And there's also something serendipitous about when you have something new that you weren't expecting that someone else has taken for granted. They're just like, oh, yeah, of course you would do it this way, and it blows your mind. I'm still thinking about there was an episode, I think, of Python Bice, where one of the creators or contributors to the date, time library and module in the Standard Library was on the show and they were talking about time deltas, and they were like, oh, yeah, and you can divide by a time delta. Wait, what? And it was really cool because, yeah, if you want to get the number of weeks of something, you take a time delta that you have an interval and you divide it by a seven day time delta and you get the number of weeks. And it was such an elegant solution that nobody really thought about, I guess, or really, like most people didn't understand until that episode where it was that sudden realization. Those are the things that you get out of courses like this, where you pick up these little tidbits of information that maybe you wouldn't have seen from Stack Overflow or from just copying code somewhere. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: 100%. And Trey Hunter with Python Morsels, man, that guy can break down some complex things and really make it digestible. He's answered a lot of my tweets for me when kids have that why question. And he's a great educator as well. And obviously we can't say enough about Real Python and everyone there, so just great to break it down and make things simple. Teach me like a baby teach me like a two year old or teach me like whatever. Sean Tibor: Explain it like I'm five. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Explain it like I'm five something. Good one. That's actually a good one. I mean, the other ones were good, but yeah, you remain really long. Good one. Okay, well, here is one of my favorites. And it's been something that I've said I wanted to do. And I bought these things last year, but now I have some kids actually building it. And yes, before I tell you all this, the Lego kit is monstrosis, monstrosuis, monstros. Sean Tibor: Monstrous. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Monstrous. That's VBA messing up my brain. And it's a little bit costly, but you don't have to use this kit. So I'm going to plug it right now. It's the raspberry build hat. Love this little guy. It connects with our Lego kits and a Raspberry pi. And it's a GPIO board with 40 pens. And it allows you to control your motors from your Lego kit with a Raspberry Pi in order to automate a lot of stuff. And it's super easy. The code is literally like five lines. It's raspberry pi. It's not like it's very difficult. But my students are building it's. A little bit embarrassing how big it is, but they're building a roller coaster and they just started building it. And it's a roller coaster that you have to hand crank the coaster to go to the top. And by gravity it comes down. So we are hooking up the build hat to the crank so that it will be a continuous loop of this roller coaster going all over the place. So we've already practiced the build hat, we've already set up the motor for that. And now we're just waiting for the pieces, like 3000 pieces of this Lego roller coaster to be built. And we bought a shelf for it. And talk about excited and running into class and not leaving. You can't go wrong with anything Lego. Sean Tibor: Yeah. So a few weeks ago, I'm sitting there minding my own business in my house, and my wife and my kids came home from running errands with a giant yellow Lego bag. Probably one of the biggest ones I've ever seen. And inside is the loop coaster. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Oh my gosh. Sean Tibor: My wife was like, look, we're going to do something as a family over the holidays. We're getting the loop coaster. We're going to build it together. So I saw this Raspberry Pi build hat when you shared it, and I was like, oh, this is happening. This is cool. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: It's weird. Two peas in a pod. Your family and mine. Sean Tibor: Exactly. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I have to tell my son, who's now in middle school, he's like, Can I help him? Like, it's not your project. Find something else. And he's like, but it's so cool. I'm like it is cool. I don't know if you started building it, but the figurines and the hot dog and the pretzel stand, it is so cute. Sean Tibor: It's really cool. Yeah, I'm planning to take the last couple of weeks of the year off from work. And this is going to be some of our building that we do together. So we're saving it for actual Hanukkah. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Awesome. 3756 pieces. Sean Tibor: I think Daddy is going to have some late nights. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I secretly think some of our listeners I can see David Amos getting in there and wanting to build that, too. He's a big Lego guy. So some of our friends out there, real python, I can see them going, that's me. Sean Tibor: This came home and I was like, where are we going to put this? This thing is massive. Right? And my seven year old son looked at me and said, daddy, I will find a place for it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Just heads up. I bought a corner shelf. So my thoughts is put it in a corner, laid across the corner shelf and put it up. And so it's constantly looping. Sean Tibor: Well, I think you need to have some sensors for it, like put an Ultrasonic on it, or a light sensor so when someone walks up to it, it starts running. That'd be really fun. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: There we go. Sean Tibor: Motion activated loop coaster. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah. All we got so far. They were like, we're going to put some fairy lights there. And I'm like, okay, one step at a time. Sean Tibor: Yeah, exactly. But the electric loop coaster would be fun. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah. And sorry, the build hat is something that I forget how much it costs. Sean Tibor: They're like, I think it's about 25 or $30. So by the time you're buying the motors and the raspberry pipe build hat, you add another, I don't know, 60, $70 to the cost of making this thing. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah, it's a little bit, but it's $25 for the build hat. And everyone has a raspberry pi at home. I thought, right, I don't. Sean Tibor: But if you don't have a raspberry pi, the best way to find one is using a Twitter account called Pi Locator, and I'll put a link to that. I was able to find at least a couple of raspberry pies. That way in the US, it looks like Ada Fruit is the most reliable source. They usually have restocks on Wednesdays, but if you follow and get notified on this Pie Locator Twitter account, you can get the jump on it. There are some ways to actually buy fast from Ada Fruit. Like, you have to have two factor authentication, set up an existing account, et cetera, et cetera. But I know they're trying to find Unobtanium right now. They're working on getting it better. But if you need a raspberry pi, the best way to do that is to follow this account and keep track of where they are. And they do track international sites, so if you're not in the US, they have the UK, they have Poland, they have France, they have Brazil. I've seen them pop up in a lot of different places. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Very cool. Good to know. Sean Tibor: All right. So my last one is a little bit of a give back, but I think it is the right kind of give back. It's a membership in the Psf. So the Python Software Foundation is what manages the oversight of developing Python. They put on the PyCon conference. They sponsor programs for diversity and inclusion in Python. They help actually make a lot of other Pycons happen around the world through funding and resources and support to be able to bring the Python community together. So the Psf is a wonderful organization, and recently they announced that they have different levels of membership available. In the past, it was $99 a year for a supporting membership, but now they have some new versions of that that are as affordable as $25. So for $25, give someone the gift of membership in the Psf. Everything goes towards supporting the mission of making Python more accessible and more community oriented than it already is. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Very cool gift. Definitely can't forget that. I don't know how anything else to say about that. Sean Tibor: It's not new, but it is really important. So I'm excited to put that on the list because the Psf does so much for our community and it's really, truly community driven. Although there are some corporate sponsorships, the lifeblood of the Psf is that it's members and the way that everyone contributes 100%. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Well said. Sean Tibor: Cool. So Kelly, what are your holiday plans? Are you traveling? Are you staying at home and cozying up around Florida fireplace? What are you up to? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Well, we start our Python unit next week in my course, and then we have a little bit of break on the 21st to the 27th. And I'm probably just going to be working on my course because I'm looking into doing a final project in educational data mining and trying to finally get into some of that big data that you've been showing me for the past four years. So I probably studying a little bit of travel, but not too much. My son's doing another acts making blacksmithing course. That's one of his favorite. If you can find one of those in your neighborhood, those are some fun things to do for a kid, learning to blacksmith. Some old trade stuff. Sean Tibor: Yeah. I actually went to work with a local blacksmith in high school to make a cowbell for a project unit that we were doing around like, old school making methods or what it would be like to live in a rural traditional community 300 years ago. So I learned how to make a cowbell on a forge. I couldn't do it now, but it was fully from the beginning, like, folding the steel, making rivets and putting them in, building a handle for it. The thing is heavy. I think I would probably kill a cow if I put it around their neck, but it was really fun to make. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah. My twelve year old is impressive the way that he just bangs out that metal and he's got both hands working and can't wait to see his axe. His knife is really cute. Cute. Very Nice. Very Manly. Very Manly. I'm Sorry. It's cute, but great knife. So ready for the axe. Sean Tibor: Very Nice. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: And you? Sean Tibor: We are sticking around over the holidays. So a lot of good quality downtime. I think 2023 is shaping up to be very busy already. So we're trying to take some time as a family to just relax when I'm away from work. I think really what it means is that I'm going to work on some programming projects. I haven't had a headspace to work in for a while, so there are some things that I want to redesign, some new approaches that I want to explore both for work and for the home. Like I've got some clean up to do on my home automation. Because apparently my son's lights turn on in the middle of the night and nobody can explain why. So I've got a little troubleshooting and bug fixing to do around the house. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Cool. And we got a big line up. I've got a lot of people that we have ready to go that we didn't have this past month. And so I'm looking forward to getting some air on time with us, too. Sean Tibor: Nice. And I think now, going forward, we want to get this holiday gift guide episode out before the holidays, right? That would be helpful. But we do have quite a bit more episodes lined up, and we're back to a normal recording schedule starting now. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Cool. All Right. Ready to wrap it up. Sean Tibor: I think that's it. We've covered a lot of ground, and there's a lot of fun gifts out there. We're putting links to everything in the show notes. If you buy things on Amazon, it supports the show directly through the affiliates program. You can also even more directly support the show through our patreon link which will be in the show notes as well. I think we're down a little bit on Patreon supporters. We've been kind of relying on the ones we've had for a very long time. So if you'd like to support the show, that's the best way to do it. And even a couple of dollars a month goes a long way. We do fund all of this out of our own pocket. We have tried advertising in the past, and I think it's best when we just do our thing. So the support of our Patreon really does help keep the show alive and keep it going. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Cool. Yeah. Great. Sean Tibor: All right, so for teaching Python, this. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Is Sean and this is Kelly signing off.