Kelly and Sean
 Sean Tibor: Hello and welcome to teaching Python. My name is Sean Tibor. I'm a coder who teaches 
Kelly Paredes: Okay. My name's Kelly Schuster Perez, and I'm a teacher who coats. 
Sean Tibor: This is episode 34 it's a special bonus episode for black Friday. So Kelly, how are you doing this week? Are you ready for all of your shopping?
Kelly Paredes: Oh my gosh. I'm so ready. I've already been sending out list of things that I want, not just for school, but just for stuff to play around with on the holiday. 
Sean Tibor: Nice. Well, I'm excited about it too. I think it's going to be a busy weekend. I'm usually not a big black Friday shopper, but there's always one or two things that catches my eye.
Um, and with the holidays coming up, I often spend a lot of time looking for things I can do over the break, either with my kids or by myself, just to brush up a little bit. And, and it hasn't been a little bit slower change of pace. So because this is a special bonus episode where our win of the week is that we're shopping and shopping is always the 
Kelly Paredes: That's a huge one for me. I love shopping, especially on a certain website where I can get lightning deals. Nice. Well, you know, 
Sean Tibor: you know, there is one other thing though that is pretty cool that's happening.
Our friends over at pie bites have set up a special deal for black Friday and that's one of the reasons why we wanted to record this bonus episode to get it out because, um, it's a kind of a cool thing. Kelly, why don't you, um,  tell everyone what's happening with, uh, pie bites this weekend.
Kelly Paredes: Yeah. So for this weekend, um, Julianne and Bob over at pie bites are going to offer a great deal for our listeners, and they're. Followers, and they're going to actually give us 50% of all their revenues to help us, um, help us and to help us with the podcast, help us get more episodes out.
Because, you know, as teachers we are in crunch time and soon it'll be semester one going to be finished and we're going to be doing some great books. So just being able to help us out with editing and get things done. So if anyone purchased the newbie bites, I'm not sure if you've heard of them.
I just completed them. 
Sean Tibor: Congratulations. It was pretty cool. 
Kelly Paredes: it was really cool. I kept saying, I wish I had them a year and a half ago. I did all 25 of them. And I did them fairly quickly, and I actually felt really bad because I knew it. And then I realized that I was no longer a newbie and Bob and Julian sent me my personalized video, um, link, whatever, and I got a certificate.
So I'm officially not a newbie anymore. 
Sean Tibor: Yeah, you're, you're out of the newbie phase. 
Kelly Paredes: in the beginner. It's 
Sean Tibor: So it's pretty cool. So just to kind of sum it up, um, Bob and Julia are marking off the newbie bites, uh, over the weekend from november 29th through December 2nd there, putting the newbie bites on sale for $24 so it's 40% off, and then they're giving us the teaching Python podcast, 50% of  the proceeds from those sales. So whenever you buy one of those, whether it's for yourself to get a little bit better, or for a friend, maybe someone that needs to learn how to code in Python and you think they'd.
Get some use out of the newbie bites. Um, it also goes to us and supporting the podcast. So that's a pretty cool thing. And, and we are,  very grateful for the opportunity. So if you've been on the fence about it, maybe go check it out. See if it's something that you're interested in, in getting for yourself or someone that you think needs to learn some Python.
Kelly Paredes: Yes. And this is, these are for anyone that absolutely knows. Zero about Python, the way that the descriptions are for the newbie bites, it just helps you to learn and just pick up and start to understand Python right away. 
Sean Tibor:  we thought that it would be fun to share with you, um, right at the beginning  of, um, black Friday and cyber Monday.
So if you're shopping around and you're looking for stuff, it's a pretty good deal. Um, so with that in mind.  and then we're on this shopping theme. We wanted to talk a little bit about what is on our buying guide for the holidays as teachers and as coders. So Kelly, I'm going to let you take the first one.
Kelly Paredes: Okay, so we have a few of these, but they keep coming out with more, they're the pocket lab. They are not specifically for coding, but therefore collecting data. I found the pocket lab about three years ago from a Kickstarter, and it's this great little. Um, data collector and the one that I had, you'll have to refresh my memory because Sean actually used it just recently, but, um, it collects altitude pressure.
Yeah. 
Sean Tibor: Yeah, it's got to look a little barometer in it so it can collect pressure data and calculate out a altitude based on that. It has a gyroscope in it, a, an accelerometer. Um,  I think this one, no, there's a different one that has a light sensor in it, but basically he's got all these sensors in it and they're really easy to use because you can pair them with an iPad or an iPhone or something like that and grab all the data off it.
You can live stream it, or you can record the data out to a CSV file. 
Kelly Paredes: And we actually, the second round, last year I bought, um, the pocket lab weather, which we love because that has, the light sensor has the temperature gauge and our teacher uses it for science and then they have two more that are out.
It's the pocket lab air and the packet pocket lab Voyager. And they all do different things. So they're great little gadgets for collecting data. 
Sean Tibor: Yeah, I may have lost one last week actually. We were using them with our eighth grade rockets class, so I had three D printed a rocket that had a payload Bay where the, um, the pocket lab one would slide right inside of it to reduce vibration and everything.
Um, and as things went, I forgot to tape the nose cone on, so it reached out to tune the nose code and popped off and the pocket Leb wouldn't tumbling to the ground. I haven't found it yet, so. 
Kelly Paredes: That's okay. I lost one the first year when I touched it to a kite. So we took a lot of, uh, pressure from the kite and then the kite accidentally flew off in somewhere, so, so we need more.
So that's a great fine. 
Sean Tibor: Yeah. So pocket labs are definitely the first one on the West. We use those a lot for, um, integration with our science classrooms. It definitely pretty cool thing. Um, the second one I'm going to take, cause this is what I mentioned before, um, but if you're looking for something to tinker with and play with over the break, um, the new circuit playground, blue fruit.
Is really, really cool. So we've been working with those a little bit in the classroom. Um, and what I really like about these is that they're, they're now communications enabled so you can communicate with other circuit playgrounds. You know, before we had like little IRS sensors that were line of sight and everything, but now with the Bluetooth radio on there.
You can do things with like proximity sensing. So they light up as they get close to one another, which is really cute, like for friends to, to program. Um, but you can also pair it with your phone. You can remote control it with your phone. It's a really cool thing. And the latest stuff that they've been doing with a circuit Python library and the circuit Python, uh, executable is really pretty impressive.
So give it a shot, like it's a lot of fun to play with. I'm definitely taking, uh, the ones that we have here home over the break to play with a little bit more and see what I can make them do. 
Kelly Paredes: I'm feel sorry for your wife. You're going to be playing with that blue fruit the whole time. Okay, so another one I want to list.
I got to, I can't, can't wait for this. I don't have this starter kit yet, but I do have it on order. It's from monk makes. So I do have the pie. Moroni monk makes, um, speakers for the microbit and I just loved them. And I found on Amazon. Well found on Amazon so that they have a monk makes electronic starter kit for the microbit.
This is great. You have the pie Moroni speaker in there, which I, you know, I don't know how it is in your classroom, but we kinda Chuck things into a band and it seems like they get beat up and these things just keep going and going. But inside the kit, there's also a sensor board. And a relay board.
They come with some crocodile clips, a fan and a light bulb and a battery pack. The microbe, it's not with it, but 
Sean Tibor: um, 
Kelly Paredes: has all these other attachments and it's so easy to make, uh, the attachments for, especially the speaker and the kids can go in and have some music for your holiday spirit, you know?
Sean Tibor: Nice. yeah, they're pretty cool. And as a bonus feature, the environment from is pretty cool too. It's basically an environmental board that plugs onto your microbit that gives you light sensing capabilities and temperature and humidity and everything. So it's a pretty cool way to take the microbit a little bit further.
So my next one is actually three D printers. So I've been doing a lot of three D printing, uh, this fall already. We talked about the, the rockets, but I've also been printing various holders for things and different pieces. Um, and one of the things that just came out this year, and I really liked the price point of this, is that Prusa the company that.
A is consistently one of the best rated consumer printers under a thousand dollars. Just came out with our Prusa mini, which is, uh, $349 for our person, many with a seven inch by seven inch by seven inch build volume. Um, it is really cool. It has a lot of the same features that the larger, uh, MK three S printer has.
So if you've ever looked at those and felt like it was a little bit out of your reach, the new proofs in many's out and it looks pretty neat. I haven't gotten to play with it yet. But I've been loving the MK three that we have here in the classroom. The only drawback with that printer though, is that it's not enclosed so that it has moving parts, that if you have little fingers in your classroom or irresponsible fingers for the older kids, that an enclosure might help it.
And if you're looking at an enclosure, something that contains the printer and keeps a curious fingers from getting inside to all the moving. And hot parts. Uh, the Monoprice voxel is out and there's usually some pretty good sales on that over the holiday, so I would keep an eye out for that as well.
Kelly Paredes: Cool. So my next one, if you're on a tighter budget, I really like, it's a five set STEM kit. I've used it in the past, and I, I. Can never have enough. Do you get five different kits to build in this one little pack? And it's relatively cheap. And what I use it for is I give it to the kids and I let them put together the kit and then they investigate how it works.
And then I give them a pair of wire cutters and I give them some crocodile clips. And I tell them to connect either the microbit or the circuit playground and see if they can code it. So maybe make the motors turn, um. Make you know the ones, a bubble maker so they can power the bubble maker when button a is pushed and the bubble maker will start to turn just a simple gadget that you can quickly have the kids innovating and figuring out how to change a regular circuit and to something that they can code.
Sean Tibor: Yeah. I think this is really cool cause the, the nice thing about this kit is that it's not specifically designed for a circuit playground or a microbead or anything like that. You're able to cut the wires and wire it up and show kids that it doesn't have to be designed for something specifically in order for it to work.
So this is a great way to get people to get your students really to, to engage and think about the things around them that they can start to work with. It doesn't have to have that socket for the microbit for your microbit to be able to work with. 
Kelly Paredes: and has that build feature. So it kind of makes them feel like they've made 
Sean Tibor: Yeah.
It's pretty cool. Um, so the next one is mainly probably a preorder for the holidays, um, as it's close, we're so close. Um, so we use a lot of Legos for our first Lego league robotics, and we're working with the Mindstorms kit. That's been out for a while now, but the spike prime was supposed to come out last summer and it got delayed just to make sure it was ready.
Now it's supposed to be launching in January of 2020 and the spike prime looks pretty cool. It has a lot more advanced sensors on it. It has better connections, it has some better programming, language support, including Python. It also has some scratch based coding on it. So it's really the next level of Lego robotics programming.
Um, we're looking forward to getting our hands on it. Um, so I would definitely consider putting this on your, you know, order list or your, your preorder list for, for. Yes. And 
Kelly Paredes: if you have some older Mindstorm kits, you can just purchase herself some SD cards and start coding in micro Python.
We've been having a lot of success at the competitions that we've been going to with the kids coding them in Python. They go to the competition, um, with one challenge and then with given a five hour streak or a five hour time frame to actually just sit and code. The kids are walking around with three, four, or five challenges, completed pies on just making it so much easier.
Sean Tibor: Yeah, I think they're really able to get some better momentum with the code compared to block-based coding. So I'm excited to see what happens once they start learning some of the more advanced features, like, you know, libraries and modules and, and you know, combining some of their functions and reusing them.
So it should be really, really good to see. Um, Kelly, you know, the other thing that I've love to do over the holiday break, I love to sit down with a nice cup of coffee when things are quiet and sit and read about Python, read about teaching, reading about, um, you know, innovation. So I will put together a couple of books in our next section too.
So maybe less hands on tech toys and more about the books. And there are two that I wanted to highlight that I thought were pretty neat. So last week we spoke with, um. With Eric Mathis from a Python crash course. He's got a new edition that came out in may, and I've been working through that and it's really, really solid.
So I'm looking forward to some time on the, um, on the Python crash course over the break. But then the other one that just came out, I think in October, is automate the boring stuff, second edition. So there's a lot of new updates in the book, and I've been going back and flipping through it because I'm.
Al swagger. It's put in a lot more information about messaging and email and text as well as working with more data science. Uh, he's updated all the libraries. So the entire book has been, you know, reviewed and revised and there's a lot of really great stuff in there. 
Kelly Paredes: And so I'm going to go a lot younger cause I'm into the reading books with my kids.
And my son has been really into those one series of books called Frank Einstein. And the anti-matter motor, which is a good introduction into AI clinking clank, are um, two different sets of artificial intelligence robots. One that has a neuro network. And the other one that runs on algorithms, and it's his whole series of how they develop with the character.
And it's just a cute, um, chapter book that you can read. My son's nine and I have to explain some things, but they go through so many great science lessons with big bang DNA, and it's just so much fun. So that's one for me. And then the second one that I like to read with them is house of robots.
Again, robots. Um, mom is an amazing robot designer and she designs a robot for her son. And I can't give you the plot of the story because I don't want to ruin it, but pretty much starts off with the son's not happy about having a robot go with him to school. 
Sean Tibor: that's pretty cool, right? Reminds me that I need to look up some fiction to read over the break.
Also, you know, something good that, uh, just gets me excited about the future and what's possible again. So, so there you have it. There's our list of, uh, our holiday gift guide for busy computer science teachers. Quick. We wanted to get something out to you so you could check it out and see what, what makes sense for you.
Um, but really our goal is just to help give you some ideas, some things you can check out. If you have stuff for us, please share them with us or At teaching Python on Twitter, you can always send us an email@teachingpython.fm on the web. We have a little form there that you can fill out, so please fill it up with something other than spam bots from people trying to sell us SEO services.
That would be great. And we're going to put all of the links to these materials on the show notes so that way you can check them out also, and just see that. You know, you're getting to exactly what we're talking about as well. So, uh, thanks again for listening. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving break if you're celebrating it this week, or if you just got finished eating Turkey by the time we publish this, hopefully you'll be able to recover soon.
And we look forward to talking to you again in December. 
Kelly Paredes: for teaching Python. This is Kelly 
Sean Tibor: And this is Sean. 
Kelly Paredes: signing off.