Welcome to the everyday p.m. podcast, the podcast.
Where we discuss project management principles for your
everyday life. My name is Ann campea and I'm a
certified projects last program manager with a decade of
experience working for healthcare.
Retail consumer goods and Tech Industries.
I'm so excited to welcome dr. Joshua Montgomery associate
professor of computer science at Southern State Community College
on to the The podcast with me today, dr.
Montgomery please. I'm kind of excited to be here.
I'll be 100% honest with you, so yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I'm excited to dig in but for those that don't know, you
please take a second to introduce yourself.
Yeah, I am a computer science professor, and Appalachian will
heiio. So I have a doctoral degree in
computer science. I teach a lot of classes and I'm
probably mostly known for my region Android building.
So I did a TED Talk the few about a year ago.
On how building R2D2 here changed, what I do in a
classroom. And so for the past three to
four years in my classroom, we build big projects.
And so we're going to talk about that day.
And how project management helps us?
Do these kind of big projects. This is so exciting and I think
it's just I'm excited for many reasons, obviously, honored to
have you on here honor to have your desk behind you, on the
podcast as well. This episode is a special one
for many reasons, not only do I get to welcome you on to the
podcast, but It will also be the first episode to be offered in a
visual format. As we kick off my YouTube
channel, youtube.com slash and campea where I will be posting
all of the podcasts in that format.
There's so many ways you can consume this podcast and now
just another awesome way to do that, is to watch it on YouTube.
So let's dive into this week's topic.
I'd love to say, it's just on Star Wars, but I thought that
would be a disservice as well because I am not the most fluent
on. Horse out of everybody in in the
world but the connection between Star Wars and project management
is really what intrigued me and why we decided to collaborate on
this podcast. So we are talking about
project-based learning and how project management has brought
your droids to life, right? So right, let's just start off
with how you got into Droid building?
Yeah. So I've been honored my entire
life, I think in my TED Talk, I mentioned that whole piece
there. You know, I always thought
comic-con's were just in California and I went to my
first one in twenty fourteen dressed up.
Some Star Wars characters. Mike took my kids Halloween that
kind of stuff ran into people that build robots.
And so in 2015 I decided I wanted to get into robotics I
had the summer off teaching and start to swing it R2-D2.
Two years later, lots of failures.
I finally built this. This big Droid behind me and
we'll talk a little bit about those.
Those types of Failures. But that led me to a level
confidence. I'd probably never had before,
huh? It was the to pull me something.
I think that I could do in my classroom and I think that's
pretty pretty unique and we'll talk more about that.
What a great Epiphany to have, you know, and nothing better
than being at a fun event where everybody is of the fandom.
You got people in Cosplay, you have people who just live and
breathe Star Wars. If you guys have not been to
this type of convention, for those that are listening or
watching, And there's an entire section usually dedicated to a
group of people who build droids, right?
And I always would build our community.
Yeah, we're all over the, there's not a lot of us but the
people that are that do it are really active and they love like
from me when we, for example, love to share this passion that
we have and building these big robots, these prop robots, and I
was going to ask the same two questions.
How much did it cost you and are you still married?
Okay. Don't married that.
My wife did not divorce me that two years, two and a half years.
And the cost of doing something like this will talk about
budgetary pieces of this because, okay, you can
absolutely get to a number value of how much it takes to build a
Droid by using this in project management skills.
Okay, fantastic. Well let's talk about how you
decided ultimately to you know merge the two together, you you
started building droids, you've been teaching kind of where when
did that happen and what was the The impacted that you've seen on
your learning, you know, it was, it was passion.
So I'm a very passionate person and I, you know, kind of realize
from teaching and watching students that the engagement you
get from somebody. When they're actually doing
something they want to do is something that propels you
beyond money. A grade anything like that,
right? So it occurred to me that I
could do these big big projects because I know I've been
successful at doing it. I know I could teach My students
to do it and then we could figure it out the key, though.
It had to be something they wanted to do.
So in my classes, I've several different courses, I called
individualized, project-based learning, and we'll go through
some more of it in our little bit further.
But students actually pick a project, they want to do
something, they decided to make happen and every project is
unique, has its own challenges and the level of problem solving
and critical thinking skills that they developed that piece.
Absolutely makes a difference in their Ation.
So, if you can find some passion for a student and tie that to
something, they never leave the lab, they don't want to go home,
you know what I mean? So, it's pretty pretty
important. Yeah, I agree.
And it's interesting that you bring that up because I am
actually taking a course right now, on how to teach
successfully online. Okay number.
Yeah, and the number one thing that I've learned so far is that
the students have to enjoy what the topic is, right?
And if they don't enjoy it, the professor.
Instructor has to be very enthusiastic about the topic.
So feel like your students get the best of both, right?
I'll tell you that. I can just imagine they go into
the classroom and get to do something that is just so unique
and different than what they typically do in a lab.
And I am that my brain doesn't function in the way I think
yours does, but if I was a student, taking your class, I'd
be super excited about that. It's a lot of fun.
And, you know, it's hard to quantify those grades to the
projects and those kind of pieces there fact that as a
students all their grades increasing as are just a great
in that classroom those kind of pieces take place but retention
and seeing someone through those these high projects definitely
help with that. For sure.
And it's hard to think of a world where there isn't one
person who doesn't know what Star Wars is.
So even if there's a familiar familiarity with The property or
maybe they just don't like Star Wars, or don't know it too.
Well, there's still something really neat to teach right
outside of it towards being bb-8 and R2-D2.
There's still things that you can teach them.
Yeah. So some students will build
manic weather stations. I had one student coming through
on time. She's a big, massive fan, and
she goes mad. I saw someone online build this
miniature, but big, Mars Rover. I think it's a project.
One of your wants to do and she's a student of mine.
I said that sounds fantastic. That is a project you should do.
She thought someone else had to do it but she could she didn't
know enough to do it. And so he started that journey
together and a lot of times it just takes that first step, you
know. I and you know how to eat an
elephant by chance. Yeah, there you go, one bite,
he's got to start and I think that's the most critical piece
and then you just figure out a problem of time that you take
care of and eventually get there.
And that's I mean I think That's a great transition in terms of
the way you're thinking, right? Even in project management one
problem at a time and you problem solve together usually
in a cross-functional team or at least, you know, collaboratively
to figure out what problems need to be solved in order to execute
your project successfully, right?
So let's dive into kind of the where I think we see the
crossroads here of project management and Droid building
and you being able to infuse this in your classroom, Room.
Tell me a little bit more about how project management has
impacted that. Yes.
It's a good segue into it, isn't it?
So, you know, we talked about those big, massive projects and
you first got to start off with, you know what your your big
picture dr. Stephen Covey talks all the time
about. What's your end goal?
What's your end goal in mind? You have to understand what that
end goal is going to be. We're going to get here now.
We have to figure out how to get there, so understanding that
number one, you start with the big picture.
You understand what your plans are going to be accomplished in
a number two, you have to consider If you're going to have
a team in some of my projects we have teams and not all of them
do. But for example, bb-8 was a team
effort of three students. So those three students we had
to Define roles responsibilities and make it applicable to
everybody that piece and no matter if you're in a team or
not, number three, we have to Define what your scope is.
We talked about a second ago, taking up one by the time,
right? You have to break this down into
smaller sections, that are manageable.
When you take a look at a big project like R2, which is a
multi, Your project or bb-8 which can be done in a year
normally a little longer. They're so big.
You don't think you can do it because it just the scope is
just so big and you worried about scope creep and other
issues when you're trying to match this out on a Gantt chart
or something, right? So it's a big project you break
it down and you start working through that.
I always like to say the most important thing that the entire
piece is to celebrate. Your failures and be positive
because number four for me and project.
Management is all about celebrating those failures, when
they come up and being positive throughout the environment,
because you're going to have all kinds of issues with any
project. You know how it goes right,
scope creep, or budget issues Supply problems.
That happens with all these kind of projects do.
So, you have to be able to remember five adapt, understand
something's going to blow up. Something's going to happen and
you have to adapt and move. Here's a great example.
Bb-8, we build bb-8 here, and right before the pandemic, I
think it's about 2019 2020. It was the first bb-8 to be
built in state of Ohio, is really cool.
We got invited to three different news stations were on
the Good Morning, America stuff at the in Columbus, Ohio, it was
great. We had a blast and we got
invited to the big technology conference in Ohio and the
governor and the higher was going to come see our robot.
And on the second day, Day one bb-8 strolling around doing
great. I'm talking to a couple of
Educators and all said you watch bb-8's head is kind of goes like
sideways and it's something stop.
Yeah, my driver is her name is Shelby.
She looks at me and she's just like what happened, and what,
and the motor inside bb-8, blew up, just, I know, right in the
middle of the conference were showing all this big project.
We're so excited and proud of our students for, and the
governor's been very next day. So we had to adapt for.
So we had Our drive assembly there.
Also were building, CB 23 another rolling robot.
Another student was working on that and we ripped out some
Motors. We rebuilt his drive assembly,
and we got him working. Now, that was really stressful,
but man, the critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
The students had to develop during that time frame.
I and not simulate that in a classroom, right?
Right. I think you're building these
kind of projects. You just got to be aware that
you're going to live a little bit in frustration sometimes
because there's No, there's documentation on how to do some
of these things but yours is really no way of saying every
single piece you're going to run into some failures.
Yeah well I agree and taking a step back.
You said you took you two years to build your first one.
Yeah, two two and a half. I always say two years because I
thought I was done it two years. It took me to find out half a
year of getting everything. Exactly what I wanted it to be.
Okay, my are too, he was originally wood and it didn't
look the way I wanted it to and I went with I have a whole
lecture I do when learning to fail, right?
A car to D2, to libraries and schools.
And I show all the different failures that I went through to
just, you know, it's it's important for someone to see
your failures because all they see is the success of something
working, right? They don't realize that you
burned all these Electronics up or you made a mistake with all
these, all these welds and painting and everything.
So, yeah, that's really where I wanted to go with that.
Question is two. Two, two, two and a half years.
I imagine there were several iterations.
It sounds like you had some change requests and scope creep
of your own because whatever I try to blame yourself, right
run, right. But you don't realize what point
you're going to have those kind of major problems and so when
scope creep does take place obviously I'm pushing back my
time lines. Yeah and I'm trying to find more
money and those kind of things. So yeah, it got, it got pretty
expensive for this big guy because I want him to all be in
aluminum and steel. And that becomes an issue in
infant. What's funny about this robot
here is that he doesn't fit in my basement doors and have to
disassemble him to move him. I think he was built in this
basement and you think that I'd have figured that out when I was
done? I mean, but and that's exactly
the examples of yeah. What imagine your students learn
as well as you have to be able to be flexible and adjust?
And is there anything you tell them up front?
You know, as you're setting your scope and your requirements for
The Droid build. Is there anything a mantra
perhaps you know reminding them to breathe air?
Is there anything that you tell them up front just so they're
aware that this is going to happen?
I was tell them I will never give up on you.
If you don't give up on me, that's great.
You're going to pass this class, you're going to get an A in this
class. As long as you don't give up, if
it takes us longer than 16 weeks, not a problem.
We're going to extend that course.
We're going to find additional time.
I'll come in over the weekend. We're going to get there.
What happens all too often is, we're putting that 16.
Time frame of our schedule. Yeah, for a classes and students
get real panicky. Now, you can't just say it's all
going to be okay all the time because students would
procrastinate and they'll wait till like 3 weeks before the
semester ends and they'll try to cram too much in and they
realize they can't get all that kind of stuff done.
So one thing I do is I have a, a project plan piece that I use.
And so, and like, my schedule timeline section, we actually
address when we do. Ooh, things and they get
reported and graded on those pieces.
Great. Yeah.
So you've given them deliverables set timing of when
it's due and I imagine if they get there or even partially get
there, but highlights something some sort of risk or some sort
of issue happen that you hopefully, your the lenient
Professor that. Okay.
I understand. I actually, I actually Tina's
going on I have sections on there for planned activities for
each reporting, period budget or grant funding that we're using
for that that time and list of all issues, failures, and risks.
Because I want to hear about the failures, you're going to have
them. I want to count them.
You should have so many of them. I want to celebrate those
failures. We learn so much more through
those. Those failures of trying things
than we do from dis are easy, easy successes.
So, I absolutely Lutely. Want to hear about them?
I want to see him. I don't take points off for
them. It's like, you celebrate them.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Which is so much different than
what we do normally in education.
And I before I forget, you know, that was a very good piece of
advice that you give to your students in terms of, you know,
I'm here for you. I'm supporting you.
If you fail, we're in this together.
I think that can be used in your personal and everyday life that
can be used as a project manager.
Absolutely, I haven't heard a Manager kick off a project and
say that I imagine it would be super impactful to actually use
that as your opening statement to your team, if your team knew
that you were there, you know, through the good and the bad of
the project, if something hits us, it hits all of us, it
doesn't just hit the project manager, the engineer or whoever
that is on the team. I think that's a great piece of
advice. So thank you for that.
Absolutely, we're in this together.
Okay. I think, right?
Yes. Absolutely.
The point. You talk a little bit about
budget, I'm curious there because it sounds like it's how
are the droids funded for the students?
And are they as part of the project?
Having a track, their own budgets and, and timing and how
they expand their themselves as a resource?
It's been up their own time. Yes.
And the amount of money that they spend on a project and it's
completely different depending upon project, got it.
Sometimes we will do a dance chart in kind of track
everything out for each item, it's going to cost this amount
and If it is a big enough project like say animatronic
C-3PO or one of our Mouse droids or another bb-8, if we would
build another one, we built two, that's too many we have enough
is. So when we do this big projects
though, we get funding through a call sources the college.
My college will pay for it. We have grant funding that pays
for these big projects. A lot of our big projects are
Grant funded if it's big enough. I will fund a project if I'm
just passionate about a student doing it.
And, you know what? About half the time, man?
A student will fund their own project because they're
passionate about it, if I find it, it stays in my clap, if the
college fund, it's not mine. It's the college.
Is it stays here? So, that's, that's the caveat.
And so, if I'm a student right now, building a Dalek from
Doctor Doctor Who he wants to keep this and take this home.
He's been in my lab all summer. He graduated mind you literally
last semester, he's been here all summer every Tuesday,
Thursday, working, his Dalek, in my lap because You want to take
it home and that's just you just use comes in.
Yeah, I would be the same. I would want my own whatever
Droid I write build and take it home and you proud of it, right?
You, I think that's the accomplishment that goes with.
Also being a project manager. You might not be the engineer
who is making the thing function, or the designer who
figured out how to make the mechanism fit into the, you
know, she'll but you are a part Art of that, over our overall
process and ultimately you as a p.m., if you're actually
producing something that's tangible like this wouldn't you
want to take pride in that, you know, go to the store, buy your
product off the shelf or at least show it off to your
friends. So I can imagine these students
would want to do the same thing. Yeah, they they get attached.
The the most recent example of probably is BB3 students built
that answered three. Couldn't take it home.
It just sits in my lab, I currently brought it home so we
can have it here. Today for this, nobody just sits
my lab, and like a case that I protect it, so no one touches
it, you know? And then the students have
graduated coming, they hug it for Lil Bit.
They leave, you know, so it but it's their Droid like, you know,
it's not going anyplace else, they built it, it's always going
to be there's, you know, it just sits there as a testament.
A monument to what you can complete when you really just
give it your all. Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, like you said, it's not easy.
It's not an easy process. I want to dig in a little bit
further into Problem solving and critical thinking and how you
kind of steer your students around that concept, you know,
it's it is probably the best thing I can do is the
individualized project-based instruction and so what I
primarily do in when it comes to critical thinking and
problem-solving skills, it's all about getting a student to see a
problem and fix a problem. So often we will go, we see a
problem. I don't I don't know how to do
this. Someone come help me and that's
the first thing. First reaction, a lot of people
have. And so my job is to figure out
to asked us, lots of questions. Well, so what would you do next?
Well, hold on. It's not, my project is your
project. So what would be our next step?
What else would you do here? How do you think we can solve
this? Remember when we covered this
Annex class? Do you think that could help you
in this piece here? And if you someone just steps
in, help somebody with that, they don't really learn anything
to that process. Problem solving is all about you
taking ownership of a problem and seeing it to the end.
And I know we're trying this a lot to process.
Project management. But when you have people in your
project and then when all they do is, go pick up a phone or
just go, I don't know. That's not my job or that's not
my project and they don't take ownership of something, man.
That's a big problem. Yeah, absolutely.
There's something about understanding, the steps it
takes to actually solve the problem.
I absolutely agree with you. It's something that if you're
not doing it already as a project manager, you should dig
in and know that. So that in the event, you hit
the Album again or you have to be the one teaching, somebody
else. How to problem, solve that same
issue you can do it and you can do it you know with confidence.
And I think that's really important you know no matter if
you're an employee in a project, if you're a student you know
whoever there's something that happens as you problem solve and
as you fix issues you gained a little confidence.
And and I see in my students all the time, I'll give an example
of one of my my favorite It says, name is Ian.
He was one of the bb-8, builders lot of work on that and when he
finished bb-8, he literally couldn't wait to work on another
project. You don't have another semester
so he built a mouse droid, a full-size mouse, droid and
developed code for a sign language ASL glove.
As he would sign with say what he was signing this.
He had a lot of confidence that he didn't have before and it was
through those successes that drove him to that piece.
That's great. And do you know if Your students
continued use any of the tools or steps that you're outlining
in terms of building that Gant understanding how to track
risks? Do any of them take that forward
with them? Oh, yeah.
For those that you've kept in touch with, oh yeah, they go
every which direction like my program is a computer technology
program so it's networking and cyber security programming
robotics. It really depends on what were
they land, you know, if they're in a cloud-based server
environment and that's obviously going to be a lot of that kind
of game. Problems are gam-gam scales and
so forth that they have to go through.
So yeah, what are percent. I teach a couple classes for and
in systems analysis piece, we track all that information so
I'm sorry I'm curious. Are you formally trained in any
way as a p.m.? Because you seem to know that
all the tools that we utilize project files, or you just a fan
of them of The Collector computer science program or so,
I have a degree and my Master's is Information Systems.
Okay, so my My Master's final thesis project was to build a
mobile device database system for the same, a breast
foundation and we develop that as a mobile platform device will
platform for that organization. So you'll have some formal
training and information systems which kind of tie a little bit
in the p.m. There's a few classes, I took 1
p.m. so I don't teach a lot of it, we use it because it's
valuable, you know what I mean? Yeah, if you don't do this kind
of work, if I don't track this, This do some kind of plan, then
we just spin our wheels and we don't ever get there.
You don't see any progress. If you see that progress, then
you're just never going to effectively get there.
That's that's the critical piece for me and.
And that is what this channel is all about dr.
Montgomery, it really. Is, it's awesome.
It's when people are able to make that connection that the
things that they leverage if they're doing something in their
everyday lives, they probably don't realize that it is in some
ways tied to Dick management, right?
And I think that is absolutely the reason why I started this
community as because there's so many ties elsewhere.
I mean you're not a p.m. professional but you utilize a
lot of the tools and the processes and things that we use
for your classes as well. So I think that's amazing.
So I I realized we've gone through this interview by the
way and I have not even said hello to your guests.
That is very rude of me to not have asked.
Asked R2-D2 and bb-8 to also, say hello to the audience.
Also lawyers are too R2 can say hi, that's awesome.
I think he's saying project management is cool.
I love it. He's a little, he's a little
longer more longer when the bb-8 is and I can't really roll him
or he'll roll off the, the table here.
So I don't want totally fine. Don't want to create that risk
of. All right, right?
Right. Is that something that the
students also input themselves? Do they code the audio into the,
the Droid and where they deliver those files come from?
It will depends on the Droid. These both of these Droids are
from the Droid Builder. He's okay.
We pulled those audio files from people who have collected those
or of work those through and they guy goes through a
committee process that gets part of the Droid Builders piece.
It's actually the right, authentic sounds and those kind
of things. So, you know, a lot of the stuff
that you see that has come from the Droid building Community.
It's come almost from lucasfilm, right?
So they've scanned differently, actual robots or they've worked
with the actual engineers at do that, or those Engineers were
from that Community, right? So yeah, getting my students
connected to those kind of communities.
Is really a lot of fun from the mere fact that then they kind of
get immersed in this, you know. So we have students, build Iron,
Man, costumes, which the Iron Man builder's club.
We've had students to build bb-8.
For example, we've had students that built we're working on
Wally for example. Like a full-scale wiley robot, I
would totally build box. And what's really interesting is
you could reach out and social media to these these, you know,
other Engineers. These other man.
Years and ask him a question and you'll be shocked how quickly
sometimes comes back to music while you're doing this.
You're a student working here. Let me tell you all the things
and it's really fun to watch that process play out.
Yeah. It sounds like such a great
community and a lot of sharing, right and learning and and, and,
and passing on of information, it's the same in project
management. Honestly, you know, a lot of
what you learn is things that are passed on from another
project manager. Because, hey, I went through
that same experience. I tried to build bb-8 and I hit
X, Y and Z obstacles. And here's how I got around
them. And it's those, the sharing and
the learning between the community that I also think is
such a beautiful thing. And I think is what will
continue to progress at least your Droid building Community.
If not also project management as well, it's that
collaboration, right? Yeah.
If you're stuck on an island and you're trying to do it all by
yourself, then you're going to have a real bad day of it, but
can collaborate with People and understand that there's other
people that may have a better way of doing that or different
way of doing that. Then it's going to propel you to
be more productive time. Management luck Stress
Management is a critical skill to master and, you know, you
don't wanna be spinning your wheels working on something that
you could find a solution one way or the other.
And so it's it's really essential to plan out your day.
The best way you possibly can. And I'm not sure if you still do
this or you do this at all, but But I make notebooks, you
probably can't see that of all of what I'm doing that day.
Yeah. Mark it off as I can.
So my chair, my I've got my little dry erase board up here
with my list of to dues. It's one of the easiest p.m.
tools to use, right? It's so simple, right?
That's just simple thing. But if you don't sit down and
spend a little bit of time at the beginning of every, one of
your days and write out what you plan to accomplish that day, you
will just find yourself in the Netflix world or whatever, you
know. Or you know, just go doing too.
Emails, I will tell you, I believe these from a project
management standpoint. I was a director of technology
for a school district for 13 years.
So I've done a lot of other big projects, multimillion-dollar
school buildings and those kind of things.
And I think one of the biggest waste of time that we get
ourselves into is over, communicating in case is
critical to, don't get me wrong, you can say what you need to say
and make everyone to be aware, clear and concise communication?
However, I think email, sometimes we spend a little
money. Too much time in that
environment and where we could be spending it on the project
whatever we're supposed to be doing.
So yeah, I think emails is a great tool.
Moderation, which I feel like is a spin-off, a complete spin-off
of this podcast and you just had me thinking about, I need to do
one on how to prioritize, right? Because that's absolutely right
because when you take these analyses of, if I remember
correctly, I forget the theory itself but if you spend your
time in Quadrant 4 which is emails and in non you know,
priority test, you can find yourself doing that for 8 hours
of your day. And not easily, never gotten to
the top three things. You wanted to knock off of your
to-do list. So, agreed time, it's so
important and something and just a very basic.
And simple thing that you can do for yourself, is just to write a
list every single day and check it off.
Because, again, it feels good when you check things off your
list. And I mentioned the same thing,
goes when you check things off of your deliverables list for
your, for your droids. Is that with each Milestone?
You hit. It's a celebration in many ways.
Ways. Yeah you celebrate those times
because you just never know how we're going to have them but if
you are planning, if you are making those plans and to Mark
stuff off your list, put them in your Gantt charts, put them in
your calendar systems, whatever you decide to use.
Those kind of pieces, it will elevate your work because you
can, you always assign a priority level to everything
that you're doing and what's critical, what?
Can wait until the next day? Do I need to communicate today
on this email? Or can I wait a couple days one?
And then you spend time that matters on the time that you
have the pieces there and schedule that time.
You know, if you have four hours to work on this one thing,
great, spend that time little correct way, be in the right
head space. I see all too often students and
or people employees that used to work for me.
They'll have distracting music play, they will have other
things going on. They're not really as invested
as they need to be. And I'm There's a lot of
theories on, you know how to be the right head space, but I can
tell you, I just finished my dissertation not too long ago.
Oh congratulations, I cannot write.
Thank you. I cannot write at all to any
music that has words in it because all sudden the words are
coming out in the piece of paper, right?
There's got to be some, some other kind of music in the
background, some sort of worst time.
We've. Yeah, yeah.
There you go. Yeah, exactly.
Just have John Williams playing the entire site.
I sure that is very inspiring are also very suspenseful as
you're trying to type up here. Dissertation there.
But a good source of inspiration.
Right? Right.
My students, unfortunately, get hit with that during test time,
I'll be playing John Williams music in the, or the speaker's,
whether taking a test or finals or something like that.
Yeah, they did this understand it comes with the territory with
with me. So I have to do it.
Well, and as an inch, you know, as a professor, I'm sure being
in this climate that we're in right now, right.
In the midst of pandemic, people are doing a lot of things
remotely. Keeping focused like you said is
really really challenging for students.
I imagine who. Yeah.
You know, if they're not physically in a classroom that's
one thing that can really take them off, focus, the other piece
of the this where I'm going with this is you traditionally work
in a lab so has that taken away from the focus of your students.
You know, have have they had to do things remotely.
Yeah. When the pandemic started hit
spring semester for us and we had to go full.
Remove, I end up taking projects, the kids homes and
dropping stuff off. There was a ton of work on me to
finish up what we were doing and then and then we started a new
fall semester still in the middle of the pandemic and we
matched up and you know the vaccine was shortly after that
thankfully and we did it as social distance and did a lot of
things I normally can do. So I didn't set me back too far
but we were able to do a few things and Thing really
interesting. I did during the pandemic start
was we got kind of shut down and I had access to a lot of 3D
printers, so I built a nonprofit organization called so Mac.
The Southern Ohio makers against covid Coalition, and we built
five thousand free face Shields. Wow, anyone in Southern Ohio and
delivered him through all of Southern Ohio.
I had a total of, I think 60 Educators around, southern Ohio
Printing and delivering them, and we build them, and take them
places, so that's amazing. We spend our time pretty pretty
effectively there at the beginning of the pandemic.
But it has been a challenge. I was just told today through an
email from my president that we're going to have to require
masks again here on Friday. I'm really bummed I understand.
But I'm bummed, of course. I want to be done.
You know what I mean? Well, it goes with the whole
being flexible with as things change, right?
Right. I was frustrated, but it's going
to be okay. I'm flexible.
I'll adapt to this and I will find ways for our students to
do. Really fun cool.
As projects and teach them all the skills necessary for them to
be successful in life. I am just so, you know, in awe
of what you do, dr. Montgomery.
I mean considering you you did a TED Talk in the middle of the
pandemic which I highly encourage everyone to check out.
I watched it was awesome. Well thank you so much.
Those droids moving too which is cool the droids moved around
with me on the Ted stage you know when you set up a tedtalk
it's fully scripted. I'm not sure if you know that
they make you fully memorize a script, you get a script code.
Can you go through that whole process takes about half a year
to go through a building, a TED talk.
A lot of fun learned a lot but I did that talk to an empty
audience. There was no one there.
I'm talking at Red exit signs. As I'm looking at through that,
that talk, there's five camerman and sound people and makeup
people in that kind of stuff there and they're all Mast, but
they let me take a mask off to do the talk.
And, you know, there's no one laughing at your jokes.
You know. You said a couple jokes when
you're thinking about doing this.
No jokes, no one laughed at him. Least, so I laughed at my jokes.
I laugh at your jokes but you didn't hear me because I was in
the audience, but I mean, accomplishments are insane for
you. And I again, I'm in awe of
everything that you've done, I, you are probably an amazing
Professor, although I have not had the honor of taking your
class, he's build Droid, so you are awesome.
In terms of the fact that you love Star Wars and you go out to
the community and you try to do good, I don't know what else is
good. There's the say that it's not
anything about you doctor and you so much mind you as our
first guest, you know, on the YouTube platform as well.
So thanks for joining the everyday p.m. podcast.
I'm honored to be here. I'm glad I reached out to you.
I saw that you were doing these. I'm like, you know, I think I
have something to, to share as well and in this community, in
this space. And, you know, thank you so much
for having me on and you absolutely do.
I mean without even having the professional, you know, letters
after your name, You know so much about project management.
And again that's this community in this channel is all about.
So thank you for joining me. Is there anything else you
wanted to kind of impart on our audience that you didn't get to
say? You know I think I covered
pretty much everything that I want to say.
Just understand B+. Celebrate those failures.
Yeah, agreed. And dr.
Montgomery is there to support you along the way.
Hi call me. Anytime that will do it for IT
doctor. Camry.
And I in this installment of the everyday p.m. podcast, if folks
want to continue the conversation with you dr.
Montgomery on Droid building project management, whatever
else that you want to talk to him about.
Where can they find you online? You can find me on Twitter, they
can find me on LinkedIn and you can find me on Twitter on
Facebook. So I think it's that Twitter's
1j Montgomery 4 5 1, 2 3. I think.
I'm friends with an same LinkedIn and look me up.
I'm always posting our latest projects on Twitter and on
LinkedIn showing off what our students are doing, or something
that I'm doing. I'm proud of to get out to the
community. So I feel bad.
I feel very honored to do what I do.
So look me up. Yeah, absolutely.
And hopefully we will actually connect in person at Star Wars
or we're gonna be great. I'm doing a couple lectures of
Star Wars celebration. I was asked to be on the
animatronic C-3PO panel. I Star Wars celebration Anaheim
with a couple other big Droid Builders.
I'm taking my students with me to sell ourselves Raishin as
well and I'm also doing 2 lectures on a mini R2D2 Dome
that students can come in. And by the end of class I will
teach a student how to fully program Motors and lights and a
little mini are to do so I should be a lot of fun.
So cool. So yeah I'm definitely looking
forward to if you are all going to be at Star Wars celebration,
please definitely check out dr. Montgomery's panels or find them
online if you want to talk further, I'm also on LinkedIn.
You can also find me on LinkedIn.
Make sure you click subscribe. Subscribe and like to this
videos. First time I get to say that as
well support the everyday p.m. podcast by giving us a five star
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YouTube channel. So, thank you so much for
joining me, dr. Montgomery, and those joining us
online. Thank you for listening and
watching as well. And until next time, take care
and May the force be with you.