15: Aram the Professor, Linkedin Learning, EP. 15

Hello, and good day to you from episode 15 of our podcast series Project Breakaway. A metaphorical and literal time in the day when we here at Predator Cycling take some time away from working in the bike shop to come and share with our listeners what we're doing, how we're doing it, what it takes to do it, our ideas, our innovative success stories, and even our missteps and failures. If you find yourself with an interest in bicycles, composite manufacturing, out of the box design, or even curiosities beyond, I encourage you to stick with us, saddle in, and learn a little. I'm Courtney B., co-owner and project manager of Predator Cycling. I'm here with my partner, Aram Ghasabian, the other co-owner, CEO, lead design and engineer, and online instructor of Predator Cycling. How's it going, Aram? It is going wonderful. Yeah? Yeah, I'm sitting here and hanging out with you and we're going to talk about some online instructing. Online instruction. Instruction. And you're the teacher. Oh boy. So, you've been having some early mornings, no? Yeah, that's an understatement, I guess. So, you've been having like a 2:30 wake up because you are kind of on a tight deadline to get some online courses recorded and done for LinkedIn Learning. Yep. Um, it's been an ongoing project for a while, but between all of our other shop business and launching of products, it kind of, you know, Yeah, it's kind of like Shoved, shoved to the back of the bus. I, I guess. It's been the, you know, this last year was a, a crazy year with COVID and everything, and I mean, it's, it's not over by any means, but, um, yeah, scheduling kind of turned into a disaster, but, uh, yeah, we've been working on this, um, online course for a, a while, um, and yeah, it kind of got pushed back, but it's So, you're back on it. Full center now. So, basically, LinkedIn Learning is, um, the newer iteration of Lynda.com. I'm not sure how long, or how long ago they made the switch. Um, maybe you do. I don't know. Uh, I don't. It has, so, only a couple years, cuz I remember we, we were on Lynda.com. Uh, yeah, I used it. I, I learned all of my, uh, Photoshop and, uh, Premiere skills there. Yeah. So, Lynda was, uh, like an online learning website where professionals, or teachers, or instructors, or average Joes, um, composed videos to learn new skills, and other people can watch them. Average Joes cannot post. Oh no? It's not, it was not an open forum like YouTube. Like, you actually had to be like pretty legit to be on it. You had to be legit. You had to be approached, right? Okay, so I'm thinking it's kind of like, um, cuz you see the commercials now for Udemy, which I think is more of an average Joe, like, you can learn how to like garden, or play an instrument, or something, right? Yeah, for sure. And I mean, But on LinkedIn, I think it more, airs more towards the professional side. Um, yeah, it's also different. So, uh, on Udemy, you produce your own content, and you put it up, and you promote it, um, and you basically sell it, and they make a, you know, a royalty, they make a, a cut of it. Uh, LinkedIn Learning works a little different. Um, you actually have a content manager that you work with, that you produce the course with, and then you record everything. Usually, I, I mean, I think the majority of it is done recorded there on their, in, at their location. Um, or during COVID, we've been doing a lot of remote recording. Um, and so, that was, uh, that's what I did, and then they produce and cut it all together. Mhm. And obviously, uh, I think it's only available for LinkedIn Professional, which you have to, have a, a subscription for. Yeah, if you're going to watch the courses, you have to be, uh, you have to have the LinkedIn, uh, Premiere. Oh, Premiere. I don't know. I don't have it. Premiere. I just your normal LinkedIn person. And then, you can also purchase any course. You can just flat rate and buy a course and watch it. Okay. So, So, you can learn, uh, like new softwares, you can learn to do Photoshop, like you said, you can become more proficient in all sorts of things from like accounting software, Yeah, it's really good. You do simulation softwares. Yeah. You can also, I mean, to be honest, I, I mean, cuz like I have my Premiere account, and I look on there all the time, like, oh, like I want to look at this, I don't know, like online service, or something, and they have a class on it. So, I, it's like a really cool demo of the product. It's super cool. I use it constantly. Yeah. I'm always using it. So, Um, basically, we were, you, we were approached by a LinkedIn employee after a class that we co-taught together at Autodesk University back in 2019. I think it was 2019, cuz 2020 was COVID. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so basically, I was, well, scratch that. Okay, you were busy talking to someone. I was approached by LinkedIn Learning to go, to be the go-between, I guess, um, between you and them. And, um, he was like, has Aram ever thought about teaching? And I literally just laughed. I was like, I don't know. Um, I went to like thinking, like college in like a stuffy lecture hall and like arm down there with a little bow tie. But that was not the case. I would rock a bow tie. All right, let' us just be clear on that. It wasn't the case. It was more for virtual teaching and I was like, oh, that makes a lot more sense. Ouch. Okay. Which is also fitting because we've quickly after Autodesk segued into COVID. So Yeah. All learning is online. Yeah. Well, we were talking to them right before COVID broke out. is when we were talking about doing it, doing a class. Yeah. And then COVID happened. So you got contracted. Yeah, so we did, we got contracted and did our first class, um, which was a class, it's a fusion course that is about, um, design, it's a designing a bicycle, but it's the course isn't teaching on how to make a bicycle, it's teaching different modeling approaches and techniques that were used, that I used to build a bicycle. So each, each tube of the bike is made using a different modeling design Let me rephrase that. Um, each tube was designed using a different modeling approach and created differently. So basically in the process of building a bicycle, you learn all these different tools, that you can use to build geometries and then, um, I had everything connected and So it's like a basic fusion intro class. It's really geared, I think it's really good for someone that has like a modeling understanding, like they know how to model to some degree, like if they came from like, uh, 3D Max or like Unreal Engine or I mean even came from like, um, Rhino or SolidWorks or SolidWorks already is kind of very similar, um, because it's also a parametric modeling environment, but, um, yeah, so somebody coming from some sort of modeling background, it's really helpful because, um, I don't dive into like design or modeling theory, it's more you kind of know how those things work and I, um, work with I follow you, you know, I guide you through building a bicycle frame. Right. And the class is about just like fusion and modeling. You just use a bicycle as an example because that's what we make. Yeah, exactly. That's what we make. That's what I, I mean that's what I do all day. And it's relatable to, I mean like people understand like like I'm making a bicycle there too. They go together. This is how we have to model it. Right. It's most people have ridden a bicycle. If they haven't ridden one, they know what it is. And they know what it looks like. So it's not something that's strange to them. Um, so it was a good idea and that was my content. And that class was released, what, like six, six months ago? Seven months ago, yeah. Seven months ago. So that one's available online as for people to view. Yeah, you can, you can watch it. And then you just, uh, early, this week or last week, we went live and your second course. Yeah, so and, well, yeah, and then I, and then as soon as that course was done, we started working on a, a, um, a three part series course. Um, and the first of those courses went live last week. Mhm. Um, and that one is really cool course. That that, I'm working on the second one right now. I'm just finishing it up and, um, it should be up soon in the next couple of months. So basically, say what the whole series is and then what each part of the series is. Okay. So the whole series is talking about, um, it's the concept of taking a, a design or an idea for a product and going from, um, inception all the way to completed product, um, for a composite part. Mhm. And um, the first video, the first course is, um, talking about, uh, uh, the, the types of mo, molding and manufacturing methodology for composites. So we talk about like, um, different types of materials and pre-pregs and and, uh, plain weave and and, um, um, uh, like RTM and infusion molding and, uh, closed mold, open mold, um, And the use case for this entire series is you are building a children's push bike. Yeah. A carbon fiber A yeah. children's push bike. So that means a tiny little bike, no pedals. Yes. Okay. So the first part of the series is the materials and and mold making and modeling of that. Exactly. So you can have, so like I basically the first part of the, the course is like a composites 101 course so you can understand, well because the thing is everything is connected. So like that first part explains about material selections and products and manufacturing. And then in the, the second course, it's kind of like the industrial design portion of like designing the actual part. But you can't really design the part if you don't know how it's made. Mhm. So that first course kind of goes over how it's made, like how to make things and molding. And then the next one is talking about actually designing something. And it's really interesting because one of the things that's interesting about the workflow that we use here is we introduce simulation super early on. And so in this course, I go into simulation. So I, I talk about how you use like Ansys uh, Discovery and how we do CFD and and structural analysis of it in the design stage and how that changes our design and and makes you know So by that you mean you have the push bike and now you're introducing in simulation like airflow you're pushing the bike down a hill and like how it'll coast and how how the wind will hit the frame and based on the design of the frame how will everything work and based on the results of the simulation you can make alterations yeah exactly and then and then that basically segues into the final design of the frame and then that segues into our into course three of the series and that is all about basically like the the the engineering application side of it so we talk about like how we're going to design the mold and then we do the final validation so we actually get into Ansys mechanical and pre-post and show composite simulation of the actual bike and how we do that and then the final CFD validation and then the manufacturing so the what do you know the course name is I do I don't know at the top I I know the course it's about Ansys it's about composites and Ansys it no it's it's it's more than anything it's it's it's explaining the process of how to take a concept of a part and design to manufacture it in composites okay that's the concept I I don't really go into I mean I show software and I show how we use software and the concepts that we use but it's not teaching the software so I don't say it click on this and then click on that and do this and do that like my first course the design course I did that's exactly what I did this is not that this is much this is a higher level course you're just looking at it from above so yeah this is it's a super cool course because it's I you know you don't have I mean I show using Fusion 360 and Ansys Discovery and Ansys Mechanical and Ansys Fluid that's what I show in my process but you can use other software and you can use you know SolidWorks and you know Rhino and you know Altair if you're using something else for simulation I mean use other software out there that you can use and use the same course I just show you what I like but yeah it's it's it's the concept is and super cool because my my content manager was telling me like you know design a course about something that would that you wish you had learned and that's what this course is I mean I wish I had this 10 years ago you wish that you just knew the steps on how to make something out of carbon fiber not even the steps the workflow it's so complicated it's taken me I mean it's taken 10 years to come up with it I mean like the you know what is pre-preg and what is infusion molding and RTM and all that stuff and having that in a concise like one hour course would have been awesome right you know that was super informative but the concept of how everything's connected and it's not linear like design and manufacturing is not a linear process so understanding that and understanding workflows on when to introduce what mhm I think would have been a bit awesome I mean also the software and the technology that I'm showing was not around 10 years ago but but the philosophies and also just like a visual just seeing it because we actually filmed yeah uh um we actually I actually use the word we you you filmed I filmed you teach the class I do all the hard work behind it this is true so I don't know if I get a credit on this video or not um it's it's licensed to Predator Cycling ah okay so anyway we did actually we we made the bike we never finished the bike yet because we've been working on these other projects yeah it's been I mean the bike is done it's just it just has to go to paint it just has to get clear coated and finished but we we we laid it with carbon we we cut a mold yes we cut the mold it's not quite how we make our normal bikes this specifically a process for this toddler frame well that was a whole another thing so like we didn't we have a lot of proprietary stuff and so you kind of just showed like the old school method not even old school old school might be not the right word it's an older way that we used to make some stuff but also I kind of like hybrided two processes together you did what I took did you say hybrided hybrided hybri hybrided I hybrided a course together is that how you say it this is the teacher of your LinkedIn class ouch I'm not teaching English because I obviously don't know how to speak that well you just made up a word which is I think fine in 2021 from what I've learned the English language dad no one uses right what was your whole thing about the Oxford comma uh I went on a whole rant this week about it episode uh next this episode, Kourtney's rant on So since no one cares anymore, so whatever, let's hybridate something. Hybridated. Hybridated I hybridated two things together. Hybridated. Okay. Okay, I like it. Okay, so I used a hybridated process um to basically merge two molding systems together. And I did it one because it made sense for the product that we were making, but also it was a really good teaching moment so that you could actually see multiple molding processes put together into a single system. So um I thought it was really good to understand how that works and see an example Yeah. And I think the way people learn today, like you need this concise video, you need visuals and you need you know someone who knows what they're doing. So I think that all of these three things were pretty good for this And I think the course is really good for like anyone that wants to design or make something out of carbon or not even it doesn't have to be carbon fiber, but like that process. Um I think this is a really good course for that. I think it really helps explain things and and how jumping off course Yeah, and like how everything's connected. It's something it's a it's a it's a topic that I try to thread in everything. It's like it's the way you design it depends on how it's going to be made and how it's going to be made depends on how you design it and the simulation plays a huge factor into the whole thing. Yeah. And that whole cyclical cycle um The cyclical cycle? The cyclical cycle. Just I'm just rocking it today. Uh well, you know what I think I think what he told us from LinkedIn is which would would have been really beneficial back when we were in college, but don't colleges offer these type of subscriptions to their students now or they teach you the basics and they're like if you need any supplemental video or supplemental teaching like here's your log on. Find some videos, learn Yeah. Which I would have liked back when I was doing um video production in college and I needed to learn you know, editing software. I literally got I I got Photoshop for dummies, I got Premiere for dummy. I don't know. Those are horrible books and you have to sit there and read them. If I had a video showing me like some stuff that would have been way better. I got some videos I can show you. Okay, well but now I don't have the attention span as I did in college. I have so many more things going on in life. No, for sure. And that's one of the things that they that I know that that LinkedIn is used for is um for you know like you know teachers and professors don't want to teach software. So you know they want to teach concepts and so the software Which they shouldn't. They should do the opposite. They should teach you real life skills and not theoretical skills, which is why I would be in a job in my chosen field instead of here with my husband making bicycles. Not that that's wrong, but I gave up Yeah. what my knowledge was because I didn't feel like I had enough Yep. For here. And now I have all the knowledge. Oh yeah, you have all the knowledge. I'm sitting with the teacher. And And my my the cyclical cycle that I've been in In a hybrid In my hybridated this hybridated atmosphere, which has worked for us. Uh yeah, it's worked great. But um businesses also I what from what I'm told businesses also offer like subscriptions for their employees. So if you're you know an engineer and you want to learn a different type of engineering, you can look at some Or not even so much that. It's just a lot of the software and like nitty-gritty because a lot of LinkedIn um courses are taught by industry experts. Yeah. Not I mean and there I know there are a lot of professors on it, but there's also a lot of people that are coming in with like you know 10 years, 20 years of like engineering experience in you know modeling and whatnot. Are you an industry expert? I wouldn't consider myself an expert in anything, but um I am a avid user of many softwares. Yes, you are. Um You're an avid user of online videos and learning, which makes you a perfect candidate to be I love it. teacher for online videos and learning. Yeah. I learned a lot. A lot of the software that I use today is is I learned from online sources. And that was kind of for me like full circle. I was like wait, what? They want me to teach a class? Like that's cool. I think I've said in past in past podcasts I've said like there's nothing more than Arm loves is like a good conference. Second to that, there's nothing more Arm loves than a good online tutorial. Oh my god. Okay. Um sure. You love that type of learning tool. I I I like learn especially when you you get someone who's like knows what they're doing and showing you a workflow or a concept of how to use something. And the thing is like software and tech is so insane right now. Like you can do so much with it and when you see someone that can actually push the envelope of what's possible, I think that's cool. Yeah. So And this is a better avenue this LinkedIn Learning than like a YouTube tutorial. Like Well, we were looking at one yesterday just to figure out a problem and we had no patience for it. No, I got pretty frustrated. But the other thing too is I mean I we've been a I've been approached before about teaching a class and whatnot, but the thing that was really cool about LinkedIn was that a part like my thing was like I don't know how to structure a course like I don't know what to put I don't yeah they totally helped me and like structured it together this sounds like something I should be doing but I have no time yeah I got to be a LinkedIn learning producer there you go there you go I'll put that in my pocket um discuss your fourth class you have coming up yeah so the fourth class that I have which is coming after these is about sketching it's all about it's an entire course on sketching in Fusion 360 so I talk about 3D sketches I talk about 2D I talk about are you doing bicycle sketches again uh no so this course is not going to be it's it's not going to be a start to finish process it's going to be basically like a bunch of little micro pieces like I'm just going to be it's going to be like how to use you know different types of tools within the um the within Fusion wait so you're just going to be like I want to make a box this is a tool I make like I want to make a sphere this is the tool I make yeah and then like kind of connecting things together and showing how it goes but it's not going to be a it's not going to be like a start to finish like make something it's going to be more like micro tools so that also like a really good tool for like hey like how do I do this and it's just like a quick here's your three minutes you know three minute video on how to do that process and then in the end I'm basically building on those concepts and building something so I have three parts that I build at the end that basically use all of the stuff that you learned in the earlier ones and it's kind of an exercise but then again that is not going to be like a do this then do that then do this it's kind of like a very quick like concept here's this sketch here's a 3D sketch and then this is how it's driven okay so it should be a cool course yeah so what what's the benefit what's the benefit for Predator to participate in these type of teaching tools um there's a couple but well one benefit is is is it's a pretty cool audience that you're talking to you're talking to people that are very interested in that concept um that we might have not reached out to prior because they don't maybe cycle yeah for sure but they software oh look at that yeah for sure that's one thing and then the other thing too is like I mean we've kind of over the years just made a I I guess we're I don't know how to say we're we're power users of software is that the right you're a power user of software um I'm just a powerful person oh we make a good team um yeah so like like a big user of Fusion a big person in Ansys and now getting into like some other software like Omniverse and stuff um and so it kind of it that's actually become part of our like business at Predator is like that technology side is a huge asset and teaching that technology and parts of that technology it benefits us we we obviously we we do get paid to do LinkedIn courses um but more than just getting paid it's I I think it's giving back to that group that of people who we came from like I came from that learning environment and teaching what we do I think just makes us but I think you're learning as you're teaching too so you're actually just like benefiting yourself in like yeah well I learned a new your knowledge ex absolutely but also like it's a new skill like I've never like I mean the first video I did like Professor Goganian new skill yeah new skill because like I didn't know how to teach a course from like a video cast like I I didn't know how to do it like I was the first video was like wait what like how do I like how do like I I talk with my hands like how do I and then I found out I talk with my mouse so like I move my mouse around your mouth I'm like yes you talk constantly with your mouth I do I talk with my mouth and my hands and your mouth and my mouse so like I had to learn not to do that and like how to like like I used to always do thing like where I would say something and then click on it and like instead of clicking on it and saying it and like just how to do that and like how to structure and it's helped really a lot during Covid because I've had to do presentations and what not where I had to do screen captures and yeah um having that skill was huge so it's been very beneficial on many fronts awesome well let's talk about some recent news yes uh Ansys just uh posted a live blog uh this two days ago I think uh about us and our relationship and how we use their simulation tools um it's a pretty good article it was a very good article it did not mention me but it was a very good article well that's for that's for the next the next one uh when they want the brains behind the operation yeah um but it's a good article you can check it out I think if you just go to Ansys dot com and click on their blog button yes I think it's on the it's on their blog I they always post it on social that's how I always see their blogs yeah and then um yeah it's a pretty cool article and then I think I mentioned the previous podcast yesterday also had a an NVIDIA blog live. Yeah. There's a lot coming up in April. You have your NVIDIA GTC conference, which I think is the April 4 14th, I think. Yeah. The week following that is the ANSYS semi world conference, Yep. Which is the 20th and 21st, I don't know if you have a date yet. And then you also did something for like an internal Lenovo conference, Yeah, we did that. Yes, I'm in that one, but but that's not open to the public. I don't think it is. It's called Rev Live, which I don't know what Rev stands for. Um it's their internal like sales and marketing. It's their internal big conference So if you want to see me in something, you have to apply to the No Von become an employee. Yeah, which is a cool company. So And uh then you have other things uh coming that we just I can't discuss yet because we honestly don't know all the details yet. Yeah. So all those are coming up. And then even bigger news, bigger than any software company, the previous co-owner before myself will be flying in next week. She will. And she will hopefully be making an appearance here on the podcast. We are trying to facilitate that. Your mama. She is. That's my mom. Your mama. She's all vaccinated. She is. We're halfway there. So that's we can call that good. Mhm. Um she's coming in, flying in from California. Yep. I'm sure this place will get a nice overdue tidying up. Yeah. And uh She'll let me know everything I'm doing wrong. Yeah, and I'll get a nice little break from my little toddler monster. So um hopefully she's got some interesting anecdotes to uh add I'm sure she will. I'm sure she'll have a lot to add. She can we can maybe we can talk about uh how Predator was when she started. Yeah. Old school Predator. Old school Predator, the original Predator on the balcony of our apartment in Santa Monica. Yeah. So that is coming up next week. Yeah. So we'll wrap her up. Uh we thank you for choosing to take some time with us and we look forward to future breakaways. Look for us on Instagram and LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and in person here in Tennessee. We ask our listeners to please share, like, and subscribe. We're available on all major streaming platforms. Thanks for listening. Have a good one and find some time to break away.