My name is Uriel, and I will be teaching today on quantum optomechanics. Is it not working? I think I've activated the microphone. Is that OK? Or it's just now better? Bit louder? OK. So I plan to teach these four hours in blocks of 50 minutes. We will do 50 minutes and 10 minutes break, if that is OK with you. Please ask as many questions as possible, ideally during the lecture, so that we can make it more interactive. I think that would be a good idea. So let me, first of all, introduce myself. So give my email in case you want to contact me. That's at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. That's the email. Also, we have a research group that does theory on quantum optics and quantum nanophysics. And here is the web page. And also, quite recently, we have been a bit active in the social networks, especially promoted by our students. So we have a Twitter and Instagram account. So if you want to check, so that's just some information. Good. So then the lectures will be on quantum optomechanics. And before we start, I would like to have a bit of feedback to know what is your background. So first of all, from the students, could you please tell me how many of you are doing currently the math? Well, first, how many of you have studied physics? I assume, yeah, most of you. Good. How many of you are doing the masters right now? OK. How many of you are doing the PhD right now? OK. And how many of you are postdocs? And how many of you have never heard about optomechanics? How many of you you consider to be kind of expert in optomechanics or really know quite a lot already? Because maybe you are doing research on that. All right. And I think it's kind of OK. So the idea is I will do this for hours to be pretty starting from zero and very accessible for people that have never heard about optomechanics, which then perhaps has the disadvantage that for the experts, some of the parts might be too basic. But anyways, I always think it is good to review even things that you know to understand it better. So the plan of the lectures, basically, I've divided them in five parts. So the plan of the lectures, they have five sections. First, we will start with an introduction and motivation to the topic. Then section one will be on what I call closed optomechanics, namely to understand the dynamics of the system in the absence of dissipation and how to describe it. Then we will discuss what happens when the system interacts with the environment, namely it is open. So I call that open optomechanics. Then section three will be devoted to a very important regime in optomechanics, which is called the driven case, the driven scenario, which basically linearize the dynamics. And that is happening in most of the experiments today. So this is called the driven in brackets linear optomechanics. And we will conclude by applying this scenario of driven linear optomechanics to discuss the fact that you can actually cool to the emotional quantum ground state mechanical systems using electromagnetic field radiation. So we would conclude with that about ground state cooling. So our group is a theory research group, but we collaborate a lot with experimentalists. So I myself am not an experimentalist, but we are used to talk to them. So if also you have questions from the experimental point of view, also feel free to ask. And I will do my best to try to answer, OK? Good. So that's the plan of the talk. These four sections plus introduction. And then just for bibliography, for you to know that, I mean, this is a very active research field. So there is a lot of material, a lot of papers. But perhaps now the most famous kind of reference is a review modern of physics called cavity optomechanics. This is a review modern of physics article published in 2014. So six years ago. And since the field is very active, of course, there might be some things that here are already a bit outdated, but for getting access to the basics and the background, for sure that's a very good one. The authors are two leading experimentalists and one leading theorist. So Marcus Aspermeyer from Vienna, Tobias Kippenberg from EPFL in Switzerland. They are both experimentalists. And Florian Marquard from the Max Plan Institute of Light in Erlangen, who is a theorist. And recall, as always, this review modern of physics. These are reviews which, of course, ideally they should be also accessible for students. But at the same time, they should for scientists and researchers. So they are sometimes the level is a bit high. So if you have never heard about optomechanics and you start reading that review, that might be a bit challenging in the beginning. But hopefully after these five, four hours, this review will be even more useful. Good. So then let's start with the introduction and motivation to the topic. Good. So let's first of all think about the name of these lectures. This is called quantum optomechanics. Let's focus. I mean, quantum, we already know what it means. Probably this system will at some point behave according to quantum physics. But what does optomechanics mean? Basically, optomechanics contains, in a sense, two words, optomechanics. And here what is important is that what we refer from opto, which you could think has to do with light, we should be even a bit more general. More than light, we should think this refers to the electromagnetic field. Not only radiation at visible light, but it could also be radiation at other frequencies, such as microwave frequencies. So from a more general point of view, optomechanics refers to the dynamics that describe the coupling between the electromagnetic field, electromagnetic field coupled to mechanical motion. And of course, when we say mechanical motion, we always should understand this has to do with the motion of something that is massive. And here the mass will be something very relevant in this field. So at the end, we want to couple the electromagnetic field to some emotional degrees of freedom that are embedded in a system that has mass. And I can already tell you, of course, you could say, well, this is quantum optics in general. Quantum optics also describes the couplings of electromagnetic field with the motion of massive particles, namely electrons and protons. That's correct. But here, as you will see in a second, has to do more with the fact that this mechanical motion is related to the motion of a very big object, almost microscopic, almost, you can see with your bad eye. And that will be the main property. We want to couple the electromagnetic field with very massive objects. OK. And for instance, just to give you a bit of intuition of how you can do that and also to define two standard regimes in optomechanics, the so-called optical, so optomechanics in the optical domain. And a typical scenario would be the following. Imagine you have a very nice optical cavity with two very good mirrors. This one is completely fixed. But now this one can actually move because imagine it is actually connected by a spring to a big mass. So you have now two mirrors, but this one can vibrate. And then use some colors. And as you know, in cavities, if you solve the Maxwell equations in the presence of these boundaries, you find modes, namely vibrations or states of the electromagnetic field, which are very well confined within this cavity. This will be optical light, optical modes.  Some of these modes can be excited with photons and so on. And there is this mode, the optical field. And now you see, because this mirror can also move, that's another degree of freedom, which is mechanical. So now this mirror can vibrate. And this is the mechanical motion, the mechanical degree of freedom. And you can already guess from the physics point of view that in such a system, I will definitely have some coupling between the degrees of freedom of the electromagnetic field and the degrees of freedom of this mechanical motion. Because, for instance, you can think it in two ways. If you have some light inside this cavity, you know light exerts pressure. It carries momentum. So when photons reflect from this mirror, they impart a bit of linear momentum that will shift the position of the mirror. Now by changing the position of the mirror, you know that the resonance frequency of the cavity is also modified, because the resonance frequency of a cavity depends on its length. And now its length is actually changing. And by changing the length of the cavity, maybe the light you were sending to the cavity is not resonant anymore, it doesn't enter, and so on. So you see that there are some intrinsic dynamics here between the electromagnetic field, degrees of freedom, and the mechanical motion. And that's a bit, this is one particular setup. There are many in optomechanics, but the principle is always the same. You have some optical resonator whose resonance frequency can be modified by the motion of some mechanical degree of freedom. That's one example I will show you then, other examples. But this is important. This typical setting is in the optical scenario, where there are optical modes. There is the same concept applies in a completely different regime, not in the optical regime, but in the microwave regime. So recall, optical frequencies are 10 to the 15 hertz. Microwave frequencies are 10 to the 9, 10 to the 10 hertz. Another scenario is you might remember from our basic lectures of circuits that there is this circuit, the so-called LC circuit, where you have an inductance and a capacitor. And the dynamics of this LC circuit can be described by an harmonic oscillator also. Now imagine I do the following. In this capacitor, I have two plates. And now I do the same trick as before. I allow one plate to actually move because it might be on top of a spring. So for instance, I connect one of the plates. It's actually come by right because it's on top of a spring. And I connect the circuit like that. So this is now an LC circuit. It's an LC circuit where current, or if there is some current flowing, it generates some microwaves. So here you could see this is kind of a microwave cavity. And now the resonance of this microwave cavity depends on the position of this plate because if it changes, it changes the capacity. And this changes the frequency of the oscillator. And it's again the same concept I have now. Microwaves here, microwave electromagnetic field coupled to the motion. And this somehow defines two very different settings for optomechanics, either optical optomechanics or microwave optomechanics. Sometimes it has also other names. People use it, electromechanics and things like that. But this is important because these are completely two different regimes. Here the electromagnetic field has optical frequencies. Here the electromagnetic field has microwave frequencies. And during the lectures, we will see that this has important differences, not fundamentally, but in terms of experiments. Because experiments here look very different than experiments done in that setting. So at the end of the day, this is kind of just doing standard quantum optics. But now you couple electromagnetic fields to the motion of you already see from these figures of kind of big objects. And this is actually the distinctive or the main difference. So the main distinctive difference is precisely this one. That is that the mass m associated to mechanical motion is somehow microscopic. And here by microscopic, we mean that the mass, for instance, if I write the mass in units of a single atomic mass unit, so n times an atomic mass unit, which is somehow the mass of a single carbon atom, 10 to the minus 27 kilograms. For these objects, this n actually can be very large and depends a lot on the particular experiment. But current experiments go from masses that are relatively small, which means they contain of the order of 1 million of atoms, two really huge masses containing 10 to the 19 atoms and even more. In particular, perhaps the biggest masses in which you experience optomechanics are used in LIGO, in the interferometers for measure gravitational waves, where they have suspended masses with a mass of a kilogram. And they basically have to isolate them very well. And they are part of the interferometer. And the motion is affected by the reflection of light, in a sense. So these spans are completely large parameter regime in regards with masses. And that's what makes this feel different from quantum optics, in the sense that traditional quantum optics was dealing in the interaction of light with atoms that contain the mass of an atom, which would be of order 1. Here, now you deal with way bigger, bigger masses. So large these objects are that sometimes you can, of course, see with your bad eye. Good. And important is also to have this, OK, to know that there is basically a plethora of experimental configurations where optomechanics is implemented. If you search for optomechanics, you will immediately see these beautiful images of all type of different experimental scenarios where people talk about optomechanics, meaning that they essentially have that. So the principle, as I said, in all these scenarios is that the resonance frequency of an electromagnetic field resonator depends on the position of a given mechanical oscillator. So that's always the principle. The resonance frequency of an optical resonator, which is some space where single or few electromagnetic field modes are confined and resonate as a single harmonic oscillator, this frequency always depends on the mechanical position of some mechanical motion associated to some mass that is also described as an harmonic oscillator. So at the end of the day, as you will see in a second, it has to do with the dynamics of few coupled harmonic oscillators. Just for instance, to give you an example of how you can modify these ideas with experiments that already exist, another configuration similar to that one would be you take a cavity whose ends are fixed and you just put an electric object inside the cavity. So for instance, you put a cavity that is fixed and now you put some of the electric object in the form of a pendulum which is just a dielectric material that can oscillate inside the cavity. Since this is a dielectric material and you know that the resonance frequency of an electromagnetic field resonator depends on the electric properties in its interior, now you see this cavity is vacuum everywhere with exception of a space of volume where there is some dielectric. Now by this moving also changes the resonance frequency, and then you would couple the light to this motion. Here also another setting is now the plates of the capacitor remain fixed, but in the interior you also put the electric object which now is vibrating because any object vibrates due to its acoustic phonons. Now by these vibrations you also modify the capacitance of this capacitor and hence you modify the resonance frequency and then you couple this mode to the vibrations of some piece of material and things like that. This concept really appears in a multitude of different experimental situations. So what we will do in this lecture is to discuss the theory that actually then basically applies to any of these situations. Good, so questions up to here for this introduction. All right, so this is a bit to describe what optomechanics is. Now let me tell you why optomechanics is interesting. Why should you be interested in optomechanics? And mainly there are three clear applications of these systems which makes them very interesting for a broad community of scientists. The first one as you can already guess from my emphasis on the big mass has to do with a bit more of a fundamental character. Namely I call it macroscopic quantum superpositions. Of course here I described optomechanics, I didn't use the word quantum yet but you can already guess that we use the word quantum because we will use these interactions to actually bring this mechanical motion to the quantum regime. Namely we would like that these vibrations end up behaving according to quantum physics. And what quantum physics also allows is actually to take this mechanical mass and prepare it into a superposition state. Where this mass will be doing two different things at the same time, either being a one position and another or vibrating in one way or another one and so on. So really. And then of course there is a fundamental question which is to ask whether is there any fundamental limit? Is there any fundamental limit in the validity of the superposition principle? Or a similar question is can arbitrarily large masses be placed in a quantum superposition state? So these questions are basically motivated by pure intellectual curiosity. And for the, we as human beings, we strive always for discovering things and for exploring things that we don't know. So this should raise the curiosity of any scientist to think whether these questions have an answer. And of course the only thing we can do is just try to explore that. Just to do experiments, see if we observe the quantum superposition principle with yet bigger and bigger masses. If this is the case then we have an answer to this which is no. If this is not the case, of course that's always hard to answer this because it could be that you don't observe that because you are not doing the experiment correctly or you are not isolating well the system and so on. But at least if you observe superpositions with larger and larger objects, you give a no answer to these questions. And of course, I mean, compared to traditional quantum experiments, this is a big leap in mass. So for instance, large superpositions. So the largest mass that has been prepared in a microscopic superposition in the context of matter wave interferometry doing this double slit type of experiments. Today, the record was very recently achieved in Vienna by the group of Markuzarn and this is of the order of 10 to the four atomic mass units of masses that have 10 to the four. So this explores much larger regimes. So this is a bit of a fundamental question which is actually also very relevant here in Trieste because traditionally there was Professor Girardi who had major contributions regarding this question and today there are still research groups here working on this such as the group of Angelo Basi with Matteo Calezzo who is also here which from the theoretical point of view, try to derive alternative theories to quantum physics that are consistent with quantum physics at small scales but predict that quantum physics will break down as soon as we understand it as soon as the masses are sufficiently large. And these are theories that give very nice predictions. They predict you will not be able to prepare a quantum superposition of this mass at this scale, hence doing experiments and showing that you can would falsify such theories, okay? So this motivates very well these questions. Another actually super interesting related question is to think that these objects start to be so massive that they generate a gravitational field that could be measured. Then there is also fundamental question. If I have a mass that is so large that it generates a gravitational field that can be measured, what happens if this source of gravity is placed into a superposition state? What is the gravitational field that such a superposition state generates? Okay, so namely what is the space time metric generated by a mass in a quantum superposition state? And of course this question is relevant because as we know, unfortunately, we still don't have a unified theory of gravity and quantum physics. And this somehow my approach, this terrain where we don't have a very well defined theory from a very different regime, a very low energy kind of experiments where you have very low energy experiments but that nevertheless prepare a big mass into a large superposition state and then you look what is the space metric that such a superposition generates, okay? And there are many people that are very interested in that. And somehow also related to that question of the interplay between gravity and quantum physics there is also another yet very interesting question which is whether can we entangle the motion of two massive objects using the gravitational interaction? So the idea would be imagine you have one of these two big masses suspended, okay? They can move and now you want to entangle this motion of degrees of freedom using the gravitational interaction, okay? And many people believe that this is a very interesting question because if you were able to entangle the mechanical motion via the gravitational interaction that they have between them, this would indicate that gravity needs to be quantized, or otherwise if gravity could not be quantized it's completely a classical communication channel then there would be no way that you can entangle the motion between massive objects, okay? There are papers about that which I can refer to but I myself I'm not an expert on these topics, okay? So don't expect very qualified discussions on this, okay? But that just motivates and at least gives a very nice figure of merit because if you now try to actually see how large the mass should be so that this entanglement is a generation, this interaction is large enough so that you can entangle, of course you need big masses. If you put small masses that's impossible, okay? And again this hints onto exploring experimentally the interplay between quantum physics and gravity, okay? So this is this type of questions regarding more fundamental character of why optomechanics is interesting because it allows us to bring massive objects in the quantum machine, good. Another questions about that? Okay, so a second aspect somehow related has to do with quantum even though sometimes you might not even need quantum physics but at least to use these objects, these vibrations of massive objects as extremely good sensors. As you can already guess that if we are doing experiments where we want to bring this mechanical motion to the quantum regime, this will require these mechanical degrees of freedom to be extremely well isolated from the environment. If they are very well isolated from the environment this also means that as soon as the environment does something that you don't expect, you will see this effect onto the motion. So these objects will be extremely fragile to the environment which also means extremely sensitive, okay? And hence a side application of this and many people are interested in that is in using these optomechanical systems and as extremely good sensors, okay? So the idea is that this mechanical motion is ultra sensitive to environment, okay? Because a bit you see already from the physics they introduced that it is as soon as it displaces so and it can be measured very well because you already see if there is a bit of displacement under the mechanical motion this changes the resonance frequency of the resonator and of course using electromagnetic fields you can measure this with a lot of precision, okay? So and indeed this is a bit what is behind why these optomechanical systems are used in LIGO because the combination of this, of the fact that the mechanical motion is so sensitive to external perturbations and the use of optical or electromagnetic field interferometers leads to very good sensors and that's why they are used for instance at LIGO. Set in combination with optical interferometry for instance this can lead to something as sensitive as LIGO is and also from a more applied point of view maybe not so fundamental but still very interesting and applied point of view you can use these systems for very nice things. So imagine this typical optomechanical setting. Now I make the optomechanical setting like this. I put a cantilever, a trampoline, okay? And on top of the trampoline I put a mirror. Wait, let's do it like that. Okay, I put a trampoline and here below the trampoline there is a mirror that connects with another one that is fixed and then I have my nice resonator whose frequency depends on the position. Now imagine that now on top of this cantilever I put a very tiny mass, okay? Something is deposited on top. Say a virus or a molecule. I don't know how to plot it. Whatever, some extension. I put a molecule on top. Then the mass of course will displace a little bit the cantilever and this will change the resonance frequency of the resonator which then I can measure with a lot of precision. Okay, so for instance these systems can be used as a way to weight very tiny masses and actually the numbers are amazing of you know these are, you can weight the smallest masses with these type of systems. Okay, so for instance this allows you to make a very accurate weight of small objects. You could also use them for, also for accelerometers because if this is now imagine inside this concept is inside an object that is actually moving such as a car, imagine now when we accelerate this would also create displacements onto the cantilever and you will be able to measure that with a lot of sensitivity of whether it is rotating and so on. So this same concept applies for applications in accelerometry and inertial sensing in general. As well as also in terms of sensing can also be used for fundamental applications. In particular to measure so-called short distance, short distance forces. Okay, also with this concept now imagine I do the following thought experiment. Okay, I put my optomechanical device here which can be vibrating and then I approach this mass here very close to a surface, okay? Or put it, yeah put it like that. Very close to a surface, okay? And now imagine that behind the surface I either approach a mass and this surface imagine it's made of a perfect conductor so that all these Casimir forces are shielded. Then behind this wall I just approach a mass. I approach a mass and I move it, okay? Then of course when I approach a mass it generates a gravitational force to this cantilever so it will displace it. And if this mass is approached and removed periodically it will give a driving force, okay? And with that I should be able to measure gravity at short distances. Actually this is very interesting from the fundamental point of view because Newton's law at a scale below one millimeter has been measured really not very accurately, okay? So it is not falsified yet that Newton's law should is way, way stronger at shorter distances that at large distances. And this is very interesting because there are many models in high energy physics such as models in for instance in extra dimensions which has a prediction that gravity at short distances should be way, way stronger, okay? And this has not been falsified yet. And this type of experiments could do that, okay? All right, then the last point so therefore, yeah people in Optomechanics always say there are these three areas of motivation, microscopic quantum superpositions, the area of quantum or in general sensing and the third one has to do with quantum transaction or in general which is relevant for quantum information processing and the idea is the following. The idea is for what it's meant by quantum transaction is in many applications in the context of quantum technologies it might be relevant to be able to couple quantum systems of very different nature, okay? Because some systems are very good for doing something other systems are better for something else and you would like to use them both but at some point you need to couple them. How do you couple them, okay? So mechanical motion is a very nice degree of freedom to actually couple all type of different mechanical systems, a different quantum systems and I will give you some examples. So the idea is here to use the motion of some massive object to couple different quantum systems for quantum information processing, QIP. And I give you an example. Imagine you want to couple the spin degree of freedom with the motion of the degree of freedom of an ion, okay? The spin degree of freedom that you might have in a solid spin like an Mb centering diamond and you want to couple it to the charge to the motion of an ion. How would you do that? Okay, as a thought experiment, imagine you could use one of these nice cantilevers that is vibrating and on one part of the cantilever I put a magnetic tip that generates some magnetic field lines that will couple to a single spin that is on the surface of some solid. And on the other side of the cantilever, on the other wall I put some charges that creates some electric field that now couple to the motion of an ion. And that's the idea. So this now by moving, so you see as soon as the ion moves it makes an electrostatic force to the cantilever, the cantilever is displaced and by being displaced the magnetic field at the presence of the spin qubit is modified. And now in this way you just can couple the spin degrees of freedom to the motion of degrees of freedom of an ion. And this is achieved by using a mechanical system that needs to be in the quantum regime such that this coupling is coherent, okay? This is the idea. And the same concept applies to many other type of systems. And in particular one that is very important is to couple electromagnetic fields but of very different frequencies. In particular it would be super interesting to be able to couple coherently microwave fields to optical fields. Because optical fields are great to communicate over long distances because they can be put into fibers. And microwave fields inside dilution refrigerations are nice degrees of freedom to couple to superconducting qubits. So say you have now a very nice quantum computer inside a dilfridge made by superconducting qubits and now you want to, after some computation you want to send the quantum information to another computer which is in another city. You would like to do that by optical light of course to use the fibers. So how do you couple microwave fields to optical fields which have very different frequency and very different nature. So then again you could think about the following device that actually is implemented experimentally not in the form I draw it but the concept. So to couple microwave fields to optical conversion you could do the following. I will basically merge these two diagrams into one. Okay, this one and this one. So now imagine you do the following. I put one of my mechanical motions like that. But this mechanical motion, this mechanical object on this part will have a mirror and on this part will have a conducting plate. And then that's the idea. Here you connect to an LC circuit and this you connect to a nice optical cavity. So this is the thing that is moving. It's a bit big but you know what I mean. So it's a conducting plate and here is a mirror. And here then you have optical waves and here you have microwaves, okay. And this is again a way that by coupling microwaves to the mechanical motion of this system this mechanical motion then couples to optical light. Okay, and there are experiments where basically they implement this concept. And then they can send for instance one, they can transfer one photon in the microwave regime to a photon in the optical regime. And again they use this motion. Okay. Good, so this I think gives you a fair overview of the topic of quantum optomechanics and it's motivation. And so I don't know if you have questions about that because this would conclude the introduction of motivation. Are you motivated for optomechanics now? After this? Hopefully yes. So then the three next hours will be interesting. So now we will do then a 10 minutes break and then we start with the theory. Do you have questions? Good. Well, I'm still not sure.


Welcome to this episode of the structural engineering channel podcast, a podcast focus on helping structural engineering professionals stay up to date on technical trends in the field and also help them to succeed in their careers and lives. I'm your co-host Alexis Clark. I'm a licensed professional engineer in Texas and I graduated with a bachelor's in civil engineering from UT Austin. I work at Hilti North America's headquarters as the product manager for chemical anchoring portfolio in the US and Canada. In this very special episode, I'm going to interview my co-host, Matt Picardal. Matt hosts the very popular YouTube channel, Structural Engineering Life, through which he promotes the structural engineering profession to engineering students that are not familiar with the industry perspective. In this episode, Matt is going to talk to us about what he has learned from building his YouTube channel. Matt is a licensed engineer practicing on structural engineering projects in California with an undergraduate degree from Cal Poly Pomona and a master's in structural engineering from UC San Diego. He has designed and managed various types of building structures including residential, wood apartment buildings, commercial steel buildings and concrete parking structures and towers. Today, he's going to share with us a peek behind the curtain of his YouTube channel for structural engineering topics with over 25,000 subscribers. Before we dive into this week's conversation, just a short reminder that while most of us are under quarantine right now, EMI is still publishing free content for engineers almost daily. Just visit EngineeringManagementInstitute.org and click on content to read articles, listen to podcasts or watch videos, all focused around helping engineers succeed in their careers and life. Matt, thanks for joining us today here on the Structural Engineering Channel podcast. Hey, Alexis. Yeah, thanks for having me. I mean, I'm usually here. You're usually on this side of the table. Yeah, so it's interesting to just be on the other side, but it's pretty cool. So, you know, I'm excited to share all this stuff that I learned and excited with today's topic to share what I've been learning throughout all this. Good, because I have some pretty juicy questions for you. So you need a bubble for those. Awesome. All right.  Matt, can you just tell us a little bit more about your history as a structural engineer, your path getting here, projects that you work on, stuff like that? Yeah, sure. So I got my undergrad at Cal Poly Pomona Masters at UC San Diego, like you said, and, you know, I've had a lot of internships. I think I had about three or four internships during my, from undergrad to grad school. And then that's how I pretty much got into the structural engineering industry. I had some civil engineering internships and structural then, you know, after I graduated, then I got my first, my first position at DCI engineers, and that's where I'm still at right now. And yeah, it's been really cool. I mean, it's, I've been, there's always something to learn at least with the projects that I have and kind of the position that I've been put in. There's obviously a lot of responsibilities, but lots of cool projects and there's always something new to learn in terms of maybe a new material, a new building. And, and even like getting into the project management and more of the business side of things. It's, it's been really cool. And that's why I'm still, you know, still excited about this profession. There's so much to learn, not just in the structural engineering technical portions, but also the management and business aspects as well. Absolutely, absolutely. And to be a really successful, well rounded engineer, you need to know more than just the technical it is about knowing those different aspects. So I like that you share that with our listeners. So dive straight into the topic, talk about your YouTube channel today, structural engineering life. What inspired you to start a YouTube channel. That's not something most structural engineers do every day. No, it's not.   And then, you know, once you transition, it's a tough transition. But then I look back on my path, it was like, yeah, I didn't know anything about the industry either. You know, when I first got into the industry, my first internships, you know, it was like shell shock. Oh, that's not what we learned in school. That's not how we do it. Exactly. You know, and, and things like that. And a lot of students didn't really know about that, you know, when I'm talking to them, and I was like, how did I get into it? Well, fortunately for me, I had someone that did work in the industry, you know, that went to grad school and I could ask him questions about, hey, what's grad school like, do I need to go to grad school? What about the structural engineering industry, what firms are good, what firms aren't good, what type of positions are there. And fortunately, I had that one person if I didn't have that one person. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be where I am today, and probably getting into the structural engineering industry too, but I realized that not, you know, like, there's a lot of people like that, but that didn't have that person that that contact where they can find out more about the structural engineering industry and you know, that was one of my things about of starting the channel get get that resource out there for students that are interested in in the industry and yeah I also looked at I kind of forgot about it I looked at looked online it's like all this stuff that I was googling online, you know when I was a student, there wasn't anything there for the most part. And then I just figured once I got into the industry, someone else will do it you know someone will provide those resources. But then after that career fair that I went to, I looked online and yeah there was stuff online but it was like in the Reddit forums where everyone hated their lives and you know it's a lot of negative things about the industry. And if you're a student that's what you're doing you're, you're going online seeing what this industry you're getting into and if all you see are those negative posts about, you know about the industry and they some one particular person just had a really bad experience and he's posting all this negative stuff well that's what the students are reading because there's not enough positive content out there. So that was another motivating factor for me was like, hey this, there should be like more positive stuff out there. Absolutely, because I talked to a lot of structural engineers you to like, you know they love their jobs it's a great industry it's a great But there's just not enough of us to putting stuff out there on the internet where everyone's at to help inspire the next generation to come over it's it's only, you know I think there should be more, more of it like there because the majority of, you know the profession that's like you know it's great but if more of us can just put more positive content out there will help inspire the next generation, you know attract the best and brightest. I love that I think that's so true and I really it goes back to the saying be the change you wish to see in the world I think that's all it really is so thank you for taking up arms and grabbing it by the horns I love it. Matt, for those of us who have never started a YouTube channel before.  So, in terms of starting the just wanting to start a channel I think the biggest obstacle is not really coming up with the topics.  You know a lot of things already you've been in the industry for a while, or even if you just got into the industry. You know something and you want to share it with people. And for me that was that was the situation for me I had like these two inner voices like hey you know all this stuff you can help allow a lot of students. And you know just to share, share your experiences because it can really help them out because you're in the same situation. And you know these are things that they should know, but no one's teaching them, or no one's putting it out. There was one voice the positive voice that really wanted me to push but then there's also this other voice where it was like, you know what gives you the right to put out contact your, you don't have your PhD. You're not smarter enough you don't have enough experience. What are people going to think. You don't, you don't look good on camera, you're not good at speaking. All these things, all that stuff is like holding you back, or was holding me back from, from putting out that content like I already had all the content I'm living the content, you know, and all that other stuff that that second voice it was kind of just like I think that's the hardest part for people, like getting over that getting over that fear of. You're going to expose yourself to people, you know and and for me getting over that it's because I guess the way I got over it was just talking to people and what one of the things that I realized was basically looking at it as I have the ability to do it and I had the responsibility to do it because I can help people and people need help. Do I have the ability. Yeah, we have all these tools in front of us YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, all the social media stuff so you can do it. To me it was like, Hey, it's your responsibility to do it because you can help people out. And you have all the knowledge so what's what's stopping you like why are you being so selfish, you care more about yourself and your feelings. And all the things that are holding you back, then then just putting the content out there that can help a lot of people and I know a lot of people know stuff. And what's what's kind of tragic is when they, they want, they want to share it but they don't because if they did share it. And so many people could have just benefited from it could have helped their lives. It could have helped them at the work could have advanced their careers but they never shared that so I think that's the real tragedy of people, you know kind of giving into their lives. Oh, I'm not good enough there. No one wants to listen. So by making that choice and sharing it. I mean you can help a lot of people and I think that outweighs a lot of, of all those inner demons I guess are those low self confidence things. Well, that's such a fantastic motivator is doing it for others and not for yourself but it's hard because what you're doing is like everything that goes against imposter syndrome and I know I suffer from imposter syndrome like many of us do who are young in industry, whether we're personally does less tenured or you know various other reasons why you may feel that way. Kind of going above and beyond and trying to combat that because you're not only saying oh hey I can do this it's I'm going to put this on stage for everyone to see. So it's it takes a lot of strength to do that and I think that is amazing and I'm glad that you took up this. Maybe like a mantra of almost responsibility to others is greater than my own self doubt. That's really awesome. Yeah, I mean, because now it's not about you anymore it's about other people, and then that way that's how I got over it kind of like putting it in that position that, you know, I should help people out because I can and I have the ability to and whatever I don't know, I'll learn on the way, like, like, like he said, or I mean everything's a skill base I didn't know how to speak. I took a public speaking class that definitely helped, but I'm still not like the world's best speaker, I still mess up on camera a lot. So just learning on the way and knowing that it's a journey so definitely like you're not going to be good the first time but you need to take that that first step if you really want to do something like this so just to kind of clarify so the audience that you're really going after for the most part is the is the student, likely in college or in grad school, who are already in pursuit of a structural engineering career path, maybe. Yeah, my main audience is students and young professionals that are probably in their five years or less. Okay, basically my audience is whoever I was. I'm just like the step right above right so we're calling all the mats. Yeah, like if you've been in the industry for less than five years hey I can show you what I know obviously I can't be like, I can't tell you how to go above what I've done in terms of like hey how to be a business owner how to be a principal how to be an associate or whatnot, because I haven't done it but hey, I've been that young engineer that didn't know anything. And now I'm getting into project management so I know a little bit about that and sharing my lessons that that I'm learning in that position too. So, and I've been a student so whatever I've been in the in the past like I can help you out because I've been there, I don't need to be like some certified student expert or whatnot it's hey I've done it, and I'm living it and I can show you what I know and hopefully it helps you out and in one way or another. Absolutely, it's mass mentorship, or is it not mentorship. I have a bad pun in here in this quarantine my level of humor and sophistication has just gone right down so we're going to get some more puns. Yes, so many puns. Perfect, so we talked a little bit about your audience. You've got a really wide range of topics on your channel it's awesome so there seems to be a lot about awareness. You've got the day in the life of the structural engineer you have what is structural engineering you have a little bit about coaching which is really seems to be your passion. You've got stuff about grad school how to pass a licensure exam how to get an internship or build your resume. And then you've got some that are even technical which I think is really nice as you start to talk about what is like to be a project manager what are some of these technical topics and how do I make it digestible for my audience you've got earthquake engineering you've got which post tension concrete literature you have ready which I enjoy that that's the real nerdy one that I really like.  Sure if, for me, and I think if it was it's basically just what was the stuff that I wanted to know when I was a student. When I was first year structural engineering profession second year third year, all the things that I wish somebody would have like told me so I could have saved myself a bunch of time. That's pretty much how I create my content like hey what steel books are there what are some good steel examples where I can get, you know some some good materials and resources for this project I'm working on. And it was a lot of what do you call it self research like these are the things that I would Google online. What are the best post tension concrete books what are the best steel books etc what are the best resources. And yeah so all those things it's all the things that that I wanted to know and all the stuff that I Google that's that's pretty much how I create my content because again it's I guess my audience is what I would have told myself when I was in that position. And yeah I think that's something that someone's thinking about doing hey that's the easiest way to go about it like what what were you what were you doing what were you searching for. Yeah, and there's there's there's always someone in that same position that you're in before and they want to get to where you're at. Of course, do you get a lot of organic requests from your from your audience. Yes, actually that too like in the comments. Like someone suggested structural engineering reality versus expectations so I was like oh that's a good topic and so whenever very funny. Yeah so when someone like request a comment or something. You know I have like my Trello board or your to do list and you know I just take their comment, put it in there. And when I'm trying to create content say I got my own pieces but then I also get a lot from the audience and that definitely helps out a lot too so I definitely try to mix in both of those. I love it. That's awesome. I mentioned earlier that you had 25,000 subscribers to your channel which is no small feat. How is it that you managed to grow your channel so quickly and how is it that you sustain engagement with your audience to where you continue to grow that base of subscribers. You know I think it's really just about. It's crazy like yeah 25,000 it's like I can't even imagine that many people but you know it's luckily it's been it's been able to turn out like that and in terms of the growth on how I, I guess, got that much. I think it really has to do about knowing. First of all, knowing who your audience is and caring for your audience. I think those are the two main attributes because if you know your audience. And it doesn't have to be all fancy and whatnot. I think the day in the life video was something that I googled when I was a student like what's the day in the life of a structural engineer.  And so knowing that the audience would want to see that because that's something that I wanted to see and something that they're googling. That definitely helped out in the growth because knowing a little bit about YouTube to because YouTube is a search engine. So if I googled it I know someone else is googling it around the world and there's some like applications where you can kind of figure out what the keywords and whatnot to get a little technical. You can figure out how many searches there are for a particular term like where are the best steel books. So Google's a search engine YouTube or Google owns YouTube so YouTube's also a search engine. So that's one tactic you can do to to kind of boost your your viewings to see what what people are searching for and that comes back to knowing your audience what are they searching for. So that's the kind of engineering there too with this with the keyword optimization. Yeah, exactly like there's a learning a little bit about marketing, engineering and learning how these kind of even business to I mean like, if you get into YouTube, you treat YouTube as your client. What does YouTube wants, like what do they really want. Like, and if you go through like the analytics and whatnot hey they want watch time so like you said reverse engineering. They first people are using YouTube as a search engine. So yeah, you basically figure out what people are searching for and then you format a video where it's entertaining enough and educational enough that they would want to watch the whole thing. Because if you help YouTube out by giving them watch time they're going to help you out by showing your video to a lot more people. So there's a lot of stuff that be able to learn just I guess going on this journey. But also, like I said, knowing your audience and caring for your audience to like I take, it takes up a lot of time to respond to a lot of the comments and question I try my best. And I've responded to almost all of them. But yeah, it does take a lot of time but it also shows that you know you're there for your audience and if they suggest a video and you make the video. It shows that you're listening to them to so really it's exactly like, you know, it's about them. It's about your audience. I think that's one of the fastest ways that you can grow is knowing what your audience is searching for knowing how to help your audience, and showing that your audience that you care that you're there for them that you're listening. So really it's about them and really not about me it's just, I just share what I know to help them out and I think that's the fastest way that you can grow your channel. I love that. That's awesome. That's really great wisdom to and I think that that percolates into so many different aspects of life that you actually care about the people that are on the other end. It's going to make it really worthwhile for you and it's going to make it worthwhile for them and that's that's very transparent. I think that's very obvious in a lot of different ways. Alright, so I'm going to take a slight turn downward so I've seen. I know a lot of us have seen so many different articles in the past couple of years about how kids, particularly in the US and the UK are at least at least when I'm reading these articles three times as likely to want to be YouTubers, or a blogger, which I didn't even know that was a word until recently, which is it's hard for me to swallow they'd rather be that than an astronaut. And while I know that there are a ton of different people who are in the engineering and STEM professions, who spend their own time, you know, to work hard during a week and throughout the year to bring awareness to children about these different professions. Right now we live in a really interesting time in which we have more and more children consuming all the different content on YouTube and different channels on the internet. And it's even more compounded now that we're in this quarantine social distancing world. So I'm curious, what are some of the ways that our listeners can incorporate some of the STEM activities that they would be doing in their schedules, and how do you channel that into outreach like you're doing through media like YouTube or other different internet avenues. That's a good question so it's, it's kind of like asking how do you find time to do this stuff how do you find the duties extracurricular activities Wow. You know you're probably a working professional that works at least 40 hours a week, and may have a family, and you may have other extracurricular activities. For me what I did and my advice to people that particularly civil engineers doesn't really matter what geotech or whatnot or structural, but use your profession as, as your content like document what you're doing instead of just spending hours trying to come up with what to say or what to do or, or what content should I create. Hey what you're doing right now someone wants to be and if you're a structural engineer. Someone wants to be a structural engineer. What are you doing right now in the office like what did you work on today. That's the easiest way to integrate both of those things to. So you don't have to spend all this time outside or your weekends coming up with content and ideas and scripting and all this stuff it's that's easiest way just document what you're doing like, like I think with one of my videos, the day in the life one. Yeah that's all I did I just took my camera with me to the office. I didn't even talk I didn't script anything I just went to work and just turn the camera on. And people want to see that because there's not enough engineers that are doing it there's plenty of other. You know that you see on YouTube youtubers doing it people want to see that people want to see people like you're seeing in this quarantine to it's like, yeah, you want to know what you're doing and that's the Facebook and that's you may not think people want to see that, but they do and the numbers prove it like people want to know what your days like what the professions like. And you don't have to create anything you're already doing it at work so maybe you're working on some projects you can document what you've learned. Even like with me, some of the things that I did it for was I was conducting interviews for interns like we're trying to recruit interns interviewing interns. And I just go over I make a video about hey here's what you know how what we're looking for interviews or how to improve your resume and it's it's all the stuff that I've already done at work and now I'm just regurgitating it or just pressing record and learning the lessons that I learned, and it didn't take me extra time except just pressing that record button. And I think that's easiest way you can integrate these STEM activities is you're already doing it to share it, press the record button or, or blog about it or, or do a podcast about it but important thing is to share it, you're already doing it. I love it. I think that's such an easy thing that everyone can take back and implement to their own life is we're already doing the work of an engineer documented. I love that that's very simple. I think a lot of us, I'm very intimidated by some of the people like yourself who are a little bit more savvy in doing video editing or even I don't use. What is the one that they Photoshop Photoshop I clearly I don't know Photoshop. I think about all the different media outlets, or even you know, self taught people like yourself who just start this up. Sometimes they create really fantastic content and it looks nice or you know video editing is really strong. And for me that's an intimidating factor is that's not a strength of mine and it's not actually an interest that I want to pursue to learn to be better at and so I think when you make it as easy as just document what you're doing and put it out there and makes it a lot digestible and it makes it something you can really put your arms around and embrace and want to actually pursue. Yeah, I think, you know, it doesn't even have to be technical. I know, I know you're getting into more of the sales, the technical sales. I mean there's a lot of people that want to get into that for more of the extrovert engineers and whether you're so whatever you're doing whether you're technical, or, or in whatever aspect of the engineering side you're in or even in the business. There's something that someone wants to be in your position like you have advice for people. And I know you already mentor a lot of students and whatnot so you're doing a great job at that but if more people did that I mean it's a lot more resources for people and, you know, like you said, like, I know it's exciting. And, yeah, I was self taught, but the good thing is you know when you first start your videos you know that no one's going to watch it. So it's like, you have time to, you have time to get better. Like my first video, oh man it was, it was like a two minute intro video.  I stuttered. No, that's not what I wanted to say.  So for a two minute video it took me like definitely more than an hour. And then more hours editing all the mistakes out just to get into a two minute video. But that's, I mean that's the first step you know you get better.  Yes. And I think that's what's cool people can see your journey to like it's kind of like a documentary of what you went through. That is very cool I like the way you phrase that is a documentary of your own growth that's good. And no one starts out as a natural everyone has to learn I guess. Yeah, for sure. Alright, so the next few questions that I have are kind of a personal interest but I think that especially at this point in the episode if we have listeners who are interested in doing this on their own and now they're finding hey I have a little bit extra time that I used to not have. And I want to start dipping my toe into this this content creation world. I have a couple of questions specific to either episodes that you've done or how you're coming up with your ideas. So, I'm curious for you so I looked at your episode reality versus expectations which has over 170,000 views, and I was cracking up the entire time it was fantastic. You had a lot of different nuggets of wisdom throughout that entire episode. What is three of the biggest things you would want to share with our listeners here. In terms related to that episode on like reality versus expectations. Yeah, so for me, you know the first thing I always tell students is that are trying to get in like, you're not going to know anything like, like really once you get into the structural engineering industry. You're really not going to know a lot. And that's going to be that's completely okay. We'll teach you and will mentor you. And, you know, we're expecting you to ask questions.  How come I didn't do that how come I don't know this.  No it's okay we know that we've been in your position to. So it's not like you're doing it. You're not the first person to go through this. So I think that's one of the first things that I want to say is, hey you're not going to know anything but that's okay if you keep that attitude of asking questions and always wanting to learn more and being curious. I think that's what a lot of firms are looking for that curiosity, you're not afraid to ask questions and give give you your insights on on your problem solving solutions on like hey here's a problem that I solved here's what I think might work and it may not work. That's fine but you're going to learn something when you asked your, your manager or whatnot. So, knowing that it's okay that you don't know anything that it really is at this point in the, I guess the structural engineering industry, you know the education system at least in my opinion hasn't caught up with or prepared them enough for the structural engineering industry and what we actually do. And that's fine like and firms are expecting that so definitely don't feel bad if you don't know anything. And the second thing is, I think you guys should be aware of the business aspects you know when you work for a firm. It's knowing the bigger picture I'm always a big opponent of hey knowing the bigger the bigger picture of the project so it kind of comes down to knowing the phases of a project knowing how a project even gets into the firms into the firm's workflow and what the clients are expecting who are your clients what they're expecting what your manager is expecting what phase are you in. So knowing the bigger picture in the different phases of the project. That can definitely help you out in your career in terms of in terms of efficiency because a lot of engineers think younger engineers when they get into it they think it's all about calcs calcs calcs. That we're running a business here. And yes you have to find that right balance and that brings me to my third point. What I think is a really good for newer engineers is make it as simple as possible. No simpler because we do tend to go, especially with all these softwares that we have, we tend to sometimes just jump straight into the software and just be like, Hey, here's what the software gave me. And then your manager goes, How do you know that's right. Well, because that's what it's, it's a software show. Yeah, really learn like I think that's another skill that you should learn when you get into the structural engineering profession is learning how to build your intuition build your how to back check your own calcs, or especially what the programs doing, and some engineers are like, Oh, you may have to know all this, all the technical stuff and etc and like doing all these complicated equations and do finite element analysis by had no it's, hey, simplify it down to a simple beam problem, do a static problem. Yeah, it's not exactly as accurate but if are you in the ballpark at least, or maybe even just. Alright you did a trust analysis on this program that you've never used before. What, and you're not sure that you're modeling techniques are right. Why don't you try it on another program that you are familiar with are you getting the same values. So really knowing how to check your work to check the work of the programs and knowing how to simplify things so you can get that feeling of hey yeah this this seems right or this this feels right, you know, and, or that this is the behavior that we're expecting so really simplifying things down to what they really just need to be not everything needs to be a finite element analysis. I like that I like that simplify it but nobody no simpler. Perfect. And one that you posted most frequently was your home office setup, as you transition to the work from home life, which obviously super timely. Question for you about how do you get these out. And how do you communicate these to your audience in a an effective time manner where this this content is very urgent the more the quickly or the more quickly a listener can listen to your topic they can then implement and take whatever learning they took and put it into their work life now when they're at work from home status. How is it that you get information out quickly and make sure it reaches the most amount of people in a short amount of time. Sure it's. For me it is really.  I know I'm not the only one if you're taking the PE exam or the SC exam. You're feeling the same way that I'm feeling. So, yeah, just making a video of it was like, you know I found out about it.  Oh, here's, let me just turn on the camera because I know other people are feeling the same exact way that I'm feeling. So, is that extra work, not really it's just me like pressing the camera and in terms of structure for me, I used to script a lot like almost word for word when I was starting out. But now I can, I'm getting more into the habit of just bullet pointing my points you know I just don't want to rant but kind of just having some structure. So, viewers can follow a little bit better. So just make for me now it's a lot more about bullet points hey here's the thing that I want to go through and then I'm getting better at speaking that way so communication skills along the way and and yeah knowing what what my audience is going through and and posting relevant content about that and like in terms of that desk video. It was, there's just so much negative stuff on the news about this whole, you know code 19 thing and and whatnot it was like, Alright, what do I want to see. Well I just want to a lot of people are posting their desk and it's oh that's that's fun that's cool what do you have on your desk or how are you working from home. And so for me thinking about my audience, you know what would they want to see like something fun and something cool something visually appealing that's relevant to what we're all going through right now. Yes. And something not negative something a little more positive a little more fun. Okay, that's how I came up with that so knowing. Yeah, again whatever one's going through. Okay, so you have so you have to draw because you have a relevant topic that's positive and interesting. How do you do the push, do you just post it to YouTube and see who takes it or see who clicks on it do you post to your LinkedIn seed as well how how do you get the message out. Oh yeah so kind of like the marketing thing about that so let me see the strategy behind that. So this this is gets gets a little more technical in terms of the algorithms of YouTube and LinkedIn and and whatnot but the way I come up with some terms of YouTube just to give you some YouTube tips. The most effective ways is to see what's already been done before, and what's been popular already so I would Google things like desk setup or desk tours and again the kind of goes into like the, the title, what titles work and what titles will make you click on what that will make you want to click on the video. And so for YouTube that's one of the things. And for LinkedIn it's the same thing. It's, how do I get people's attention so that they're interested in this this this video, and at least for that video. I like to work snippets, because in LinkedIn, if they're scrolling, you know a lot of people have less attention spans than if they're on YouTube. So knowing that if I post like really cool shots of like close ups of the gear and, you know, put in some background showing what the video is about in subtitles. That's a good way to catch someone's attention while they're scrolling on LinkedIn it's a video. Okay, to work from home, and then it's like, Oh, it's visually appealing. And if interested, they can click on that so it's kind of like definitely marketing and what people care about knowing what people care about know how to get people's attention. Because you can have the best content in the world, but if no one knows about it, or if you can get people to pay attention. What's the point. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, exactly. And it's interesting you keep bringing it back to doing research to see what other people are already looking at, and trying to take some of those best practices and takes those little snippets of what it is you're trying to create that's unique and adding it all together. It's interesting. It's an interesting formula. The psychology behind marketing and I'm still learning myself and it's definitely very interesting and especially when you're doing engineering marketing of some sort. Yeah, for sure. It's definitely definitely a lot to learn it. And yeah, human psychology is interesting too and it's, but it's cool because I mean I think everyone should learn something about it because the more we know about people the more you know we can, I think promote the profession better because I think we all tend to keep to ourselves as an industry but the more we market ourselves to the public. Yes. There you go. Stop complaining on why we don't get credit because we don't want to market ourselves totally I couldn't agree more I couldn't agree more there's actually a really interesting. I'm just thinking really quickly there was a really interesting session at NTSA this past year in Anaheim in California Southern California where you are, and it was how to be a better PR representative for structural engineering was very very interesting. Lots of takeaways we could all be better at I think. Yeah, so my final question my final one so I'm bringing it back to what I think is kind of your hallmark video. The day in the life of the structural engineer almost 400,000 views as of this morning which is very impressive so I've watched it a couple of times so I think it's hysterical I love it I think it's really fun. First of all I'm impressed that you blow dried your hair because you pulled out the blow dryer one more time than I do a day which is zero.  I love that you showed you know it takes some coffee to fuel this big engineering brain and keep all the calcs running. I like that it went from everything to including your little bit about your personal exercise and going in and out burger which I'm sure was a shout out to your Californians of course. Yep, but you did you you included things as as familiar and as comfortable as here's my office workspace and this is what it looks like to go to a site visit and you included you know being social and going to lunch with a colleague and you included little things about how you use technology and modeling software in your day to day as well which I just I think was such a well rounded. Example just like you said of things that you were already doing throughout your day and you just turned on the cameras that people could live it with you. As someone I try to be really mindful of the content that I'm consuming because because like you mentioned there's a lot of negative stuff out there there's a lot of repetitive content out there. And I'm curious how is it that you crafted each and every piece of this video and how did you how did you choose what to include. Yeah sure so for the first part like I did I did my research and you know on YouTube there's a lot of videos similar to that but for different industries like the software engineering industry, or any profession you name it there's a lot of videos out like that, but there wasn't the software engineering industry or the structural engineering industry the civil engineering industry. So that's how I first, that's how I first got my idea to to dive into that doing research. Hey, it has traction. Let me try it. And in terms of, you know, coming up with like the shots of what I wanted to do. It was pretty much just okay, like what do I do in the morning it was really wasn't that complicated okay you know I go brush my teeth. I do my hair. I get my keys I drive to work. I had a site visit that day so that was interesting. And then all the programs I work out on I know there's software is a pretty popular to see what what we do the type of software is that we get into there so I wanted to get some shots of that. You know going to lunch so it was really much pretty much just like yeah what I do on a daily basis so in terms of coming up with what to shoot well just doing the stuff that I've already. I'm already doing that day so it wasn't too much to think about that but you know even creating that video, I think that's what was the hardest part of deciding to create that type of video. So it's a personal video it's you know I'm letting you into my life what I go through the shows I watch the food I eat what my routine is, and I know for a lot of engineers that's like, oh you're going to show the whole world that like.  Oh yeah and out to me that was the hardest part to post it but I was experimenting so I just did. I just did it and I was just like, it's an experiment, and one of the lessons I learned from that video was, hey, that is the type of thing that people watch whether you're an engineer or, or, or not, I mean, we're all still people we still want to know what goes into each other's lives and the more you let the audience in doesn't matter if they're engineers, the more connection you have with them, because you know there's a lot of people that want to know that but then a lot of people can relate with that and it's like, I think that's one of the key aspects to have people keep coming back because you know I'm not just like a robot, that's just spitting out numbers. Yes, I'm showing you the lessons that I learned sharing my successes and my failures I think that's probably the most important thing sharing your failures. So people can connect with you because like I you know I share my story about I wasn't great at my GPA I was an average student, and you know like getting called out on on on some of the things that I did and like a lot of the failures that I did like I wasn't the best students and definitely a lot of failures but that's what people connect with the most, because it's hard to connect with, like a 4.2 student.  That wasn't me either. And being able to share your failures and your personal life and all those small little vulnerabilities that really is the connection and the relatability that you're looking for to make it relevant content. I get that. Yeah, and it's tough but that's, I mean we're all people that's what people connect with. All right, so quick quick final question I promise. I know, given my experience in engineering marketing that you create a lot more content that ends that doesn't end up in the final cut. So you maybe create you know 200 hours worth of something and only 100 or even an hours worth gets into the final print. Did you have any bloopers that didn't make it into it that you want to share with us. I'm dying to know. There's just so much like mess ups in terms of because it's weird talking to a camera like you know the final product is is it looks clean but there's editing into that.  And then just like cursing on camera like, oh, why can't I get this and then, and then it turns into like an hour long shoot for like a two minute video. There's definitely things like that and I think yeah in terms of like the behind the scenes there's a lot of things like that where it just messes up and it's, it's kind of embarrassing just to be like wow took you that long to just get through that one sentence. Because it's talking to a camera is very weird. I don't know why this is a lot easier I think just having a person in front of you. It definitely helps but just talking in front of a camera is, I don't know it's just, it's just odd and you just mess up on the most. It doesn't feel naturally great. I agree. Perfect. Well I was just, I had to ask that last one just because I always mess things up myself and so I was curious if you had little fun ones to share but I really really appreciate the insight that you shared I think this is something that everyone has the ability these are tools that are ever in hands. We all have the power to use them for for good like you mentioned we can all be a mentor to the masses if we wanted to share our experiences so I'm hopefully I'm very hopeful that many of our listeners today have heard how it how easy this can be if you just take the little bit of time to do it and I'm very certain that you've inspired many people today. So thank you for joining us today Matt. Yeah, no problem. Thanks Alexis. Wonderful. So for our listeners we really hope that you did enjoy the conversation with that today. We're always here and we love hearing your feedback your comments your questions. If you want to leave those please visit structural engineering channel.com. There you'll find a summary of all the key points that we discussed in today's episode which is episode number 24, as well as links to the resources like Matt's YouTube channel, the structural engineering life. Don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast. Until next time we wish you all the best in your structural engineering endeavors.


Hello everyone today we are going to talk about popcorn popcorn is a favorite snack for a lot of you guys And I know you're wondering if it is a good snack for people with diabetes or people who are trying to lose weight So let's get started Hi guys. I'm at diabetes doctor. I'm an endocrinologist and a diabetes coach So today we are talking about popcorn now Popcorn is something that a lot of people crave and I will tell you nutritional information and you decide if it is good for you Or not it is definitely not a carb-free snack It has carbs in it now pop corn Definitely can be a good snack or a bad snack So I will explain to you what makes it a good snack and what makes it a bad snack So number one thing you need to avoid with popcorn is butter and hydrogenated oils So when you're buying popcorn, you have to be really careful about what you're getting and how much fat you are getting in there So normally popcorn doesn't really have fat unless you add on fat And remember if combination of fat, especially butter and hydrogenated oils with carbohydrates is not a good combination It's going to just multiply the effects of blood sugar spike as a result insulin spike And that's definitely not a good combination for either weight loss or or diabetes So now air popped popcorn is the best way to do it You can drizzle some olive oil to make it a little bit tastier instead of butter But definitely it's something that you have to pay attention to the portion size So three cups of air pop popcorn will have around 15 grams of carbs So as you can see the glycemic index is around 55 which is not super high And it's not super low either but the glycemic load is not that high because again, it's not a dense food It is air popped. So it's so it's actually when you do three cups of the air popped popcorn This can't satisfy you if you are controlling yourself And that's only 15 grams of carbs but on the other hand Most people rarely measure their popcorns and they end up grabbing the whole bag Which can be 30 cups of Popcorn so if that's you I don't think that's going to be a great snack for you But if you can say hey, I'm just going to have three four cups of popcorn and that's all I'm not going to have any more That can be a delicious snack without rising your blood sugar too much So if you guys so let me know what you think Give a thumbs up share this video and give a like and we would like to hear from you We'll see you in the next video. All right. Thank you for watching And I want you to be more informed and more educated. So to do that go ahead and watch this next video right here


What's going on everyone Sam here with late in sports cards for 22 23 a pretty select basketball hobby six box break number 29 Pick your team style. You're up for those four names in our teams We've got Adam K Blazers Ali a with the Sixers Brian C. Nets pelicans Chris F. Kings Pacers Chun Wei W with the Mabs Derek G. Bucks Eric B. Nuggets Grizzlies Kaizo a heat Kenny K with the Suns Kim B. Nick's mark H with the Clippers that is Matt K bulls Matt P. Cavaliers Mizzuno S. Lakers Muhammad a pistons Nicholas M. Raptors Phillip L. Warriors Ray G with the Timberwolves Rory C. Jazz Ryan B. Celtic Sean M. Spurs Thomas C. Rockets Thunder Tim Y. Hawks Victor F with the Hornets Whiming H wizards and Wesley M with the magic. So good luck here guys. Let's get started with box eight behind It depends on what it depends on what box to be honest her like some retails really good some retails really bad I mean, there's some where it's very worth buying a couple and there's some that if you see them Just leave them really depends on what set we're looking at For the most part time I beard and dress like Colonel Sanders. God I don't just soon move to 249 second-year auto just signed an extension nice one there bulls drew holiday try color Jalen Suggs there eason Daniels Joss Silver Sohan for the spurs and Scotty Barnes KD There's a red Trevor Kiehl's with the wheels for the Knicks to 199 Brogdon Kiehl's feel Scotty Barnes try color and I would assume Yeah, true verb true true true Jaden Hardy Walker Kessler future scope Kyrie Irving and I BAM out of bio BAM out of bio on the court side L'Arabia maxi silver Jamal Murray and Alan Terry rookie Keegan Murray rookie Trey young that's a unstoppable Joellen B silver Christian Brown rookie and Julius Randall This is all Jalen Green Yanis I so on there on the select swatches that's game use for the bucks That's on that Miller walkie That is nice Benedict Matherin to 99 on the purple die cut. There you go Pacers in a chat rookie. Yes, perp. Yes Yeah, there's a couple. I mean there's a couple scenarios where we don't send base or we'll split base evenly Nicola Yolkic Jalen Brown, but like night. I would say like 95 percent of our Briggs you get everything Joellen B and Jalen Durant like sometimes it's Bowman. We won't ship like the paper Contenders we don't usually ship the base Andrew Nemhardt and Nicola Yolkic Bobby what up, dude That is Carlos boozer to 49 for the jazz on the blue auto. I love it, dude. It's such a u-card. Oh, that's awesome booza blue David Roddy to 299 and If you could find the math and you could throw that in the recap Yeah, I think you sleep they get perfect All right, guys, I'm gonna drop you a link to penny one Penny one football PYT down to just two to go Steelers and Titans Steelers and Titans Over over over we have Dylan in chat over you over Yeah, the blue boozer was nasty keep people fishing for the heads. That's true every now and then though They'll put there's been I think it's select football. They have like The dummies and they have an ought like an RPA in it I'm like that just in the gates putting like a filler card We're gonna put a filler card and a hit in it. Don't put the filler card or don't put the hit in it You know, you shouldn't put both. There's a chat home grins silver Blick Wesley rookie and Pam out of I'm like really dude really There's Caleb Houston Kyrie Irving nice the 249 Christian Brown rookie auto for the nuggets Nice one there Kevin Porter Jr. and down Terry Yeah extra thick select pack exactly and then you see a dummy and then you see the card like the hit and you're like really Silver Kwi and Jalen Duren. How you doing? heels Beal Marjanbo champ nice one there for the bucks on the rookie select our rookie draft swatches Blue scope. Jai believe that 220 249 and Julius Randall Silver Terry Easton sensations silver Steph and Jalen Suggs Suggsie silver Luca and Chet rookie on to the next one Going on everybody on tiktok. We are live over on YouTube and Twitch Nice blue pillow nice one there. That is gonna be to 299 That's all in that. Yeah, it's Christian Brown not the best signature in the world Keegan rookie Trey filler Chris Middleton scope and Jalen Brown Yeah, nice one there for the magic that Palo is pretty sweet maxi KPJ, there's a Fred Van Vleet tricolor and J Dub on the court side rookie off of the Thunder Jalen Duren future future I call her Keldon Johnson and Oseman jane courtside rookie auto is gonna be Zebo Zach Randall for the Grizzlies with the throwback jersey good Lord man I saw in their Memphis.   It's all about yeah supply and demand and it's all about like timing with cars and stuff It's all about timing as well cat. We got a tie-dye coming up Dyson Daniels Brandon Ingram court side tie-dye five of 25 nice one there for the Pells and Johnny Davis Yeah, so it's a pretty cool pretty cool promotion. We do it every year It's like the biggest promo of the year we do here Niccoli Yovitch to not numbered but that is a select Swatches rookie Jersey Peyton Watson white to at 149 and Benedict's-Mathron. Yeah, mostly rookies, but like big numbered stuff or autographs or game you stuff There's markets for everything man. There's markets for everything Comporter junior scope. Yeah, no problem Bobby. You got it, buddy No, it's not bad at all man shade on sharp. It's pretty sweet the helmet's awesome I would assume we've silver Anthony Simons Jalen Williams rookie Yeah, it's a fun promo that we do we did it last year to OSHA a Baji Jalen Brown tie-dye Washington Jalen Williams on the tricolor and Keegan Mary rookie No, no, no, you're good perv. No questions always welcome them always welcome Always AJ Griffin nice to 99 Tyrese Halliburton Silverado for the Pacers That's Halligod Bradley Biel and Prishan would I be rookie Pistons, there's a Terry Eason tricolor and Jabari Smith rookie That's true true. You don't learn if you don't ask a good point toke J Will March on boat shamp rookie and it's gonna be a Fred van Vleets game used selects watches for the Raptors The new Houston rocket. You've got the freaking Brinkstrap, dude. Good.  It's got a Barnes Bari Smith rookie a space filler Kevin Porter Jr. Nice one there and Pascal Siakum. Yeah, he did. No, he did earn it I don't know if he earned that much to be fair, but he earned a big payday for sure Nice Josh Giddy on the bronze the 49 And Kevin right all right box for get RJ Barry. We might have gotten an RJ Barry base or something But nothing seemed super significant of RJ yet Good old star J And guys just the Steelers and the Titans available. That is it a national break start all next week Tuesday with me that is to barry Smith Jr I'll be breaking Tuesday night Wednesday night Friday night Saturday night and Sunday night and then probably again on Tuesday Jalen Williams jdub That is a Pascal Siakum and Malachi Brannum. There's Trey young That's true. Un-un-drafted Max contract is not good Jalen Duran Cesar McCollum to 75 nice one there. That's Blazers throwback dude get Matt out of here That's that's gonna be a yellow for disturbance of the piece on Matt That's Devin Bissell to at 75 and Tyrese Maxie Steelers yes And Fuego is Kate we got a green coming up here. That's a Devin Booker behind it green Oostman Zhang on the rookie court side three of five there you go thunder Nice one there. Oh, that was a chat, but still nasty. Love the court side greens Yeah, I would say perv the best way is to just go under sold listings and see what they sold for Michael Porter nice to 99 Jalen. How you during purple jersey auto for the Pistons that's on that Detroit Max Christie scope Keldon Johnson It depends perv. It really depends AJ Griffin on the select swatches nice one there The Hawks that is gonna be a Julius Randall to 299 and tie tie It really depends on like you have to look at what a raw sells for versus what a 10 sells for And if like the multiplier it's all it's called like they're called grading multipliers essentially that How much more value a card gains if it gems? Versus if it sells raw same with like based to a raw to a nine is another one too You kind of have to look at it of that because like if a say a card raw sells for 400 and a PSA 9 sells for 420 Then it's not really worth it. Hello Silver Jamal Murray someone needs to buy a personal and get this guy out of here. That's all I know Hello, Tocque How are you doing? Little short queue over on LSE to be like a personal Oh, yeah in a poppy wheat poppy. There's Deontay Murray silver Okay, we need to get this guy out of tiktok chat. It would be Blake acting at the Palo's for sale Yeah, just drop your credit card number Blake. It's all yours Benedict Matherin make sure credit card number expiration date and the three little numbers on the back And that will be yours silver Marjan boat champ. Hey Like what's up Bobby? Bobby That is a J. Dubb nice one there on the blue die cut to what with 249 and Christian Coloca Yes, I'm gonna buy a case keep this guy busy. There we go. I'd like to see he is all in if someone buys a case any case any case What y'all got? Got some vibrance right now about the rip. Oh, that's fun. How has that been? What's it? What's it? Who bought that today? Not Jason was Robert right Robert H. What did you get out of it? I think we're the very sanders Silver stuff Joe Montana silver Blake just spamming random numbers into the chat Benedict Matherin Jalen Green silver Luca and Oshai and Bhaji Cool it Blake cool it Oops Dreamwet nuts right there There's a silver Zion Mom or yes. Yes, Blake Trey young nice one there that is gonna be select swatches game use for the Hawks red or That's gonna be a die cut to 175 of Lamello on the maroon Jake Larabia Make sure to include your social security numbers usually and them to 99 purple rookie Jersey auto that is going to the spurs Congrats, San Antonio Jeffrey picking up the Steelers in Panini one we have one group break spot left on the night J Dubb and Shay one group break spot left on the night Everybody is just the Tennessee Titans J Dubb that is a Christian Wood How many boxes of cards do I have in the room with me right now? Uh Probably around 75. I would think around there. Maybe a little bit less Jaden Hardy rookie LeBron's and snapshots silver Peyton Watson and Walker Kessler If the Titan cell right now Jake will get Roblox On the computer and play there's Jaden Hardy and Scotty Barnes. You really already have Oh, maybe apparently Jake has it all right, I do the I do the obvious There's Devin Booker Are you ripping club penguin come on Jalen how you doing how you during pretty good vibrance vibrance time Jamari Walker rookie Jersey auto to 199 Nice one there for the Blazers That is 299 Kate and Donna Mitchell. Yeah, we're one of the first ones who started it per Who started group breaking back in like 2012? It was rich rich Leighton and Brad. They started back So rich obviously still owns the business He's the one who does you know most of the work for it Wendell Moore junior in terms of getting getting stuff Yeah, product-wise we're probably top three I would say in the potentially in the world Jaden Ivy nice one there and Anthony Simons I know we were looking one time at like the group break prices from like 2014 and 2015.  Oh, yeah, I mean hey, we do it seven days a week man We the terms of volume were one of the top as well. There's Paolo That is a Jalen Brunson Silver Jaden Hardy and another Paolo Yeah, I'll end up going to a national at some point Luca Silver Zion and Andrew Wiggins would love to Love to meet all you guys obviously ooh the 49 Sean Kemp for the Thunder technically that is a sonic card. Scotty Barnes up Chad. How you doing buddy? Oh, it's main Jane. There's Joellen B. Nice one there. I Think it was that I think it was 4.1. I think is what it sold for the Luca logo man. It was 4.1 That is Jibari Smith blue scoped 249 nice one there Chris ball again. That was a while ago That's when like cards were super super super super crazy when like PSI 10 Jordan 86 Fliers were 700 grand Silver Josh Giddy and Jason Taylor Oshai Bhaji That's Jalen Brown silver Nicola Yovic Kate Cunningham part Lamello Purple die cut Jalen Brunson in 99 Nice one there Andrew Nemhard. I mean, it's still big man. Like it's still it's still a huge market It's it's come back to earth. I would say that is a Lake Wesley and Terry Eason. Yeah. Yeah, we have we have group breaks listed for it on Friday already skills Wesley Barrett shade on sharp rookie that is a Zach Levine and Kevin Durant Yeah, yeah coming like it's it's come back to reality in my opinion Like it wasn't really sustainable for stuff to be selling as high as it was back three four years ago now But now it's come back to where it should be to be honest AJ Griffin. There's Devin Booker and Nicola Yovic There's Ivy rookie Murray KD. There's Peyton Watson and Caleb Houston port side rookie last pack of the break. Good luck here, everybody No, we just send it unless the person's in chat and they were like, please please rip it for me We always send it. Yeah, I would know I wouldn't Unless I get like actual confirmation and now the 99 Malcolm Brogdon for the Celtics on the in-flight signatures That is gonna be Johnny Davis line green to 75 and a tie tie at Washington a quick recap here guys pretty solid half case overall We've got Hallow blue to 299 Benedict Matherin to 99 on the die cut green osmane jang to five We've got Trey young Fred Van Vliet, Yannis on tentacumpo Joellen Bede Marjanbo champ Nicola Yovic AJ Griffin and CJ McCollum Might have to hop in let's do it skills. Hell yeah, man Tyrese Halliburton that's Zach Randolph Iowa soon Christian Brown Jabari Walker Jalen Duran Malachi Brannum Malcolm Brogdon Carlos boozer and Sean Ken I'll do it for the break guys. Thanks again for the field coming up next is number 30