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Manufacturing Geeks: YouTube's First "Brainiac Tuesday" Is This Week

Science geeks in manufacturing — and there must be a good many of them — could be a bit distracted at work this week. August 4 through 10 is Geek Week on YouTube. “Brainiac Tuesday” will be featuring videos on science, education, and knowledge.

Brain Gears

For lots of folks in manufacturing, science is fun and exciting. Now we have a whole day on YouTube to indulge our inner geekiness.

Science geeks in manufacturing — and there must be a good many of them — could be a bit distracted at work this week. August 4 through 10 is Geek Week on YouTube. “Brainiac Tuesday” will be featuring videos on science, education, and knowledge.

What will you see if you succumb to the lure of Brainiac Tuesday? Did you know you can find 10-minute explanations of the mysteries of the universe, watch what happens when a red-hot nickel ball sinks into a block of ice or ballistic gel, or see scientific phenomena demonstrated outrageously to get kids excited about science?

Upstart science video channels are lurking in the crevices of YouTube. Two of them, Veritasium and The Spangler Effect, are sponsoring Brainiac Tuesday. Each has an entrancing library of videos threatening to suck up your time. You’re busy, but what the heck…

Veritasium is the place to go if you want to know how to make a quantum bit and see a live real time readout of the spin of a single nucleus. But, we saved you the trip and made it available below:

Other Veritasium videos show slow-motion drum implosions, explore the world’s roundest object, and ask, “Can we really touch anything?”  as well as, “Is it possible to explain Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle in 4 minutes?” Veritasium has a second channel, V2, featuring a must-see “Transistors and the end of Moore’s Law.”

Remember that Mentos and Diet Coke geyser experiment video? In case you missed it, check it out so you don’t feel left out.

That one made Steve Spangler a celebrity science teacher. Spangler found he could pitch science using ordinary materials to blow stuff up or make weird things. Not only has it engaged kids in discovering how things work, but it has also helped teachers learn how to make the classroom more fun and dynamic. Many of his experiments are on The Spangler Effect as well as his second YouTube channel Spangler Science TV.

Fans of BBC TV’s “Top Gear” series will recognize James May, the hapless guy with messy hair and floral dress shirts, but they may not know he’s the force behind Head Squeeze. That’s the YouTube channel where he and his “crack team of sci-geeks, math-nerds and tech-heads” break down mysteries and reveal new discoveries, adding “left-field insights, sideways interpretations and bizarre, entertaining facts.” A recent episode is “How will the world end?” in case you were wondering. And you might ask, “Will robots ever develop feelings?” The answer is in another Head Squeeze video.

So, what is a geek, and why do we love them? A geek is someone who wants to know how things work, is willing to run countless experiments to find the best solution to a problem, is full of creativity and innovation, is always curious, and is always asking “What if…?” These inherently disruptive traits don’t fit into the typical business day, yet they can be among your company’s greatest assets.

When your workforce is peppered with geeks, you have to ask yourself about traditional management methods. How are you to balance the need for standard processes and organization with the need to spark creativity and innovation? The YouTube generation wants more freedom and autonomy, so finding the answer is becoming increasingly urgent.

For a day, however, give your science geeks a break (or indulge your inner geekiness) and let them check out some of the best science videos on YouTube. Let it reignite inquisitiveness, shake up some beliefs, open the “learner’s mind,” and see what happens next.

The Geek Week rundown:

  • Blockbuster Sunday
  • Global Geekery Monday
  • Brainiac Tuesday
  • Super Wednesday
  • Gaming Thursday
  • Fan Friday
  • Best Of Geek Week Saturday

Karen Wilhelm has worked in the manufacturing industry for 25 years, and blogs at Lean Reflections, which has been named as one of the top ten lean blogs on the web.

    August 05, 2013

    Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a contributing author and not necessarily Gray.

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