**The Reality of Being a Creator**

As a parent and a working individual, I've learned to juggle multiple responsibilities and prioritize my tasks accordingly. There are times when I feel overwhelmed with work and family commitments, but I've found that it's essential to focus on what needs attention in the moment. Whether it's work or spending time with my kids, I have to decide what's most important and allocate my time accordingly.

My schedule is often unpredictable, and some days are more hectic than others. There may be times when I'm busy with work, and other days when I need to focus on personal projects. This unpredictability can make it challenging to plan ahead, but I've learned to adapt and adjust as needed. As a result, I've developed a flexibility that allows me to pivot quickly when circumstances change.

When it comes to my creative pursuits, I have to be mindful of my energy levels and focus. There are times when I'm too tired or preoccupied with work to devote the necessary time and attention to my projects. However, I also know that taking breaks and stepping away from a project can help me come back to it with renewed enthusiasm and creativity.

**Streaming on Twitch**

One aspect of my creative life that I've recently taken up is streaming on Twitch. This has been an exciting development for me, as it allows me to connect with others in real-time and share my passion for creating things. Streaming from my workshop has also helped me refine my skills and think through how I can best present my work to others.

Streaming once a week is a great way for me to engage with like-minded individuals and share my experiences. It's an excellent way to build a community around my creative pursuits and connect with people who share similar interests. If you're interested in checking out my Twitch stream, feel free to visit the link below or head over to twitch.tv/i.

**Evolution of My YouTube Channel**

As I've grown as a creator, my approach to content creation has also evolved. One thing that's been particularly beneficial is being forced to think through what I'm going to say and how I'll communicate it in the most effective way. This has helped me become more concise and articulate in my communication, both on and off-camera.

I've come to realize that creating content for YouTube requires a level of self-awareness and introspection that wasn't always present when I first started. Now, I'm much more deliberate about how I craft my message and ensure it resonates with my audience. This newfound awareness has also helped me interact with people in real life better.

**My Favorite Projects**

When asked about my favorite project or medium to work with, the truth is that I genuinely enjoy all of them. Each one presents its unique challenges and rewards, and I find joy in exploring different creative avenues. While electronics can be more frustrating at times, I still appreciate the technical aspect of creating complex systems.

One project that stands out as particularly rewarding was the secret door for a friend. This project held sentimental value, as it would become an integral part of my friend's life and his child's childhood. Seeing the finished product in action was incredibly gratifying, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to create something that will be cherished for years to come.

**Collaborating with Other Creators**

If I were to collaborate on a project with another YouTuber or creator, I'd love to explore the possibilities. However, due to the demands of working on physical projects, coordinating logistics can be challenging. Shipping, design ideas, and tool requirements can create barriers to collaboration, but I'm open to finding ways to overcome these obstacles.

**The Ultimate Dream**

For me, creating something from scratch is an all-consuming passion that brings immense joy and satisfaction. It's not always easy, as it requires a tremendous amount of time, effort, and dedication. However, the rewards far outweigh the challenges. Seeing my ideas come to life and sharing them with others makes every moment worth it.

While some might view this lifestyle as unsustainable or unwise, I can confidently say that I've found a sense of fulfillment and happiness in creating things for myself and others. It's not perfect, but it's mine, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eneverybody I'm in New Orleans today still feeling totally weird about talking to a camera in public but I've never been here before so I'm gonna walk around the city and check it out see if I can find and I asked you guys for some questions on Twitter and on YouTube earlier so I have a bunch of questions so I'm gonna walk around check out the Town answer some questions and then tomorrow I'm gonna give a talk at Maker Faire let's see what New Orleans looks like okay I just walked around New Orleans for about two and a half hours or so it was awesome I was hoping I could find a quiet place to sit down like a park or something to sit down and do some of the questions so it turns out that the French Quarter fest is going on right now so there's tons of people and tons of music which was really great I got to listen to some cool bands and stuff but there's no quiet place to be found so I figured I'd come back to the hotel answer some questions and take a break before heading back out to check out the town while it was out I also went to eat at a place called butcher and it was super good it was a recommendation from a friend you should definitely go check it out if you're in town really good food so I got a bunch of questions off of YouTube this morning and a lot of them were the same so I'm gonna grab those first and kind of run through real quickly one people were asking if I was married or how long I've been married so I'll give you the quick rundown on that I met my wife 15 years ago we've been married for 14 years we have four kids my youngest is three my oldest is eight yes I am married people asked if I would come to Canada or Ireland or Germany or England I would love to go to those places I've actually only been to England of those places but unfortunately that cost money and if you want to find somebody that wants to pay to bring me there like pay for the plane ticket I would love to but I just can't afford to travel internationally on my own dime right now maybe Sunday but I would absolutely love to go to all those places for sure I'd also really love to go to Australia I have a lot of people that watch my videos that are in Australia and I'd love to go down there and shake hands with them that'd be cool somebody asked if I could please upload three videos a week no I can't that would be physically impossible for me to do I mean it would be possible but they wouldn't be good videos and that's more important than a lot of videos in my opinion somebody asked what I thought about colin furze if you've never seen colin furze go search on youtube for colin first he's a crazy mad scientist he's awesome I love watching his videos he has a ton of energy and he makes tons of stuff that explodes and has fire and it's always a lot of fun you should definitely check him out if you have never there were several questions that were like can you do more Arduino stuff or can you do less Arduino stuff or more woodworking or less woodworking or more of this more that and I mean the fact of the matter is like I try to mix up the content of the videos as much as I can but it really boils down to the fact that like I'm interested in all sorts of stuff and I don't like pick a certain thing to make a video about because I think it's interesting for anybody watching honestly I picked something because it's a project that I want to do and if I care about the project and the stuff in the project that I think it's gonna translate more to the video at least that's the hope so I don't really plan to do more of this one thing or less of this other thing it's more just like I want to do more interesting things more things that like are things that I care about things that I want to learn how to do and that more so dictates the type of videos I do and like what the projects are it has to be super interesting for me or it has to serve a purpose for me or somebody I know favorite ice cream flavor hmm that's a good one probably black cherry I like black cherry a lot Marcus asked me if I'd be willing to team up with tested and Adam Savage to do a build I would love that I've never met Adam I would I would love to meet him and work on something with him but I don't know him I don't know how to get in touch with him so if you know somebody attested tell him to call me somebody asked why are the videos so late no offense I don't know what schedule you're thinking they're late relative to but my schedule is like up here and so I get things out exactly what I want them to get out and if that's not on the timeline that you would prefer sorry that's not really anything I can do anything about a lot of people asked like how long it takes to do projects that I put on YouTube or you know how long that process is it really depends on the type of project some of them I can do start to finish in a day and that includes like building and shooting but some of them are much bigger like the arcade machine took me literally I worked on it for over a year I mean in the planning stages the actual construction took about three months because I was doing it while I was doing other things so I would do like a day of arcade and then a week of whatever else and the day of arcade so it took a long time and it just depends on how big the project is and what else I have going on you know at any given moment somebody asked what it's like to speak at big event and I'm not really spoken at a lot of big events and I'm speaking at a mini Maker Faire this weekend so I don't think is even need a lot of people or anything but anytime I have spoken to a large group of people there's like a certain nervousness to the beginning of it and I feel really like uh-huh and then once I start talking and I kind of get into the the purpose of what I'm trying to say it usually calms down quite a bit and I've really enjoyed all the talks that I've done in the past it's a lot of fun but I don't think it would be fun for everybody probably only certain personalities somebody said do you like Star Wars I think you do I think you're right a lot of people asked about like what's what's a good tool to start with if you're gonna do woodworking and I kind of always have the same answer for that for people it really depends on what you want to make so if you want to make this thing you may not need this tool or vice versa but if you're just generally looking to start working with wood I think a circular saw and orbital sander and a drill are three things that can get you SuperDuper far any other tool is really just kind of a more complex more precise version of one of those three things for the most part not everything but those are a good place to start and in total you could probably spend I don't know 50 maybe $100 and get decent versions of those three things and you'd be able to do quite a bit past that I would say the next step would probably be a table saw just because it's a way to be able to get larger more precise cuts than a circular saw but it's absolutely not necessary you could use a circular saw with a straightedge and you can get really nice cuts with a regular old circular saw somebody asked if I wanted to make a boosted board and I honestly this is the truth I have people leave me comments at least every other day asking me to make an electric skateboard here's the deal it's possible but it's way harder than you would think it is to do it well and there's a reason why companies like boosted produce a really expensive electric skateboard that a lot of people want because it's hard to do it's not something I'm opposed to doing at all but I don't know how to do it I would have to research how to do it and it's just not a high priority for me honestly I barely ride in a skateboard as it is so I don't really have a big reason to have an electric one me maybe someday but not anytime soon there were a lot of questions about me quitting my job my full-time job to do youtube full-time and content creation full-time the questions I thought was really interesting it was how much money did I have saved up you know before I quit my job and I think that's really important there's a few things there that I think are really good to note first I got rid of all my debt so other than our house payment I didn't have any any loans or any credit cards or anything like that so I didn't have a big like requirement I had to bring in a certain amount of money to pay off these debts every month that was really big but on top of that we saved up about 6 months of living expenses like full living expenses at my current salary in my old salary at my job before I quit and that gave us some cushion so that as I was getting the business started and as I was making the transition some months are better than others it's not a consistent paycheck honestly so we have that like cushion there to help us get through it and kind of bounce up and down with the income and that's worked out really well so far just in general I think if you're gonna go out on your own and start your own business you really need to think through the financial side of it and make sure that you're you want to follow your passion right and you want to do things that you care about and it's okay to take risks of course you have to take risks but you can also make calculated risks you can set yourself up to have savings and to have a safety net and all that stuff and that takes a lot of the pressure off the risk that you're taking I'm jumping into your own business so I ask what car I Drive I Drive a Land Cruiser in 1992 you can watch this video right here and see how I put a snorkel on it somebody asked what other subjects I was interested in in school other than engineering and the fact is I didn't get any kind of a degree in engineering I actually went to art school and so I learned a bunch of art stuff and in computer stuff then that led me towards programming and then programming led me into my actual career before I like to make stuff so I didn't get any formal engineering training that's why I do things wrong a lot of the times because I don't know any better but that's okay I'm learning I'm learning on the job this one says do you ever make something once as a test before making it again for the video I'll prototype things a lot of times just to make sure that things fit together or the things are gonna move in the way that I think of them in my head something like that but I don't ever like make a full finished version of something and then go back and remake it for the video I just don't have time or the patience or the interest I think to do that so yeah kind of as far as a ticket and then I just dive in what's my favorite would probably teak teak or walnut actually I don't have a lot of experience with like exotic woods so I don't really know you know how some of them work versus others but I have used teak a fair amount and I loved it and walnut I think it's just beautiful this one says on most of your videos you look really tired how much do you sleep I am thank you I guess I don't know I don't sleep a whole lot but also that's just the way my face looks people always think I'm not happy or I'm tired but that's just that's all I got this is it it's a couple more from here and then we'll do the rest later do you like potato salad no mom my wife makes a good potato salad but not most of them can you do a pinball restoration that would be awesome I would love to do a pinball machine restoration or even build a pinball machine from scratch but I don't really have the room to do either one so maybe someday if I get a bigger shop or I you know just find some extra space or something that would be really cool but I don't have any plans to right now can you make a slime gun I don't know who you are but I love that idea actually I already kind of had something similar on my idealist and it was a pudding gun so it's pretty similar but I really want to have a gun that I can shoot a big glob of pudding at my kids and they can shoot it at me obviously too but yeah so slime pudding same kind of thing it's on the list which camera are you using to film now and which one did you use to start with to start with I used a Canon t2i it's just a DSLR pretty inexpensive now I'm using a Panasonic gh4 it's a great camera I love it I've got links to I think both of them on I like to make stuff calm slash tools there's links to everything I use there all right we'll do more questions later but now I got a run out I finally found a park and it's beautiful it's the city park I think and there's a pirate ship right there I think those are good spots to sit down and answers of questions so Mini Maker Faire awesome people were fantastic was really great this park is beautiful and I just wanted to sit down under this gigantic tree look at that tree and answer some more questions so let's do that got a bunch of my phone here so one of them are you planning to build your own house with your own hands no I'm not although I totally admire people that can do that just probably not something I'm terribly interested in what's the best way in your opinion to start a successful YouTube channel honestly I have no idea I think the core value is to do good content do things you're passionate about that doesn't mean it's gonna be successful but at least you'll care about what you're doing how to make it successful honestly I have no idea if I did I would write a book sorry what do you enjoy better research designing making or using the things you make I really enjoy all the parts of it I really enjoy using the things cuz usually what it make is purpose-built you know it's made for a specific purpose so it usually serves a need which is great I really like the problem-solving process of it where I think about the thing ahead of time design around the problems fix some of the problems but you problem-solve all the way through the process so I like all of it well this is a good one if you had zero money but a great concept for invention how would you go about bringing it to fruition if you don't have the opportunity or the money or whatever to make it take your idea get a provisional patent which lasts for a year and it's cheaper than getting a regular patent so you get that first to protect your idea then you go apply for a full patent and while you're doing that you license your idea to a company that can actually manufacture it and sell it that way you don't have to make it you still own it and you get to make money off somebody else making and selling it that's what I would do what has YouTube done to your and your family's life and there were a couple of questions about this like how doing YouTube has affected my life and what has changed it really hasn't changed much I mean I still do a job I still have to work a lot but at the same time it's maybe changed it for the better because I get to do what I want and I get to do what I love and I get to work with really awesome pull on a podcast and I get to meet all of you guys in the comments and at Maker Faire so it's not really changed it but if there have been any changes they've definitely been for the better I mean being on YouTube doesn't really mean you are anything else than a regular person you just get to be in front of other people so it doesn't change anything about you so I'm just a dude who makes videos on the Internet no big deal there was another one that was from Steve and he asked how many hours a week I spend on my YouTube videos honestly I spent all of my time on the YouTube because it's my full-time job now so even the stuff that is not directly related to editing and shooting and all that it still has to do with growing the channel growing the business so I spent all of my time on that but if you want to just talk about video production between my editor and myself we do probably 5 or 6 hours of editing a week I do an hour or so a voiceover and then post building for like the website is probably another two hours and then like actual shop time to make the project and shooting that really depends on the type of project but it's usually a couple of days because shooting video of everything makes it take at least twice as long as normal it takes a lot of time that's kind of my job now so you know I'm just got to reiterate that it is absolutely beautiful out here the weather is perfect oh there's a dog next question have you done anything with silicon mold and casting yes I did put a link right here and I barely know what I'm doing as far as that stuff but you want to see somebody who really knows what they're doing go visit my buddy bill Duran from punished props I'll link right here for him he's awesome makes tons of props really knows what he's doing when it comes to casting and molding somebody says will you be doing anything with the Raspberry Pi 3 yes I have a project actually coming up with that but it actually doesn't have to be a Raspberry Pi 3 it could just be any Raspberry Pi I guess but I'm gonna use a three for it so yes there were several questions about like work-life balance and family time versus my time and work time and all that stuff and then there were some about hobbies I used to have a lot of hobbies and I like to make stuff used to beat one of my hobbies turns out now it's my job which is pretty awesome so I guess my job is my hobby which is good because I don't have any other hobbies these days I don't get to play music anymore I mean I run a lot but I don't play video games do anything like that it's mostly just family work and yeah it's family and work but as far as like the balance between those two things you know my family has to be a priority I have to spend enough time with them to build relationships with my kids and to continue relationship with my wife but at the same time the work is what pays for life so I have to do both and it's a constant I don't know it's a struggle but it's a constant growing process of figuring out the balance between those two things and a lot of times it's seasonal too sometimes I'm just really busy and I have to focus on work to be able to catch up or be able to get ahead sometimes I really just need to spend a lot of time with my kids you know because they need me as their dead so a lot of times it's seasonal and I just have to decide you know in the given moment like what's the most important thing right now what do I need to focus on right now to make sure that I'm doing all the jobs that I need to do and that's the case for everybody that has nothing to do with me specifically I think that's just the way it is to be a parent and to work somebody asked if I played games or streams and I just said that no I don't really play games I'd like to but I don't play video games but I do stream on Twitch I stream from in my shop and that's been a really cool thing to start doing it's like real time interaction with people who are watching it's a lot of fun so I do that once a week and so if you're interested you can check the link down there below or go to twitch.tv slash I like to make stuff one more thing I forgot the question about asking if I've changed from having YouTube or how it's affected my life one thing I think it's been really positive that I didn't expect is that getting myself in front of a camera a lot more and forcing myself to think through what I'm gonna say and like how to say it in the most useful way has changed how I speak to people a little bit you know in a good way I think it's helped me think through what I say and how I say it a little bit more it just helps me interact with people in real life better I think having to force myself to be more concise with how I talk yeah I think yeah lots of questions about like what's my favorite part of what I do or what's my favorite project that I've done you know what's my favorite medium to work in stuff like that honestly I really love all of all of it I love working in different mediums for the sake of being able to move from one thing to another and like tries new stuff and I really enjoy all of them I mean like electronics are more frustrating than the other ones probably but I still enjoy it you know as far as like my favorite project I would have to say probably the secret door because it was for a friend and it's something that's gonna be like a part of his life and a part of his child's life growing up so that's pretty awesome that was just really gratifying to do and I enjoyed it a lot somebody asked if I would be willing to do you know projects with other youtubers of course I would I would love that in reality it's actually kind of difficult especially in our world where we're making physical things and then you have to like ship things and you have different ideas for design and different tools and stuff like that totally possible just not very easy and so I would love to do that at some point if we could figure out the mechanics of it so what I said is working for yourself like the ultimate dream I mean are you happy are you having fun is it paying the bills would you suggest it for someone else okay it is awesome it is so much fun I love it it barely pays the bills and I'm cannot say that I would recommend it for someone else because you and I have different personalities you and I have different needs you and I have different home lives and responsibilities and all that stuff so I can't say that I would recommend it because I don't really know if that's good for you but for me it's awesome and I cannot imagine ever going back to not working for myself it's hard there's a lot of stress to it there's a lot of work to it but I mean like I'm totally in control of what my days look like you know I get to decide what I make I get to decide where it goes and and like how it goes and how its created how its presented it's pretty fantastic so loving it and enjoying it makes up for the fact that it's a huge amount of work and that I'm not quite making the money I was making before I started doing this you know I mean it'll get there and that's the ideas like hopefully it'll get there at some point and you know yeah but even in the meantime I mean it's making enough we're surviving right I'm not in danger of anything so that's great and that's enough for me people starting to stare at me now that I'm talking to this camera so finally made it back home I'm really tired and I didn't shoot very much video today so I'm going to stop this video righteverybody I'm in New Orleans today still feeling totally weird about talking to a camera in public but I've never been here before so I'm gonna walk around the city and check it out see if I can find and I asked you guys for some questions on Twitter and on YouTube earlier so I have a bunch of questions so I'm gonna walk around check out the Town answer some questions and then tomorrow I'm gonna give a talk at Maker Faire let's see what New Orleans looks like okay I just walked around New Orleans for about two and a half hours or so it was awesome I was hoping I could find a quiet place to sit down like a park or something to sit down and do some of the questions so it turns out that the French Quarter fest is going on right now so there's tons of people and tons of music which was really great I got to listen to some cool bands and stuff but there's no quiet place to be found so I figured I'd come back to the hotel answer some questions and take a break before heading back out to check out the town while it was out I also went to eat at a place called butcher and it was super good it was a recommendation from a friend you should definitely go check it out if you're in town really good food so I got a bunch of questions off of YouTube this morning and a lot of them were the same so I'm gonna grab those first and kind of run through real quickly one people were asking if I was married or how long I've been married so I'll give you the quick rundown on that I met my wife 15 years ago we've been married for 14 years we have four kids my youngest is three my oldest is eight yes I am married people asked if I would come to Canada or Ireland or Germany or England I would love to go to those places I've actually only been to England of those places but unfortunately that cost money and if you want to find somebody that wants to pay to bring me there like pay for the plane ticket I would love to but I just can't afford to travel internationally on my own dime right now maybe Sunday but I would absolutely love to go to all those places for sure I'd also really love to go to Australia I have a lot of people that watch my videos that are in Australia and I'd love to go down there and shake hands with them that'd be cool somebody asked if I could please upload three videos a week no I can't that would be physically impossible for me to do I mean it would be possible but they wouldn't be good videos and that's more important than a lot of videos in my opinion somebody asked what I thought about colin furze if you've never seen colin furze go search on youtube for colin first he's a crazy mad scientist he's awesome I love watching his videos he has a ton of energy and he makes tons of stuff that explodes and has fire and it's always a lot of fun you should definitely check him out if you have never there were several questions that were like can you do more Arduino stuff or can you do less Arduino stuff or more woodworking or less woodworking or more of this more that and I mean the fact of the matter is like I try to mix up the content of the videos as much as I can but it really boils down to the fact that like I'm interested in all sorts of stuff and I don't like pick a certain thing to make a video about because I think it's interesting for anybody watching honestly I picked something because it's a project that I want to do and if I care about the project and the stuff in the project that I think it's gonna translate more to the video at least that's the hope so I don't really plan to do more of this one thing or less of this other thing it's more just like I want to do more interesting things more things that like are things that I care about things that I want to learn how to do and that more so dictates the type of videos I do and like what the projects are it has to be super interesting for me or it has to serve a purpose for me or somebody I know favorite ice cream flavor hmm that's a good one probably black cherry I like black cherry a lot Marcus asked me if I'd be willing to team up with tested and Adam Savage to do a build I would love that I've never met Adam I would I would love to meet him and work on something with him but I don't know him I don't know how to get in touch with him so if you know somebody attested tell him to call me somebody asked why are the videos so late no offense I don't know what schedule you're thinking they're late relative to but my schedule is like up here and so I get things out exactly what I want them to get out and if that's not on the timeline that you would prefer sorry that's not really anything I can do anything about a lot of people asked like how long it takes to do projects that I put on YouTube or you know how long that process is it really depends on the type of project some of them I can do start to finish in a day and that includes like building and shooting but some of them are much bigger like the arcade machine took me literally I worked on it for over a year I mean in the planning stages the actual construction took about three months because I was doing it while I was doing other things so I would do like a day of arcade and then a week of whatever else and the day of arcade so it took a long time and it just depends on how big the project is and what else I have going on you know at any given moment somebody asked what it's like to speak at big event and I'm not really spoken at a lot of big events and I'm speaking at a mini Maker Faire this weekend so I don't think is even need a lot of people or anything but anytime I have spoken to a large group of people there's like a certain nervousness to the beginning of it and I feel really like uh-huh and then once I start talking and I kind of get into the the purpose of what I'm trying to say it usually calms down quite a bit and I've really enjoyed all the talks that I've done in the past it's a lot of fun but I don't think it would be fun for everybody probably only certain personalities somebody said do you like Star Wars I think you do I think you're right a lot of people asked about like what's what's a good tool to start with if you're gonna do woodworking and I kind of always have the same answer for that for people it really depends on what you want to make so if you want to make this thing you may not need this tool or vice versa but if you're just generally looking to start working with wood I think a circular saw and orbital sander and a drill are three things that can get you SuperDuper far any other tool is really just kind of a more complex more precise version of one of those three things for the most part not everything but those are a good place to start and in total you could probably spend I don't know 50 maybe $100 and get decent versions of those three things and you'd be able to do quite a bit past that I would say the next step would probably be a table saw just because it's a way to be able to get larger more precise cuts than a circular saw but it's absolutely not necessary you could use a circular saw with a straightedge and you can get really nice cuts with a regular old circular saw somebody asked if I wanted to make a boosted board and I honestly this is the truth I have people leave me comments at least every other day asking me to make an electric skateboard here's the deal it's possible but it's way harder than you would think it is to do it well and there's a reason why companies like boosted produce a really expensive electric skateboard that a lot of people want because it's hard to do it's not something I'm opposed to doing at all but I don't know how to do it I would have to research how to do it and it's just not a high priority for me honestly I barely ride in a skateboard as it is so I don't really have a big reason to have an electric one me maybe someday but not anytime soon there were a lot of questions about me quitting my job my full-time job to do youtube full-time and content creation full-time the questions I thought was really interesting it was how much money did I have saved up you know before I quit my job and I think that's really important there's a few things there that I think are really good to note first I got rid of all my debt so other than our house payment I didn't have any any loans or any credit cards or anything like that so I didn't have a big like requirement I had to bring in a certain amount of money to pay off these debts every month that was really big but on top of that we saved up about 6 months of living expenses like full living expenses at my current salary in my old salary at my job before I quit and that gave us some cushion so that as I was getting the business started and as I was making the transition some months are better than others it's not a consistent paycheck honestly so we have that like cushion there to help us get through it and kind of bounce up and down with the income and that's worked out really well so far just in general I think if you're gonna go out on your own and start your own business you really need to think through the financial side of it and make sure that you're you want to follow your passion right and you want to do things that you care about and it's okay to take risks of course you have to take risks but you can also make calculated risks you can set yourself up to have savings and to have a safety net and all that stuff and that takes a lot of the pressure off the risk that you're taking I'm jumping into your own business so I ask what car I Drive I Drive a Land Cruiser in 1992 you can watch this video right here and see how I put a snorkel on it somebody asked what other subjects I was interested in in school other than engineering and the fact is I didn't get any kind of a degree in engineering I actually went to art school and so I learned a bunch of art stuff and in computer stuff then that led me towards programming and then programming led me into my actual career before I like to make stuff so I didn't get any formal engineering training that's why I do things wrong a lot of the times because I don't know any better but that's okay I'm learning I'm learning on the job this one says do you ever make something once as a test before making it again for the video I'll prototype things a lot of times just to make sure that things fit together or the things are gonna move in the way that I think of them in my head something like that but I don't ever like make a full finished version of something and then go back and remake it for the video I just don't have time or the patience or the interest I think to do that so yeah kind of as far as a ticket and then I just dive in what's my favorite would probably teak teak or walnut actually I don't have a lot of experience with like exotic woods so I don't really know you know how some of them work versus others but I have used teak a fair amount and I loved it and walnut I think it's just beautiful this one says on most of your videos you look really tired how much do you sleep I am thank you I guess I don't know I don't sleep a whole lot but also that's just the way my face looks people always think I'm not happy or I'm tired but that's just that's all I got this is it it's a couple more from here and then we'll do the rest later do you like potato salad no mom my wife makes a good potato salad but not most of them can you do a pinball restoration that would be awesome I would love to do a pinball machine restoration or even build a pinball machine from scratch but I don't really have the room to do either one so maybe someday if I get a bigger shop or I you know just find some extra space or something that would be really cool but I don't have any plans to right now can you make a slime gun I don't know who you are but I love that idea actually I already kind of had something similar on my idealist and it was a pudding gun so it's pretty similar but I really want to have a gun that I can shoot a big glob of pudding at my kids and they can shoot it at me obviously too but yeah so slime pudding same kind of thing it's on the list which camera are you using to film now and which one did you use to start with to start with I used a Canon t2i it's just a DSLR pretty inexpensive now I'm using a Panasonic gh4 it's a great camera I love it I've got links to I think both of them on I like to make stuff calm slash tools there's links to everything I use there all right we'll do more questions later but now I got a run out I finally found a park and it's beautiful it's the city park I think and there's a pirate ship right there I think those are good spots to sit down and answers of questions so Mini Maker Faire awesome people were fantastic was really great this park is beautiful and I just wanted to sit down under this gigantic tree look at that tree and answer some more questions so let's do that got a bunch of my phone here so one of them are you planning to build your own house with your own hands no I'm not although I totally admire people that can do that just probably not something I'm terribly interested in what's the best way in your opinion to start a successful YouTube channel honestly I have no idea I think the core value is to do good content do things you're passionate about that doesn't mean it's gonna be successful but at least you'll care about what you're doing how to make it successful honestly I have no idea if I did I would write a book sorry what do you enjoy better research designing making or using the things you make I really enjoy all the parts of it I really enjoy using the things cuz usually what it make is purpose-built you know it's made for a specific purpose so it usually serves a need which is great I really like the problem-solving process of it where I think about the thing ahead of time design around the problems fix some of the problems but you problem-solve all the way through the process so I like all of it well this is a good one if you had zero money but a great concept for invention how would you go about bringing it to fruition if you don't have the opportunity or the money or whatever to make it take your idea get a provisional patent which lasts for a year and it's cheaper than getting a regular patent so you get that first to protect your idea then you go apply for a full patent and while you're doing that you license your idea to a company that can actually manufacture it and sell it that way you don't have to make it you still own it and you get to make money off somebody else making and selling it that's what I would do what has YouTube done to your and your family's life and there were a couple of questions about this like how doing YouTube has affected my life and what has changed it really hasn't changed much I mean I still do a job I still have to work a lot but at the same time it's maybe changed it for the better because I get to do what I want and I get to do what I love and I get to work with really awesome pull on a podcast and I get to meet all of you guys in the comments and at Maker Faire so it's not really changed it but if there have been any changes they've definitely been for the better I mean being on YouTube doesn't really mean you are anything else than a regular person you just get to be in front of other people so it doesn't change anything about you so I'm just a dude who makes videos on the Internet no big deal there was another one that was from Steve and he asked how many hours a week I spend on my YouTube videos honestly I spent all of my time on the YouTube because it's my full-time job now so even the stuff that is not directly related to editing and shooting and all that it still has to do with growing the channel growing the business so I spent all of my time on that but if you want to just talk about video production between my editor and myself we do probably 5 or 6 hours of editing a week I do an hour or so a voiceover and then post building for like the website is probably another two hours and then like actual shop time to make the project and shooting that really depends on the type of project but it's usually a couple of days because shooting video of everything makes it take at least twice as long as normal it takes a lot of time that's kind of my job now so you know I'm just got to reiterate that it is absolutely beautiful out here the weather is perfect oh there's a dog next question have you done anything with silicon mold and casting yes I did put a link right here and I barely know what I'm doing as far as that stuff but you want to see somebody who really knows what they're doing go visit my buddy bill Duran from punished props I'll link right here for him he's awesome makes tons of props really knows what he's doing when it comes to casting and molding somebody says will you be doing anything with the Raspberry Pi 3 yes I have a project actually coming up with that but it actually doesn't have to be a Raspberry Pi 3 it could just be any Raspberry Pi I guess but I'm gonna use a three for it so yes there were several questions about like work-life balance and family time versus my time and work time and all that stuff and then there were some about hobbies I used to have a lot of hobbies and I like to make stuff used to beat one of my hobbies turns out now it's my job which is pretty awesome so I guess my job is my hobby which is good because I don't have any other hobbies these days I don't get to play music anymore I mean I run a lot but I don't play video games do anything like that it's mostly just family work and yeah it's family and work but as far as like the balance between those two things you know my family has to be a priority I have to spend enough time with them to build relationships with my kids and to continue relationship with my wife but at the same time the work is what pays for life so I have to do both and it's a constant I don't know it's a struggle but it's a constant growing process of figuring out the balance between those two things and a lot of times it's seasonal too sometimes I'm just really busy and I have to focus on work to be able to catch up or be able to get ahead sometimes I really just need to spend a lot of time with my kids you know because they need me as their dead so a lot of times it's seasonal and I just have to decide you know in the given moment like what's the most important thing right now what do I need to focus on right now to make sure that I'm doing all the jobs that I need to do and that's the case for everybody that has nothing to do with me specifically I think that's just the way it is to be a parent and to work somebody asked if I played games or streams and I just said that no I don't really play games I'd like to but I don't play video games but I do stream on Twitch I stream from in my shop and that's been a really cool thing to start doing it's like real time interaction with people who are watching it's a lot of fun so I do that once a week and so if you're interested you can check the link down there below or go to twitch.tv slash I like to make stuff one more thing I forgot the question about asking if I've changed from having YouTube or how it's affected my life one thing I think it's been really positive that I didn't expect is that getting myself in front of a camera a lot more and forcing myself to think through what I'm gonna say and like how to say it in the most useful way has changed how I speak to people a little bit you know in a good way I think it's helped me think through what I say and how I say it a little bit more it just helps me interact with people in real life better I think having to force myself to be more concise with how I talk yeah I think yeah lots of questions about like what's my favorite part of what I do or what's my favorite project that I've done you know what's my favorite medium to work in stuff like that honestly I really love all of all of it I love working in different mediums for the sake of being able to move from one thing to another and like tries new stuff and I really enjoy all of them I mean like electronics are more frustrating than the other ones probably but I still enjoy it you know as far as like my favorite project I would have to say probably the secret door because it was for a friend and it's something that's gonna be like a part of his life and a part of his child's life growing up so that's pretty awesome that was just really gratifying to do and I enjoyed it a lot somebody asked if I would be willing to do you know projects with other youtubers of course I would I would love that in reality it's actually kind of difficult especially in our world where we're making physical things and then you have to like ship things and you have different ideas for design and different tools and stuff like that totally possible just not very easy and so I would love to do that at some point if we could figure out the mechanics of it so what I said is working for yourself like the ultimate dream I mean are you happy are you having fun is it paying the bills would you suggest it for someone else okay it is awesome it is so much fun I love it it barely pays the bills and I'm cannot say that I would recommend it for someone else because you and I have different personalities you and I have different needs you and I have different home lives and responsibilities and all that stuff so I can't say that I would recommend it because I don't really know if that's good for you but for me it's awesome and I cannot imagine ever going back to not working for myself it's hard there's a lot of stress to it there's a lot of work to it but I mean like I'm totally in control of what my days look like you know I get to decide what I make I get to decide where it goes and and like how it goes and how its created how its presented it's pretty fantastic so loving it and enjoying it makes up for the fact that it's a huge amount of work and that I'm not quite making the money I was making before I started doing this you know I mean it'll get there and that's the ideas like hopefully it'll get there at some point and you know yeah but even in the meantime I mean it's making enough we're surviving right I'm not in danger of anything so that's great and that's enough for me people starting to stare at me now that I'm talking to this camera so finally made it back home I'm really tired and I didn't shoot very much video today so I'm going to stop this video right\n"