'Building Stuff with NOVA' brings STEM learning to Twitch with Dr. Nehemiah Mabry

Paris Alston: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. An exciting endeavor is underway for our friends at the long running science documentary series Nova.

Dr. Nehemiah Mabry: This is your virtual mastermind, your virtual maker space. As a matter of fact, today I think we’re in actual physical makerspace. But shout out to everybody joining us at home. This is the place where we build together.

Alston: Last month, the team launched Building Stuff with NOVA, a Twitch live stream series featuring a former NASA engineer and current Stem educator.

Mabry: Okay, you don’t know. My name is Doctor Nehemiah Mabry you can call me Doctor Nee.

Alston: During the daily afternoon streams, Doctor Nee brings viewers a live, interactive journey into the engineering that surrounds us through gaming, conversations with experts, virtual field trips and more. And Doctor Nee joins us now to give us a taste of that journey. Hello. Good morning. Thanks for being here.

Mabry: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Paris.

Alston: So how did all of this come together?

Mabry: Well, first of all, I have to give a hat tip to the creative minds and innovative thinkers that are part of the Nova brand and have been a part of it for 50 years now. They’ve launched an NSF project all around informal Stem learning and in this case, particularly engineering. And a part of this project, which involves a number of traditional documentaries and other media products, is a Twitch channel that I’m happy to be the host and producer of. I was tapped to build this Twitch channel, no pun intended, Building Stuff with NOVA. And, it’s been a blast.

Alston: And what have been your favorite parts about this, or your favorite segments that you’ve done so far in the stream?

Mabry: There have been a number of favorite segments. I mean, first of all, really trying to make this sort of this virtual makerspace, this ideation laboratory, if you will. We’ve had a lot of fun bringing guests on and having sort of an interactive interview experience with them. For instance, just recently we’ve been had we had the opportunity to have Doctor Melissa Lott, Melissa C. Lott on, where we were able to deconstruct a coffee maker. And in doing so, we’re able to really understand the engineering behind it as well as sort of the carbon footprint and sustainability impacts of your cup of coffee.

Alston: See, it’s more than just drinking it and getting on out the door and going about your day. And what are you most looking forward to for future episodes? What can viewers expect?

Mabry: Of course we have a lot of gaming taking place, something that Twitch is very known for. Playing games such as bridge building games and doing virtual field trips, getting into laboratory spaces, and being able to learn up close and personal with scientists and engineers who are actually building things that are making an impact upon the world. So I can’t wait to really get out into the field and do some IRL or in real life, as is known on Twitch.

Alston: So we here at Morning Edition also stream on Twitch every day, from 9 to 10 a.m. and later this morning we’ll be doing a bit of a crossover with NOVA Senior producer Caitlin Saks, so folks can stay tuned for that. And of course, as you were mentioning, Twitch is a lot of fun. It’s very interactive. Why is it important to make what you’re doing accessible to a more general audience like Twitch?

Mabry: It is extremely important because very often subjects like engineering carry with it a lot of intimidation. When people think about the amount of schooling and the formal education and academics that one has to go through to get sort of the licenses and the certifications that exist out there. But very often we overlook the fact that engineering is a part of the human experience, and we have ideas and we come together and we ideate and we test and we improve, and we look at the feedback and ultimately launch something that was once just a figment of our imagination that is innovative. It’s something we all can relate to. And so I think it’s very important for people to identify themselves as being much more involved in this process than simply something that others are doing that the very smart people can do, but something that we all are part of.

Alston: Now, one of the best parts of this is at the end of the series, you all will feature four nights of building an actual escape room here in the GBH Studios. So exciting! What can you tell us about that?

Mabry: All incredibly exciting. And the first thing I can tell you is that in order to know more about it, you can join us on Twitch. But I will go on to say that this will be an engineering-themed escape room. We’ve been playing a number of games, going over a number of concepts so far and we’ll continue to do throughout the summer, but in that we’ve been able to, on one day a week, get together and ideate along with the Twitch audience on how we could design puzzles. It’s been involving me as well as our partners over at Trapology Boston, to really configure different engineering principles and concepts into ways that the escape room participants can demonstrate not only their knowledge, but also their ingenuity, their creativity to escape this escape room. And I have to tell you this: The theme is incredible. We are looking at Y2K, Paris.

Alston: [Gasp] The best era.

Mabry: Yes. Well, many people know about Y2K, but Y3K is the theme we’re going with in our escape room, where we are tasking our participants to retrain the AI to reengage and relearn engineering principles in their process of escaping and ultimately saving the future that we have yet to experience.

Alston: Doctor Nehemiah Mabry and building stuff with Nova live streams on the Nova Twitch channel every day at noon. You can learn more@twitch.tv. You can also check out the Nova Building Stuff documentary coming up, and you can join us as we are streaming now, currently on Twitch.tv/WGBH. We do that every day at 9 a.m., and you can go behind the scenes and join the conversation at Twitch.tv/WGBH. You're listening to GBH News.