 Yesterday, folks is Chad Marin. Chad is the CEO of the Innovation Lab at St. Pete College. He is a librarian, teacher, author, and CEO of the Innovation Lab who frequently shares his enthusiasm for all things technology. You've got to love it, man. Dream, think, create. Chad, welcome to TFNN. I'm doing great. So let me ask you, tell us what is an Innovation Lab? Movement was really starting to gain traction a couple years ago. And so I wrote a grant because I was interested in 3D printing and robotics and, you know, virtual reality, that kind of thing. So I wrote a grant to try to bring it all into a space for people to kind of play around with it a little bit and see what's possible. That's pretty cool, man. So now you're at St. Pete College right now. Is this something for all the college students? Or is this something that's open to the public? How does this work? It's open to everybody. So yeah, college students, faculty, staff use it, but also little kids come in and play around with it, too. Yeah, it's great. We have, before the COVID pandemic, we had, we did quite a few field trips. So kids would come in and, you know, just kind of play around. We'd practice coding and then they'd get to kind of play around with all the different tech. And it's really fun. So again, it's like a technology playground. People get to come in and just kind of see what's possible with technology. That's pretty cool, man. So tell me a little bit about your background because that's pretty cool that you have, you know, whether it's from five years old to 80 years old, that you've developed something like this. So how did you get into this? Well, I mean, I'm a librarian. So that's what I've been doing for a very long time. I've always been pretty geeky. You know, I like to take things apart and just kind of see how things work. You look like a tough geek, man. I like it. Thanks, I guess, right? Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so I've always been interested in it. So, you know, and I've had some really good experience with libraries, too. I mean, I worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in graduate school. Yes. And that's sort of where I learned how to kind of, you know, put computers together and do training and that sort of thing. And then really, I got to work at the Library of Congress, too. So I got to kind of be around all that culture all the time. So it was kind of a best of both worlds kind of thing, tech and culture. Well, I can tell you, first off, what you're doing is extraordinary for society because growing up in Boston, I was very lucky. We had the Copley Square Library, and I was very young. And what happens, of course, folks, if you have someone, a good teacher like Chad, you know, someone in the third grade brought us the Copley Square Library. I mean, once you start getting into all those old films, it's amazing what you can get taught out of a library. I mean, it's just, it's a mind-blowing. I mean, they're... Oh, I agree. Yeah, I agree. I've always said it's more like a place of discovery. You know, you can, nowadays, in our library, you can walk in and you can just go through the books, which is traditional, and you can get lost in a book. But then you can also walk a few steps over and then step foot in our innovation lab, and then you're even doing more discovery in the same spot, which is wonderful. So can you give us an idea of some of the things you've done with some of your guest clients, whatever you actually call your guest? Yeah. So, I mean, we've done a lot with 3D printing. So somebody will come in with a prototype idea or some kind of an invention that they have. And instead of spending a lot of money on just getting something printed that won't work, they come in and they do, they 3D print a prototype. And so then they can test it to make sure it's going to work. And then, and we're not a factory, but we can at least do the prototyping. And then people will then, if it works, then they go out and they can mass produce certain things. I had a student that came in a long time ago and developed some kind of a little eye cleaner thing. Okay. He was a landscaper. And he said every once while he would get all this dirt in his eyes and he kind of had an idea. And so he, we 3D printed this part and it goes in your eye and then you can, you can pour water and it flushes the stuff out. And the last I heard from him, I haven't seen him in a while. So who knows how he's doing, but he said that he was hopefully going to get those in first aid kits. And I was like, wow, that's, that'd be pretty amazing if your little idea now is in every first aid kit. So it starts, it can start small. It can. And, you know, it's amazing you just brought this up because this morning would end up happening is that we have plants outside at our house and I got spammed in my eye. It was the first time that I had flushed my eye out for a long time. And let me tell you something, folks, if you get spammed in your eye, it was extraordinary. The burn was like unbelievable. It's just amazing that you've actually brought this up. So, so as you're looking into the future, the type of opportunity that you're giving folks, what do you see coming into the future? Well, you know, what I've been working with lately is virtual reality. And there's a company that I've been beta testing for quite a while for at least two years now. And when the pandemic hit, it really gained even more traction because what you can do is you can meet and it started originally in augmented reality. So you could be in your space and then all the content kind of came in your room. But what's nice, again, it's called spatial and you can meet in a 3D space. And like you and I are, you know, conversing in two dimensions, but you can be in three dimensions. I can then import an object that we can all interact with. It's location and time agnostic. It doesn't matter where the person in the world is. And we can just meet in a 3D space like we're actually right there. And yeah. And like, you know, virtual reality, a lot of times you remember, you know, you have like a cartoon looking avatar. Well, with spatial, you've got a 3D scan of yourself. And so when you're in there, you actually look like you. And then you're interacting with people that look like themselves. And that I think is going to be very important, especially when more people are working from home. Even after the pandemic, people are going to probably be working from home. The next time I have you on, we're going to do that. That's going to be cool. No. Hey, you know what? I'm glad you mentioned that because just just about two weeks ago, we actually did an interview on Fox 13, which is a local TV station. Yes. We did part of the interview inside spatial. Okay. Which is really kind of neat. Oh, it's it's huge. It's huge. So yeah, out of the amount of folks that come to you, go to the lab, what do you find age wise? Where is the most age? How is this working right now? That's a good question. I haven't seen kids in a while because of the pandemic. We tried to do some hands on as much as you could through Zoom or Skype. And that worked okay, but it's just not the same. Right. Lately, I've been working more with facilities people. Okay. Something will break. Like for example, one of the little wheels, plastic wheels, one of our electric automatic doors broke. Yeah. And instead of buying a brand new kit and spending $200 on the kit, we actually just 3D printed these wheels. I mean, the wheels been invented for a long time. So just 3D printing this wheel and then put it back in the door and it's working. So I've been doing a lot more of that. So working with more adults, but I'm really looking forward to getting back with with younger kids. I'm going to get this word. I'm going to get this word out. We want these young kids in there. I want everyone in it. Don't get me wrong. But I think that when you hit that younger, you know, crowd and you get a break, you know, you give a five year old to a 15 year old to break and they, you know, they see what you can show them. That's where society just gets so much greater. It's pretty amazing. Yeah. And the website is spcollege.libguides.com slash i-l-a-b. If you have any questions, just go to TFNM. Chad, thank you so much. You have a great one. Safe one. We look forward to having you on again.