#SenecaProud

Pat Perdue  00:01

Hey, I'm Pat Perdue, and I'd like to welcome you to Season Two of the Seneca Proud podcast. This is a co-production between my company Ycastr and Seneca College in Toronto. Seneca College is a really great school. And what we uncovered in season one of Seneca Proud is that there's a Seneca spirit. And that comes from the really great people that Seneca attracts. This season we'll be featuring some of those students, staff as well as faculty to not only learn what they do here, but also a little bit about who they are. So, join me on this journey of discovery, as we meet some of the people who make Seneca College, such a special place to teach, work and study. 

Welcome to Seneca Proud Season Two, where I get to introduce you to some of Seneca College's amazing family of staff, faculty and students. So, if you haven't already, subscribe, and download and let's go meet some of the super inspiring folks here at Seneca. I'm Pat Perdue, and I'm glad you're here today. 

Hey, welcome back to the Seneca Proud podcast. This is Season Two, Episode Three. You're going to love this show. In our last episode I took you to Seneca College's King campus and the outdoor classroom at King Day Camp. As you may recall, the interview was outside next to a Lake Seneca and surrounded by natural beauty. It was spectacular. That environment fosters a very specific kind of thinking. It's the Henry David Thoreau kind or that Farley Mowat, kind of thinking of the earth, the trees, reminding us of our inextricable relationship with all of that. In this episode, we also get to go someplace spectacular, but the location couldn't be more different. I met up with our guest, Professor Peter Moscone, in Seneca’s nearly brand-new Center for Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship, also known as CITE. CITE opened in January 2019, and is leading-edge in terms of a building specifically constructed to foster innovative technology-based solutions for the problems of both today and tomorrow. Which brings me to one of my favorite quotes by the Israeli American Professor and Author, Oren Harari. Here it is, “The electric light did not come from the continuous improvement of candles.” And I guess where he was pointing with that was to make significant disruptive improvement in something, we have to be willing to do things completely differently. 

And that really sums up the mindset of our guest today, Professor Peter Moscone, professor in the School of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering Technology at Seneca. Peter’s expertise is in information technology, and he currently creates and teaches courses in Senecas Computer Engineering Technology program, as you'll discover Peter not only really loves technology, but he also really loves sharing his excitement about it with his students. It's also really cool that Peter actually graduated from Seneca’s Computer Engineering program, and himself enjoys a great career in technology from opening an IT consulting firm, to branching out to live event production, television and not for profit work. Peter has constantly used his curiosity for tech to keep his career super interesting and to stay on the cutting edge. Currently, in addition to teaching, Peter also manages Seneca 360, which employs students to do not for profit work in their field of study, he continues to research new and emerging technologies such as mixed reality, Blockchain, 3D printing, and probably anything else that's cool. Peter thought it might be neat to meet up at one of the showcase rooms of the site building I mentioned earlier called the Mechatronics Simulation and Demonstration Center, or the Mechatronics Lab. In a nutshell, this is a massive room in which students can work with and showcase the latest technologies and partnering with industry and government to create truly innovative tech solutions. For more information on that room specifically, I've got some links in the show notes*.  We join our conversation with a brief overview of the room. And then Peter walks me through a demo of an augmented reality headset. Spoiler alert, there are Star Trek references. And now my conversation with Professor Peter Moscone.

 

Peter Moscone  04:18

So we're in the in the Mechatronics Lab.

 

Pat Perdue  04:21

How does the size of this room impact your classroom, the vibe of your class, the energy level in the class, because it's massive compared to the number of machines that I'm actually looking at?

 

Peter Moscone  04:32

It more closely simulates what industry would look like. If you were out in the industry this is what a place would look like that would have machines like this. It's just trying to emulate. When they built this building, and they created the specifications for this equipment one of the things was to put students into that environment to make them feel comfortable so that when they do walk into a lab like this or when they do walk into industry It's one in the same.

 

Pat Perdue  05:01

Share with me what we've got here in the room.

 

Peter Moscone  05:04

Well, this is a typical way that they would learn how to automate. It's a simulation of different automation practices. And you have what our students would learn on. And then what we've developed is, and this is sort of taking it more into my wheelhouse, this is exactly not in my wheelhouse. But we've developed an augmented reality application to overlay on top of this equipment to show people how it works.

 

Pat Perdue  05:32

And to just to provide a sense for the listeners of what we're looking at. We're looking at a bay of what I'm seeing as circuits and electronics, almost on a kitchen island, like a small table that you might see in a kitchen like an island. That makes sense to you?

 

Peter Moscone  05:48

Yeah, a really smart one.

 

Pat Perdue  05:51

Yeah, very, very smart kitchen island. And on top of it, there's a lot of open components, and it just looks like the biggest science fair project you can possibly imagine.

 

Peter Moscone  06:00

Yeah, that's cool. Pretty accurate description.

 

Pat Perdue  06:02

Oh. Very neat.

 

Peter Moscone  06:05

I'm going to demo you the augmented reality application. Augmented reality is a new space that the College is exploring. They've put a lot of time and effort into diving into that space of mixed reality. And they're starting to form a committee and sort of starting to see what all the mixed reality components are in the College and try to put them under one umbrella. 

 

Pat Perdue  06:29

When you're saying mixed reality, would that be similar to augmented reality where we're taking reality and superimposing other datasets onto it?

 

Peter Moscone  06:36

Sort of.  Mixed reality encompasses virtual and augmented reality. When you talk about mixed, you're talking about both virtual which takes you out of your environment, so you put on a virtual reality headset, and you are transported somewhere else. Whereas in augmented reality, you put on an augmented reality headset, you're still in your space, but now it's creating assets to insert into your space. The virtual reality thing is not new, it's probably got a lot more technology behind it. Facebook owns Oculus, and then there's, other players in that market space. And they are creating fully immersive experiences. But what the focus is here is using augmented reality over virtual and a lot of people have opinions of either way, which one’s better or which one's more future proof. But the thing about augmented reality versus virtual is, if you put on a virtual reality headset, and this were to be a 3D render, as opposed to what we're looking at right now,

 

Pat Perdue  07:38

This being the smartest kitchen island standard, possibly imagined. 

 

Peter Moscone  07:44

Correct. If that were to be what you have in the virtual world, it wouldn't exactly work like it does in the real world. Even if they could get it to a point where you could be interacting, it's still someone's interpretation of how you would be interacting versus interacting with the physical elements. The augmented reality is a little bit newer. And we're exploring that technology a lot more because the application to crossover augmented reality into something like mechatronics, which is what this is intended to do, is more future proof. And companies are going to be looking for that, because instead of now, if I wanted to repair this, instead of sending a technician from Germany, I could send a headset. They put the headset on, the technician in Germany is looking over my shoulder at what I'm doing. And then he's inserting assets into my space, he's circling things in my space.

 

Pat Perdue  08:41

How cool is that? Your space becomes that technician’s whiteboard.

 

Peter Moscone  08:45

Exactly. So, then anyone can kind of put it on and then they could they could be immersed in what what's happening. We've developed a program in tandem with one of our students from the Interactive Media program and we've created this overlay on top of this mechatronics installation to actually show how it works. It labels each of these from one to five, and then gives a brief summary of what it is and what it's actually doing. And then it actually overlays in 3D. This is going to be off for our demo. 

 

Pat Perdue  09:22

This being all the electronics that we're looking at.

 

Peter Moscone  09:24

Correct, the machines are going to be turned off but you're going to see a 3D interpretation of what actually happens on each machine. I'll set it up.

 

Pat Perdue  09:38

I'll just describe what you're just put on your head. You've put on what could be the coolest sunglasses ever. When I think of virtual reality glasses or virtual reality goggles, they seem to be huge and whatever. But this one, it's a band around the top of your head with what could truly be sunglasses in front of you, right over your eyes. So, you can actually see out rather than having your eyes completely blocked. 

 

Peter Moscone  10:05

And this one's fully self-contained, it's got its own Microsoft operating system installed on it. It doesn't need a tether. And this is the first generation, the second generation they're saying it's going to really create a lot of content, because it's actually smaller than this one, if you can imagine. And it's just more flexible, in terms of, different people being able to put it on. Because really, what's preventing us from having this in every house is that it's so cumbersome. 

 

Pat Perdue  10:35

But it looks very retail friendly right now, you know.

 

Peter Moscone  10:39

It's not bad. But even something like, have you ever seen the Google Glass? That was the first one to come out.  And they assumed that everybody would just want one. That didn't work out so well because nobody really wants to look like Data from Star Trek. And people, want to have just regular sort of rim glasses, maybe a little bit of a thicker rim to it. 

 

Pat Perdue  11:03

This is more of a Geordi La Forge vibe.

 

Peter Moscone  11:07

But it depends on who you ask. For those who grew up watching Star Trek. 

So that's ready for you. You're just going to put that on, okay, then what you're going to see is y an overlay of a bunch of gears, you're going to see five gears and correspond to each of the stations. 

 

Pat Perdue  11:24

So when I put it on, I'm going to see the stations, I'll still be able to look through the lens. And at the same time, there will be extra things on top of it, that will be describing what I'm seeing?

 

Peter Moscone  11:35

Exactly. And when you do that, you're going to see a grid. Do you see a grid?

 

Pat Perdue  11:41

I do, I'm seeing a white sort of centering dot that looks like it's in front of me. And then as I scan my lens from left to right, I can see blue lines outlining the wooden boxes that the components are on. And then on top of that, I can see green arrows that are pointing either away from me or toward me or to the right or to the left or up and down. And I even see when I look up a little bit I see ‘next’ and I've looked at the ‘next’ and that little dot that I described earlier, was the equivalent of clicking on the next. This is pretty cool. I've got an image of gears.

 

Peter Moscon  12:21

That little dot that you're seeing, that's where your cursor is. If you were operating Windows, that would be where your click would happen. Look where you want to go, and then just hit that button that I just handed you, the controller that I just handed you. Hit from one to five, and then you'll start to see what I'm talking about. 

 

Pat Perdue  12:38

As I scan my eyes from one side to the other, I've got these rotating blue gears. And when I put the little dot in front of it a question mark appears. And that's when I should click my clicker. I clicked it. And now it looks like the gear has actually opened up. And I'm seeing some sort of mechanisms. Some physical machinery moving, it's almost like a piston. And above that is a description of it. “This section contains a storage magazine that stores the raw material pucks on pneumatic cylinder pushes out one puck at a time for further operation.” Cool! I'm going to go to the next one. And now I see another component taking one of those pucks and moving it with a descriptor above it about what it does. That's so neat.

 

Peter Moscone  13:21

So we've just kind of scratched the surface on what we can do in terms of having that automation process be documented. Anybody can now put this on. And within 10 minutes, you'll know exactly, along with terminology, you'll know exactly what everything does.

 

Pat Perdue  13:38

And I could see this like an application either for repair, training, or certification, where let's say if it was training, a trainer could also be tapped into this as well be looking at exactly what I'm seeing. But that person could be somewhere else. It could be an Oslo or something and walk me through and provide some additional input and additional information about what I'm looking at. Really, really neat.

 

Peter Moscone  14:02

Yeah, so the next phase of this that we're going to be exploring is this is the discovery phase. We're actually going to have now an operations phase, where it will walk you through step by step how to turn on the equipment and operate it. And then a third phase, which is the troubleshooting phase. If you see down here, in front of these units, they've got different types of lights that come up, and those lights flashed to indicate some sort of a failure in the machinery. Whether the pucks are empty, whether there's a backlog of pucks in a certain spot that will flash and then you'll be able to select the light that's flashing. It will give you a list of troubleshooting elements, things that you can do to try and fix it along with a visual aid to let's say for example, there's no more pucks in the original unit. If there are no more pucks, we'll actually show you a graphic of putting pucks into that spot. It’ll actually show you specifically how to go ahead and fix the problem.

 

Pat Perdue  15:03

It's like, and I don't want to reduce this to some level of absurdity. But it's like very, very good directions on the most complicated photocopier you could possibly imagine, because it's out of paper and has little graphics about how to do this first do this second, but this is that times 1,000! Right?

 

Peter Moscone  15:21

Yeah. If there was an overlay that actually showed you specifically, which tray to open, and where the paper was stuck, that would actually be really helpful. We should look into that!

 

Pat Perdue  15:31

Definitely! The number of the amount of applications for this, we're just scratching the surface I suppose in terms of our understanding of how we can use this.

 

Peter Moscone  15:38

Absolutely. Yeah. Whereas  that's sort of where we're starting to explore with industry. We are starting to show them this technology and say, you know, this is what we're up to. So how can we help? And then get our students out there doing this work because it's a pretty future proof industry.

 

Pat Perdue  15:59

You know, it's really cool. And I do feel a little bit like Tony Stark when I'm wearing this. But at the same time, the amount of cost savings for industry to save on travel, to save on downtime for machines, because I can get to a troubleshooting solution right away rather than wait for however long until the technician shows up. That's it. 

 

Peter Moscone  16:20

Absolutely. Even at a at a root level, that's baked into a Hololens. So Hololens will allow you to do a Skype call. You'll actually see the technicians face and they'll be talking to you and they'll be seeing what you're seeing. And they'll be able to describe to you what you could be doing so that it works out of the box. Hololens has already found an audience. We're just taking it to the next level by inserting, assets that allow it to work offline, like what you're saying.  

 

Pat Perdue  16:48

Sure. Tell us about you. How did you get involved in this? It's cutting-edge stuff. I'm going to guess that you're a former Seneca student, this is not something that you studied at Seneca specifically. 

 

Peter Moscone  17:00

No, no I studied Computer Engineering here. And that's actually what I'm teaching.  This is outside of our program deliverables thus far. But we already have a component of C sharp, in our curriculum, currently.  In another semester, we're going to create an option course for augmented reality to learn how to take that and start to develop specifically for augmented reality for handsets on the iOS platform or Android platform, as well as Hololens and then see if there's anything else that can be ported over too.

 

Pat Perdue  17:33

I could almost hear the listeners lean forward and say, wait, what about the program that you're going to be developing? Cool! Well, tell us about the class that you're teaching right now,

 

Peter Moscone  17:42

I'm teaching computer engineering. So basically, it's everything that's involved in PC, Mac and Linux assembly repair operation. We do a lot of work to prepare students for certain certifications, one of them being the A+ certification. Our students come in and they are learning very specific A+ deliverables. And we've got a partnership with CompTIA that allows us to access some of their materials and give our students discounts on all the certification exams. When they leave Seneca, they're not just leaving with a diploma, they're leaving with a diploma plus certifications. And that's really where we're going in terms of our programs, specifically, our Computer Engineering program. We're trying to make these partnerships with the certifying bodies to hold us to a higher standard, and make sure what we’re teaching is relevant and what we're teaching is going to get our students jobs, because at the end of the day, that's where we want to go. We want to make sure that when our students leave, they can go into an interview, and they have a leg up by having certifications already.

 

Pat Perdue  18:54

And that requires constant input from industry, because in particular, computer science is changing all the time, right? If somebody's listening about the course right now, and is thinking of jumping in, how would they assess themselves to understand if it's a good move for them?

 

Peter Moscone  19:10

If you've got a laser sharp focus on what you want to do, if you really know specifically, I want to be a Programmer, then, I suggest going after that, a program that is just programming. However, our program really is more focused on producing a better-rounded individual. We've got programming, we've also got the computer engineering stream, and then we've got some electronics. The three of those things going into this program, specifically the computer engineering program, will prepare you for a lot more in terms of, now I know what I want to do, and I've got this knowledge. I've got this programming background, and I'm not going to be a programmer, but I understand how programming works. So that's going to make me a better technician. Or on the other end of things. If I want to be a programmer, and I just want a broad understanding of how the hardware works, it's going to make me a better programmer. Really, that's what it comes down to is if you want to get into computers, but you're not exactly sure where you want to end up, it's a really great program to get you there.

 

Pat Perdue  20:23

And get started.  And what do you love about it? You're clearly enthusiastic about the subject matter, and super knowledgeable, what brings you to it every day?

 

Peter Moscone  20:33

I just love to get lost in technology. I love new technology or emerging technologies. But I also I really do love discovering things with the students. I like creating those moments, where they can then walk away and say, wow, that was really kind of an interesting thing that I've never seen before, I'm gonna go home on my own. And I'm going to spend until (like when I did when I was younger), 2:30 in the morning, just learning everything I can about something. And creating as many of those moments as possible, is really what we want to focus on. I'll give you an example of something we did last semester, we created a cryptocurrency mining rig. Crypto and blockchain is out there and it's core technology that everyone's really trying to understand and leverage because of the benefits of a decentralized system. I knew nothing about that, because I had never worked in that before. We got together with a few students who said, hey, we're really interested in this thing. And we all learn together. And we all built a rig together. And I was learning as much from them as they were learning from me. And, you know, we accomplished a task that we set out to do, and now we're actually actively mining with it. And any money we make off of it, which is approximately $1,000 a year, we actually put back into our campaign for students So every year we make a donation on behalf of the department using this crypto.

 

Pat Perdue  22:04

How satisfying is that! You touched on one thing that I'd like to explore a little bit. You're teaching in a living dynamic classroom; technology is the classroom in which you're teaching. Folks will leave your classroom or finish the conversation with you, and they're all inspired. And then they'll go on to Google, and they'll go on to Reddit, and they'll go on to whatever thread that they can find to research the topic, and then come to you like literally the next class with an exponentially increased level of knowledge. So how do you as a professor, keep up with that? And can you even hope to?

 

Peter Moscone  22:42

That's a good question. The answer to that is really in the attitude you approach teaching with and I tend to approach teaching a little bit more collaboratively. I don't really claim to know everything. And I would never answer a question I didn't know the answer to just because I felt like I was put on a spot.  No, I would not make it up because, you know some students coming in have been working in the industry. I've got students who already have their A+ certification coming into the course. The industry is so vast, I can't wager to know everything. So why would I pretend that I do? Instead, I see my role is more facilitating knowledge, really, just like the knowledge is there, and the student's willingness has to be there. How do I create that, that link between the knowledge that exists, and the students desire to get the knowledge?

 

Pat Perdue  23:40

You know, that Crypto rig, that you just mentioned, is a really good metaphor for your class and what you do. You help your students and together, collectively, you mined the knowledge and feed the appetite that they have for whatever it is that they want to learn.

 

Peter Moscone  23:55

Yeah, and our departments are really amazing at forming these partnerships for us. There's a lot of industry partnerships that they sort of reach out and create. We're talking to Microsoft now about collaborating, because we do have a lot of industry partners who we collaborate with to create more of these opportunities. Like we're partnered with Festo and the students get trained in Siemens certifications. Then the exams come from Germany, for them to be able to create and get officially certified. And then they actually get sent back to Germany to be marked. These are really, really high-level industry certifications and opportunities we're creating for our students and I credit the faculty and our Chair and our Admin for creating and building these relationships. 

 

Pat Perdue  24:46

That's great. And what are the students bringing to you in terms of the things that they want to learn? What’s the zeitgeist of today that has everybody saying, oh, I really want to dive into, I'm going to say it might be AR, but I'm not sure?

 

Peter Moscone  25:02

It's everything! A lot of them are working, they bring a lot of different types of thinking to the classroom. And it's just really a question of having to draw that out and creating a classroom that really allows them to draw that out and really allows us to take a walk sometimes. I have a gateway open at the beginning of every class. And they know they can log in online, on their phones or on their laptops.  They can follow along with the lectures, but they can also ask questions, anytime. And the questions are anonymous so they don't have to worry because we do have a lot of English as a second language. So, if the grammar is not right, who cares? Do we understand what you're trying to say? That's all that matters. So those types of things would prevent them from raising their hand and asking a question. I'm trying to create as many opportunities for them to reach out and say, hey, I'd really like to talk about this. I'll book 30 minutes worth of content and then I'll say, hey, guys populate the question board with stuff. You want to talk about anything in technology?  

 

Pat Perdue  26:05

How often do they take you up on that?

 

Peter Moscone  26:09

On average, I would say I get 20 to 30 questions per class.  And it varies from things I'm talking about that they need clarification on, or things that don't relate to it. You know, we had a 20-minute conversation about the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  I'm happy to go there if it gets their attention, and then we can kind of steer it to something that's industry relevant, I'm more than happy to take a walk.  It's a new student, It’s a very, very different world from when I was going to school.

 

Pat Perdue  26:40

A very different world. What do you see is the teacher of the future, surrounded by all this technology that we're sitting amongst?

 

Peter Moscone  26:46

Well, the teacher of the future is definitely going to leverage that technology to their advantage. A student of today comes in with a handset, they have less of an attention span for you standing there and talking, they're going to glance down at their handsets and check their Facebook. And when they get a ding, they're going to want to see, who's posted that thing to Instagram, like, all of those things are the student of today. So instead of just saying, well, the students aren't doing what we expect them to do, we have to flip it and say, how do we get to that?

 

Pat Perdue  27:17

Because the students are doing what they're fully doing what we expect them to do, right? They're doing exactly what you described? Precisely.

 

Peter Moscone  27:23

Yeah. And so how do we optimize that? And how do we use that as an asset? And how do we figure it out with the students input? How do we figure out how to better administer the content? And then how do we check that what we're actually imparting is working or not? Those are all things that on a class by class basis, we have to be asking ourselves, and we have to adapt.

 

Pat Perdue  27:46

Nice. Well, Peter Moscone, thank you so much for spending time in the Seneca Proud podcast and sharing with me all this amazing technology. Thanks for joining the podcast.

 

Peter Moscone  27:56

My pleasure. Thank you very much.

 

Pat Perdue  28:00

And that was my conversation with Professor Peter Moscone, of the School of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering Technology at Seneca College. And it was so much fun to put on that Hololens. I’ve got to tell you, when I put it on, and I saw all this extra stuff, on top of all the normal stuff that I could see, I totally 100% felt like Tony Stark, I absolutely did. Now I kind of know what Tony Stark feels like, I get it. And I also love how Peter is so forward thinking not just about technology, but about his role as a professor in a world where technology is such a regular part of everyone's day to day life. I know for a fact that he's hugely popular with the students and I can see why. I've included links in the show notes to the Center for Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship, as well as the Mechatronics Simulation and Demonstration Center. If you want to go check those out. And if you haven't yet, make sure you subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. Thanks again for tuning in today. Thanks again to my guest Professor Peter Moscone. This has been the Seneca Proud podcast. I'm Pat Perdue. Keep it proud Seneca!

 

*NOTES

Center for Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship

A new era begins at CITE

Mechatronics Simulation and Demonstration Center