When Covid-19 sent students home, I was an Instructional Student Assistant for ITP 260 - Manufacturing Materials and Processes. I was also working as a lab technician and student assistant in the ITP Metals Fabrication Lab. During the summer of 2020, my boss Ray Kisch outlined a vision for putting class content online. This was a herculean task. How do you teach students about lathes and mills when they barely even know what a hand drill is?

The answer turned out to be painstaking precision. Throughout the summer, I wrote, filmed, directed and edited hours of instructional videos. I made crude animations illuminating spindle rotation and axis orientations. I even 3D printed a welding lens adapter for the DSLR to capture the effect of tack welding. My goal was to capture every detail without boring students into distraction. In the years that have followed, the videos I made have continued to be a valuable repository of knowledge even after students returned to the classroom.