Mike's Blog: 10 science, technology & engineering YouTube channels you should follow

Even before I started on Evaluation Engineering in September 2018, I was a science and technology geek. Not in a booksmarts sense, mind you, but in a curiosity sense. I've always been interested in how technology and natural phenomena works the way they work. Thanks to YouTube, I can easily satisfy that curiosity and constantly learn new things about science, technology, and engineering, without the grunt work needed to become an expert on any particular topic.

I subscribe to a lot of educational YouTube channels, and am often watching YouTube while getting work done, or when just lounging in my living room. Instead of watching videos of funny cats or epic fails—not that there's anything wrong with that—my watch history is comprised of videos about new scientific discoveries, technology developments, space exploration, or nature.

So, I wanted to provide our readers with a short list of video channels I think you should check out. Now, almost none of these channels have anything to do with electronic test & measurement, much less engineering at their core. But given that the vast majority of the EE audience is comprised of engineers, I'm sure many of them are naturally curious about science and technology in the way that I am. Most of these video channels are meant for laypersons curious about these topics, but experienced engineers can still gain a lot from them.

Find that list below, in no particular order. I've already shared videos from a handful of them time-to-time on EE.

Smarter Every Day: Host and creator Destin Sandlin—an engineer and science communicator—makes videos that use science to explore what makes things operate the way they do, what holds them together, and what happens when they fall apart, or are blown up.

Verge Science: Describes itself as "the home base for our experiments and explorations into the future of science. That means energy, space, nature, the human mind and body, AI, and wherever else our stories take us."

The Slow Mo Guys: A science and technology entertainment web series from Thame, England, that is created by Gavin Free, starring himself and Daniel Gruchy. It has been described as the biggest channel for slow motion videos on YouTube.

Veritasium: A science and engineering video channel featuring experiments, expert interviews, demonstrations, and discussions with the public about science, produced and hosted by Derek Muller.

CrashCourse: Offers educational videos across 36 topics to date, including engineering.

Seeker: Describes itself as, “Seeker exists where technology, innovation and the future collide. We celebrate relentless curiosity with an insatiable drive to question, inspire, and create.”

It’s Okay To Be Smart: Variety of science/natural world topic videos hosted by Joe Hanson, Ph.D.

Interesting Engineering: Description states: “Interesting Engineering is a cutting edge, leading community designed for all lovers of engineering, technology and science. Join us to keep up with the latest in new technological advances, ground-breaking scientific discoveries and the most Interesting Engineering projects in the entire world. As well as cool recent developments in these fields we also bring you some of the coolest and most interesting science, technology and engineering information from the past.”

Mark Rober: A former NASA JPL engineer shows how to apply technology to everyday situations.

ElectroBoom: Hosted by electrical engineer Mehdi Sadaghdar, Wikipedia describes this channel as “His videos are "hilariously painful tutorials" of electric experiments during which he often receives electric shocks. He intentionally creates situations where a shock is created to demonstrate the dangers of electricity.”

This is by no means a complete list, and it's certainly biased to my preferences. If there are any other YouTube channels out there you think would be of interest to EE readers, let me know at [email protected], and I'll update this list to include them.

If you're regular visitor to YouTube and want to follow any of these channels, just click the subscribe button on their channel or when watching one of their vidoes. That'll make it so that they're newer videos populate your YouTube feed.