ITFH is LIVE again! Our host Matt Cooper chats with Sindia Rivera-Jiménez (University of Florida), Tracy Gardner (Colorado School of Mines), Dami Daramola (Ohio University) and Micha Barankin (Colorado School of Mines) in beautiful Golden, CO at the 2022 ChE Summer School. Their wide-ranging discussion of this year's Summer School touches on the be…

ITFH goes LIVE as host Matt Cooper chats with Dan Anastasio (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology), Dan Burkey (University of Connecticut) and Sandy Petit (University of South Florida) in beautiful Golden, CO at the 2022 ChE Summer School. Their discussion of ChE Summer Schools of the past ends up going in many directions, including favorite worksho…

Check out Trail of the Behemoth on Drivethru RPG! Seamus and I go deep behind the scenes and talk about the favorite parts of the adventures we made for the system and other cool aspects you can steal for your own games.

Courtney Pfluger, Associate Teaching Professor of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University, is ITFH host Matt Cooper's guest in this entertaining episode of the show! They discuss Courtney's innovative research in inclusive teams, clean water, and renewable energy education in Brazil. Matt is delighted to learn of Courtney's unique favorite …

Taryn Bayles, Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, joins podcast host Matt Cooper in the fume hood. In this episode Matt and Taryn theorize what makes our ChE education community so great, discuss Taryn's successes in student outreach and design projects, and Taryn shares incredible stories of her ballet …

In this episode ITFH host Matt Cooper catches up with Daniel Lepek (Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Cooper Union) about his goals as current Chair of the AIChE Education Division, share pet peeves as ABET PEVs, and talk about what wine pairs best with fried bologna. We are also fortunate to hear Daniel - a trained classical pianist - play …

Double the Matt! Matt Liberatore, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Toledo, joins ITFH host Matt Cooper for a wide-ranging conversation about Matt L's work on interactive textbooks and YouTube problems, his service as Chair of the AIChE Education division and... harp music!By In The (Fume) Hood

This time Matt's ChE talk show guest is Sarah Wilson, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Kentucky. They discuss Sarah's current NSF research project on the mental health of engineering students, her collaborative work in safety education, as well as her new course on bourbon production.…

In this edition of ITFH our host Matt Cooper speaks with Elif Miskioğlu, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Bucknell University, about System 1 and System 2 thinking, Elif's experiences being named one of AIChE's 35 Under 35, and - if you can believe it - singing to puppies.By In The (Fume) Hood

Trail of the Behemoth is an game about hunting giant monsters, a TTRPG you can bring to a boardgame night. I'm working on it with Seamus Allen, and we're going to talk about what we're doing and when it might be finished. I might even hand out some playtest files to listeners. If your interested, contact me on twitter @designerdanf.…

This edition of ITFH features Matt Cooper's incredible conversation with Milo Koretsky (Tufts University) about conceptual teaching/learning and how the AIChE Concept Warehouse got started - Milo even gives Matt an on-air concept test! Milo also explains just how deep the rabbit hole of a phase diagram goes before he and Matt find out they've both …

A listener sent me a question on how to deal with evil PCs, and how to deal with lawful-stupid paladins. I answer.

How do you identify an inherently fun mechanic anyway? What's this 'Decision Engine' thing Dan loves so much and how do you make one yourself? Listen and find out.

Want to run RPGs for new players? Want to get them hooked on this hobby we love? Here's how Dan does it.

The second part of Dan and Reuben's live world building session. This time we're digging into Adventure Hooks and Sample Locations in the Necropolis.

Dan and Reuben recorded a live session of their world building. They had fun recording it. Will you have fun listening to it? Let's find out.

Tony Butterfield, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Utah and Matt talk about enabling citizen science, social connections in capstone design and unit ops laboratories, storytelling in video games, and find out they both like Beck, Arcade Fire, and can recite lyrics from Radiohead's OK Computer album off the top of the…

We didn't finish everything about this topic in one podcast? Huh, who would've thought? Game Designer Dan Felder breaks down how he starts working on a game and the common pitfalls new designers get stuck in when starting a project.

I get a lot of requests to talk about designing and hacking TTRPG systems, so here we go! I make my own systems for nearly every campaign I run. It's a huge topic, so today we're going to lay the foundation.

First example of the Content Forge, where we talk about a setting, system, or adventure we've found inspiring and pulled pieces from to use in our own games. Sometimes it'll be the royal we, but this time we're joined by Reuben Covington to talk about the whimsical and creepy Gardens of Ynn. Check out The Gardens of Ynn And the Gardens of Ynn Gener…

Margot Vigeant, Professor of Chemical Engineering at Bucknell University, joins Matt to talk about food science and her new article series on the topic in the journal Chemical Engineering Education, applications of entropy to whiskey, and what turns out to be their shared fondness for the band They Might Be Giants.…

Designer Reuben Covington returns to chat about designing Boss Fights in TTRPGs. The two give some advice, and tell a LOT of stories about memorable boss battles they've made and played against. Feel free to steal them (like always).

Dan and guest Reuben Covington break down how to design and run Dynamic Adventures, where the GM role is treated more like a player than a job. Link to the adventure notes: Cold-BloodedBy Dan Felder

Prepare a full adventure setting, a full region of your world, with just a single page of notes. This format, the one-page setting, is what I use to prepare vast open worlds with diverse and interesting regions with just a little bit of work.

A great sandbox campaign is incredibly fun to play in, and it’s a great introduction for new players. I often start new groups in sandboxes rather than carefully constructed narrative games. It’s a simple pitch: Here’s a fantastical wilderness filled with monsters, treasures, dungeons, and dragons. Want to go explore it? However, while sandboxes ca…

I love making combat encounters. I have a lot of advice on how to make them, but there's one point that I come back to more than any other: Attack the players' STRENGTHS, not their weaknesses

Random Encounters are a classic element of TTRPGs, but most aren't fun in practice. Often the table just turns up entries like "2d4 wolves" or "two gnomes are arguing about which way the nearest town is". Here's the secret: Random Encounters are Micro-Adventures.

Season 2 kicks off with the first-ever ITFH interview! Matt talks with Professor Lucas Landherr (Northeastern University) about being CEE's comic mastermind, his recent AIChE process control conceptual testing presentation and '90s alternative music. Bonus dirt on the family lives of Carnot and Bernoulli too!…

In the Season 1 finale, Matt and Jason answer questions from listeners and get into discussions about easter eggs in textbooks, policies grading exams, Rankine, Kelvin, Joule, pro wrestling, cooking, aspic (aka beef jelly), Jello molds, advice for faculty, and a nickname for ITFH listeners.By In The (Fume) Hood

In the final episode of a three part series, Matt and Jason further discuss HW problems and a whole lot more. Topics include: orange juice, infomercial science, TVs in hotel bathrooms, absorption-stripping, Whizzo(!), Deacon Process, chlor-alkali, dilution of emissions, losing weight by eating ice, fuel vs. food, and corn on the cob. We will wrap u…

In the second of a three part series, Matt and Jason get into discussing HW problems and a whole lot more. Topics include: leaching oil from soybeans, egg sorting, old-timey baseball names, The Simpsons softball episode, making jam, food science, coffee and espresso, Guinness, golden rice, GMO foods, tomatoes, tomacco, artificial flavors, bananas a…

The first season is drawing to a close, but we've still got a few episodes left. In this first of a three part series, Matt and Jason discuss finishing the semester, thermodynamics textbooks, acronyms, In Living Color, David Alan Grier, Tenacious D, High Fidelity, student comments in course evaluations, engineering estimations, sometimes there is n…

This week, Matt and Jason discuss final exams, breakfast and eggs, hydrogen, fuels, air, combustion, mobile apps for ChemEs, publishing journal articles, reality vs. textbook, "human error", how much catalyst to use, and why this summer already feels different.By In The (Fume) Hood

A quick bite of extra material that didn't make the cut for Episode 16. Matt and Jason's discussion about catalysts quickly morphs into reminiscing about Mr. T and the 1980s. Also some observations about grocery shopping during Covid-19 shutdowns.By In The (Fume) Hood

This week, Matt and Jason discuss propylene and propane, IUPAC names for chemicals, recycle loops, separations, the Amazon reviews for FRB book, purge streams, and recycling of aluminum vs. plastics.By In The (Fume) Hood

This week, Matt and Jason record from home for the first time during the Covid-19 shutdown. Topics include the challenges of working and teaching from home, more discussion about balancing reactions, Matt's "instant nickname generator algorithm", learning styles, and what an engineer should know.By In The (Fume) Hood

This week, Matt and Jason discuss the difference between thermodynamics and kinetics, entropy, extent of reaction, water-gas shift reaction, hydrogen, multiple reactions and side products, atomic balances, NOx emissions, and the future of work and travel post-Covid-19.By In The (Fume) Hood

This week, Matt and Jason discuss chemical reactions in balances, yield & selectivity, oxidative coupling of methane, fireplaces, are Jarod and Timmy real people?, extent of reaction, Greek letters, air separation, liquid nitrogen, noble gases, xenon fluoride compounds, periodic table party, BET surface area, Raney nickel, palladium, joules, styrof…

Hoping to provide some laughs during a tough time... here's the second installment of Out the Fume Hood! Recorded in February, we were saving this fora rainy day. Topics include Star Wars, Kylo Ren, the Darth Jar Jar Theory, Valentine's Day, cooking and cookbooks, eating at restaurants by yourself, Kanye albums, memorable rap lyrics, teaching isn't…

A bite-sized 18-minute episode! This week, Matt and Jason discuss solutions manuals, online homework, ethics, chromate salts, putting engineering calculations into context, bypass streams, citizen science, and particulate matter.By In The (Fume) Hood

This week, Matt and Jason dive back into the book and get deep into the history of industrial chemistry and its impact on the 20th Century. Topics include: problem solving strategies for multiple unit processes, AIChE Concept Warehouse, hypothetical ITFH merchandise, periodic table belt buckles, recycle loops, the Haber-Bosch Process, ammonia and f…

This episode focuses on how engineering educators are adjusting to the impacts on coronavirus, especially with respect to online teaching, exams and delivery of course materials. Matt and Jason share their perspectives, experiences, thoughts and suggestions for handling this unexpected change in how we teach. Comments, ideas and feedback are welcom…

By In The (Fume) Hood

An extra large 58+ minute episode that is half "In the Fume Hood" and half "Out the Fume Hood"! Topics include: The Grey Album, misheard lyrics, degree of freedom analysis, flowchart scaling, independent equations, baking, Matt's biscuits, listening to music in the 90's, Netflix, social interactions during and after college, incomplete derivations …

By In The (Fume) Hood

By In The (Fume) Hood

By In The (Fume) Hood

By In The (Fume) Hood

By In The (Fume) Hood

By In The (Fume) Hood