January 4, 2024
Educational, Entertaining, and Fun Channels for Programming, Engineering, History, and More
Justin Golden
web
My 40 Recommended YouTube Channels
Each channel has a quick about sentence or two, a recommended video, and a link to the channel. We are not affilianted with or sponsored by any of these, but they make great learning material and we can’t recommend these enough!
This large list of channels engulfs anything useful, educational, or entertaining to nerds (of math, science, or history), engineers (of hardware or software), or curious people and would recommend binging.
There are no bad channels listed here. These are the top of the top of the top. Enjoy!
Web Programming
- About: Shaun is absolutely at the top of the list. Pick a topic and click a playlist and learn. He’s super approachable and great at teaching. The Net Ninja is the one single channel I recommend to anyone trying to start programming, at any age. His videos are also useful even if you’ve been programming for decades. He also has absolutely tons of content. Just about anything you want to learn about web dev, he’s got you covered. When someone says they want to learn to make websites, I point them in three places: the W3schools website, the SoloLearn app, and the Net Ninja YouTube channel
- Recommended
VideoPlaylist: Async javascript playlist
- About: WDS makes amazing videos all about the web. He’s got plenty of videos and they’re very approachable and educational. Highly, highly, highly recommend.
- Recommended Video: Javascript array methods
- About: Kevin has absolutely amazing educational videos on just about everything css. He “is” the css guy, and uploads frequently and makes great videos. The video I recommended is a little more complex, but he has simpler videos too on creating different effects, new css features, dive into css units, containers, positions, parallax, and more.
- Recommended Video: 3d tilting card effect
- About: Juxtopposed makes amazing, well-produced, and short videos on web design / css / UI design. Juxtopposed is truly talented and fun to watch. It’s nearly a perfect channel, but it isn’t as educational as say WDS or Kevin above.
- Recommended Video: Steam UI redesigned
- About: Another absolutely killer ui/ux/design channel. I feel like Hyperplexed is the twin to Juxtopposed. I personally like the redesign videos. There’s an Amazon and Google redesign video that’s great too. Fun and entertaining even if you’re not a web dev, but definitely more for web devs.
- Recommended Video: I Redesigned Popular Websites - Costco & Domino’s
- About: Gary has amazing videos on web and design. His videos are all about design and making good looking and functional websites. If UI / UX is your thing (or it’s not and you want it to be) then I absolutely recommend DesignCourse. In addition to recommending the Net Ninja for general learning to program websites, I recommend design course for learning to make them look good.
- Recommended Video: Give your flat designs depth
- About: Fireship frequently uploads fun, short, and informative videos on everything web dev. He’s like your daily newspaper for web dev except it’s fun and educational. Fireship is well known in the web dev community, and for good reason. Before you know it, it’ll be your entire feed. You can get a high level overview of all sorts of programming and web news from him. He has some “100 seconds of” videos that deep dive in for another 10-15 mins with a speedy tutorial that are great.
- Recommended Video: 100+ computer science concepts
- About: Joy of Code makes amazing quality videos largely around svelte and svelte kit. The videos are super well made, clean and easy to follow. He’s my favorite guy for svelte content. He also has some non svelte videos, but svelte is definitely the majority.
- Recommended Video: Svelte kit page transitions
General Programming
- About: Spanning Tree makes awesome computer science and mathematical videos and teaches important topics in a simple and approachable way. I also recommend the videos on minimax, the halting problem, aes encryption, logic gates, and tetris.
- Recommended Video: How to send a secret message
- About: This could go in game dev, programming, or math, but I had to pick one category. Games computers play makes awesome videos on all sorts of games, programming a computer to (you guessed it) play that game, but it’s so much more. The videos are short and sweet, but highly entertaining and educational. I recommend the minesweeper, tetris, and monopoly videos.
- Recommended Video: Minesweeper oddities and their probabilities
Bonus mention of AI solves 55 x 55 Rubiks Cube by Code Bullet.
- About: This guy has been making fun and beginner friendly videos explaining important and complex topics for years. He loves to use p5 js which is a graphics library. He has a lot of videos and they’re all great quality and very welcoming and useful. He started making videos on a whiteboard 8 years ago (which are still awesome videos) and has grown to a large audience. He’s super friendly, and you can tell he loves what he does. It’s like he’s a guy on a TV show for toddlers, but he’s teaching programming concepts in a fun and friendly way. Very likeable and approachable.
- Recommended Video: Clock with p5.js
- About: Reducible makes highly educational videos that are easy to follow on important programming topics that are necessary for the world to work. he’s got videos on image compression, big o notation, graph theory, huffman codes, and more. He doesn’t have many videos and posts are infrequent, but they’re really amazing videos that I would absolutely recommend if you’re interested.
- Recommended Video: PNG compression
- About: Traversy Media makes very long videos that are “all in one” style, for those times you need to learn a language in one video and you already know how to program. You could also learn to program from Traversy Media, and he has some all in one videos on web development in 2023 (or x year) every year. He has mostly web videos, but he also has videos on plenty of other languages.
- Recommended Video: HTML for beginners
- About: James makes awesome short videos, mostly on python, and they’re very useful for python programmers. He keeps up to date with the latest changes, and the content is well edited, short, and useful.
- Recommended Video: Looping in python
- About: Code Aesthetic is all about writing good, clean code. He has great quality videos and seems to just be getting started.
- Recommended Video: Why you shouldn’t nest your code
Game Dev
- About: Sebastian makes absolutely amazing videos, usually using unity, explaining complex and cool topics about the real world and programming and modeling them. Check his how computers work videos, his chess videos, and his procedural planets. Amazing production quality and super calming and fun to watch, even if you don’t think you’re interested in the topic. I recommend his videos to every single person alive.
- Recommended Video: Exploring how computers work
- About: Indie developer making an awesome factory builder called Lumbermill who posts infrequent dev logs. He’s gone full time into this and is growing an audience. His videos are a lot of fun to watch and of all the dev logs I’ve seen for indie games, these are my far my favorite. Maybe these don’t belong in the game dev category since you’re not learning how to make a game and instead following a journey (but you still learn a little something about unity time to time). Videos are usually 10mins or less and you’re always sad when they’re over. Recommend to everyone.
- Recommended
VideoPlaylist: Lumbermill devlog playlist
- About: Useful videos on making games in unity.
- Recommended Video: How to make a 2d game in unity
- About: Javascript game tutorials, great for beginners and go into great depth. He makes classic games, but only has 16 videos and no new ones in the last decade.
- Recommended Video: Asteroids tutorial
Math
- About: He explains complex math concepts in an interesting and simple way. He is “the” math guy as far as I’m concerned. You can be in highschool or college learning about math, just enjoy math in general, or need a specific video for something. Even if you don’t enjoy math, you might want to check out one or two of his videos, and maybe that’ll change your view on math as a whole; he’s that good.
- Recommended Video: Sliding blocks compute pi
- About: Primer makes amazing videos with cute blue blobs and simulates societal circumstances and statistics. These videos are really, really good. You’ll find yourself watching more than just one.
- Recommended Video: catch a cheater with math
- About: Numberphile has great videos on different math/number related problems where they go and interview different people and scribble on paper with some fun animations. The videos are educational in that they help you learn to think differently and can inspire kids to go into mathematics. I also recommend their sister channel, computerphile, which has great videos too. Recommend the Monty Hall Problem as well.
- Recommended Video: Inventing Game of Life - John Conway
Graphics / Art / Design
- About: A truly skilled designer and fun videos to watch. I think this is the one channel of this category I recommend to everyone, even non-designer types. Videos are great and he’s great. My favorite videos from him are the rebrand videos. You can also learn a lot from him, just by watching.
- Recommended Video: Packaging Design Challenge: 5min vs 30min vs 5hr
- About: Will makes videos all about typography, design and logos. His videos are entertaining and informative.
- Recommended Video: Paid 5 Designers To Design The Same Logo
- About: Satori makes videos all about design and logos.
- Recommended Video: 3 Logo Disasters
- About: Useful web design videos that can help you make your website look and feel better.
- Recommended Video: How to Choose Fonts
Bonus mention of this story about fonts from struthless.
Computer Engineering
- About: Ben Eater makes amazing videos on electronics and computer architecture. He has a whole playlist on building a computer from scratch, and while it’s fairly technical and long, these videos could easily replace multiple college courses, and they’re way more educational, useful, and easier to follow. Ben is amazing at what he does. If you’re not interested in how PCs work at a low level, probably not for you.
- Recommended
VideoPlaylist: Building an 8 bit breadboard computer
How stuff works / Physics / Engineering
- About: Technology Connections makes awesome and entertaining videos on how many different inventions, electronics and devices work. He has no bad videos, but I’d recommend the electric car brake lights video, the popcorn button video, the turn signals video, and his jukebox video. His videos are amazing and I can’t recommend him enough.
- Recommended Video: Old Pinball Machines
- About: Jared Owen makes killer animations and has great 10-20 min videos on how things work such as escalators and elevators, speed cubes, and bowling pinsetters, and about different military equipment and buildings. I was between the pinsetter, escalator and elevator videos for my recommended one. All of his videos are great. Recommend for everyone.
- Recommended Video: how does a bowling pinsetter machine work
- About: Veritasium is super popular and makes really great educational videos. Recommend for all ages and all interests. Click a thumbnail that interests you and watch.
- Recommended Video: The SAT Question Everyone Got Wrong
- About: Kurzgesagt makes amazing videos about the future, physics, black holes, etc. Their animations are amazing and they’re great for all ages and anyone interested in science, physics, or the limits of the universe. They have a video called “What if we nuke the moon” and that sums up what about half of their videos are like. Lots of videos on black holes as well.
- Recommended Video: How We Could Build a Moon Base Today
- About: They Explain how different computer parts and other things work. Videos are well done, well animated, and allow anyone to learn about the fundamentals of how lots of important and complex technology we works.
- Recommended Video: How transitiors do math
- About: Interesting videos of various length about how many things work, great footage and interviews.
- Recommended Video: Zig zag pattern the coast guard uses
Creating Things
- About: This is by far the best of the category. He creates insane engineering projects and documents the journey and it’s super fun and crazy to watch, and educational as well. This is more in the “nerdy entertainment” category. He tests out wild things like a basketball hoop that cant miss or pool game where you cant miss, and made a tool to paint walls and a hair cutting machine. Crazy fun stuff. He’s truly skilled and the videos are awesome to watch.
- Recommended Video: Puzzle Machine
- About:McConnel makes videos on almost anything, and they’re creative, fun, entertaining and educational. Can’t recommend him enough. Recommend to everyone.
- Recommended Video: Ink cartridges are a scam
- About: I did a thing is an aussie that makes crazy fun and dangeous videos where he tests different theories. The videos aren’t educational, but they’re very entertaining and absolutely hilarious and fun. Recommend to everyone.
- Recommended Video: I Tested Your Most Dangerous Video Ideas
Fun / History / Factoids
- About: Sam makes 5-10 min videos on crazy historical situations and stories you wouldnt believe with a fun and wild sense of humor. Recommend to everyone.
- Recommended Video: Tarrare, the hungriest man in history
- About: CGP makes awesome fun and alliterating videos about random topics. They’re well made, cartoonish, and short. He likes flags, interstates, hexagons, and geography. His “you are two” video is great as well as his airport codes and interstate code videos, but his bestagons video is iconic and lovable, so I’ve placed it below. Recommend to everyone.
- Recommended Video: Hexagons are the bestagons
- About: Tom Scott has videos on all sorts of things, and they’re short and sweet and entertaining. He often travels the world and interviews people who have interesting, important, or obscure jobs. Some other great videos are about the bear test, rotating house, cable car you pedal, swiss cheese, and the giant robotic parking garage. You’ve absolutely got to watch the video called “I rode a giant mechanical elephant” too.
- Recommended Video: The first jungle gym
- About: HAI makes entertaining short videos on all sorts of weird and interesting topics. These videos are likable for pretty much anyone. He’s got another channel called Wendover Productions that has longer videos and focuses more on trains and planes. The videos are funny and entertaining, and cover lots of random facts you didn’t need to know. Other videos to watch are about how fake meat saved dippin dots, cars trick you with engine noises, and the london underground gets hotter every year. The Infographics Show has similar videos, but is more focused on military and less comedic.
- Recommended Video: Porsche Owns Volkswagen and Volkswagen Owns Porsche
- About: Solar Sands makes all sorts of interesting artsy / historic videos. Videos are often philosophical and/or about art and art styles. Monumentality, and The canvas of babel are also recommended videos.
- Recommended Video: The Secret Darker Art of Dr. Seuss
Bonus mention of Animation vs physics by Alan Becker.
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