Jeremy Saxey presenting at Eth Denver in front of an audience about the Rocket School project.
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Rocket School’s Team Presentation with Juxta

Juxta Presents at ETHDenver

ETHDenver is an annual conference and hackathon that brings together developers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts from the Ethereum and blockchain community. It’s a bustling event where new ideas are shared, projects are showcased, and collaborations are formed, all to advance the Ethereum ecosystem.

At ETHDenver 2024, Juxta presented an exciting educational project called Rocket School. This initiative aims to demystify the process of running an Ethereum node and staking ETH, which are crucial activities for maintaining the network’s security and decentralization. By creating accessible, user-friendly content, Rocket School addresses a significant need in the Ethereum community: helping more people participate in staking, even if they lack technical expertise. This kind of educational project is valuable because it empowers individuals to actively contribute to the Ethereum network, potentially increasing its robustness and decentralization while allowing more people to benefit from staking rewards.

Video Summary

Rocket School is a comprehensive video course that teaches people how to become Ethereum stakers using Rocket Pool. The main goals are:

  • To make it easier for people to become Rocket Pool node operators
  • To provide friendly, entertaining, and informative educational content

The course is structured into three main sections beginning with an introduction to Ethereum staking. The course authors have composed the course in a way that explains the basics for complete beginners.

This is followed by a detailed guide on running your own node, including a complete walk-through of the step-by-step process of setting up a Rocket Pool node. The final section covers maintaining your node, including ongoing tasks like claiming rewards and updating the system.

Rocket School offers a range of features designed to enhance the learning experience. The course is available on therocketschool.xyz and uses a combination of videos, transcripts, and written guides to cater to different learning styles. It takes an “opinionated approach” to simplify choices for users, making the process less overwhelming. The content incorporates humor and metaphors to make complex topics more accessible. This course was created by a team of experienced Ethereum community members. The project team is committed to keeping the content updated as Rocket Pool evolves, with ongoing support from grants. The ultimate aim is to make staking more accessible to a wide range of people, from “Zoomer to Boomer,” by breaking down technical concepts into easy-to-understand language and visuals.

Video Transcription

DoubtStars (00:10):
Hello? Oh good. I’m losing my voice so I really apologize. But my name is DoubtStars and I was the project manager of Rocket School. And so we’re here to tell you about our project. So Rocket School offers a complete directed, decentralized first series of videos on the subject of Rocket Pool. Yay. And it gives information about Ethereum staking and we go through very every detail of preparing the hardware and software and otherwise becoming a rocket pool mode operator. So the intent is to lower the barrier to becoming a rocket pool mode operator, which is the entire point of rocket school. So through the extensive the rocket pool documentation, so may contains many options and that can be intimidating for prospective node operators, even if they otherwise have sufficient technical knowledge and the required funds. So we created a comprehensive professional video series with friendly and entertaining educational material and to overcome some of these challenges and greatly improve the experience for people looking to run on rocket pool node. So the reason why is we wanted to be entertaining for you guys that know what we’re doing. And then we also wanted to be informative for the new people and the team is going to introduce themselves. Why don’t you start and then I’ll,

Auston (01:54):
Alright. Hey, I am Austin. I am currently primarily working on the ACEs relay, but I’ve been a Rockpool node operator for a long time. Also doing some pseudo journalism when I come to conferences like this. Posting on E Finance, yeah, was doing some, I guess more technical writing for this project.

Justanotherposition (02:18):
I’m juxta another position. I go by juxta, but as juxta another position eth on my birth certificate. I started with the E finance community and then became part of the EVM Mavericks and or the e EV Mavericks and also part of Lu Auw. And so LER Khan, go to LER K if you can. It’s amazing. And also I speak publicly to non crypto audiences trying to educate the public on blockchains and things like that. And I wanted to be a rocket pool node operator for a while. And so when the evms were doing a project to create rocket school, I jumped onto that. So I figured I’ll just go start creating the material itself and then that way I’ll

Auston (02:58):
Be able learn it. So it’s been awesome.

JT Nichol (03:02):
Hi, I’m JT Moderator, e Finance, EV Mavericks media personality, formerly Grid Plus and the Lattice one team, currently Green Pill podcast editor and Rocket School media personality.—Rocket P- Who’s going to lead off this? You go. Okay, thank you.

DoubtStars (03:20):
And I’m DoubtStars. So you guys already heard from me, but I’m the Rocket Pool project manager. I also am the Al Dow, which is Haans director of programming. I’m a member of E Finance Mavericks and I also run tokens explain with my husband Logan the Bard. So if you guys haven’t met him, he’s outside if you want to talk to him. But right now we’re going to show you, we’re going to actually show you the Rocket Pool guy. Rocket. Cool. Sorry.

Auston (03:58):
All right. Yep. So we have a website for this. The URL is the Rocket School xyz. It’s currently up, not everything is perfect. We’re in the process of rolling everything out, but it’s good enough that we can take a look at it here. So a couple of quick notes here. We have a large list of the team involved in this. Not everybody could make it today, but Weaver has done a lot of work. Also shout outs to Isaac Schiffrin, zombie VEP. So overall, we’ve broken this up into three main segments. One on just general about Ethereum staking a large segment on the process of running a node and a final step on maintaining the node. Oh, yep.

DoubtStars (04:44):
So the reason why we broke it out into these three sections is the loan about Ethereum staking is for people that don’t know anything about staking at all. So that’s very much like an inter into Ethereum staking and then into, wait, that’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? Okay. Sorry. And then whereas the run room mode is basically the rocket pool documentation put into a video series, and then the maintaining your node is about claiming rewards and the following that happen after you start your node.

Auston (05:22):
All right, so getting into a little more detail on this right click menu, let’s zoom in a smidge. Cool. It is primarily a video series. We are trying to make this accessible. The goal is to have transcripts for every video up, for example, this one. But this first section generally broken up into two main videos. One to introduce the general concept of Ethereum staking accessible to everyone. And a second video talking about Rocket pull itself, how it operates, all the details you would need to know and specifically why might you choose to stake with rocket pool rather than still at stake or go through any alternatives. The

(06:17):
Next section on running your own node, as Daars was saying, was primarily derived from the excellent rocket pool documentation. And if you look at our lesson list, it does go largely step-by-step through the existing documentation. One big thing that we’ve tried to implement here is that we take an opinionated approach to the content in that while there are a number of options, for example, do you install in docker mode, hybrid native mode, we try to pick the options that we think are most accessible, most convenient, I mean, and make it simple for people using the course to follow along. So you can see through the list here, we cover generally the important points, how to set up the node, the hardware, the software we go through even the steps of setting up your SSH key pair, making sure that’s secure, going through the command line interface, smart node stack, we make sure to talk about the testnet versus main net distinction, encouraging people to start on testnet before moving to main net, all the usual steps, starting it up, creating a node wallet and eventually reaching the point where people are making their own mini pools.

Justanotherposition (07:39):
You got to click on the little maintaining a node.

(07:44):
All right. And I wanted to be talking about maintaining a node because like I mentioned in my intro, I wanted to be a rocket pool node operator. And so I went into this project and I actually used our materials and I am now a node operator on rocket pool. So it’s really awesome to be able to use the tools and be the first one to graduate from it. So it’s been really exciting. So in the very last section here, when you’re maintaining your node, we kind of just guide them along and do the fun part with here’s claiming your rewards, talk about skimmed rewards and getting your RPL and then on maintaining your node. We focus on the operating system too to make sure that they’re keeping the actual node running well. And then the client software with the smart node stack and then talk about the different clients and how to update those things.

(08:30):
And then we talk about monitoring you node too. And we mostly, because so much of it is done in the terminal, we talk about terminal commands, how to use HO and things like that. Then, but we also do mention Grafana, but we don’t go into a lot of details with that. That can be a whole kind of thing anyways. And then we rounded off with community tools and where we talk about the Rockpool website, the Discords, we shout out to East Staker cc and a bunch of community tools to after they’ve kind of finished up with all the material, now they can go talk to the community and kind of direct ’em that way. And let’s see. Okay, so as I said, I’m a node operator and maintaining your node was what I was covering. And it was kind of a funny thing because I got to East Denver on Wednesday night and then at 3:30 AM I get all, well that’s when I woke up to all of the different, can you get it to click there

Justanotherposition (09:36):
Yeah. So this is me that’s 72 hours ago. My effectiveness was bad. So what I ended up having to do is call my girlfriend on the phone. It was down for about 24 hours almost. And having her be tech support and plug in and plug and get everything set back up. And then it got back up eventually, which was awesome. And then as I go to the rocket pool booth the next day and I’m telling whack about it and shiffrin about it, I get a notification that I missed an attestation. And so I’m like, okay, great, whatever. And then turns out another attestation miss. I’m like, oh great. So then I had to go back message my girlfriend again, Hey, same routine as yesterday. When you get home from work, just let me know. And then she got it back up. So we didn’t include it in our guide. But another helpful tip, have a tech support girlfriend. It helps you ride in your node when you’re away.

JT Nichol (10:32):
Okay, so the video production part of this, just to give a little background, I’m an 18– year veteran elementary school music teacher. And so when you’re an elementary school music teacher dealing people, this big humor’s a good thing. And I got to think, well if we’re going to be doing this thing, we want to educate from zoomer to boomer on it. And I think sometimes taking these high level technical things and breaking down with metaphors and examples and adding a little bit of humor to it really helps cut the process along. And the goal as an educator is reach everybody where you can written, verbal and visual. So anyway, this is a short six minute video. We get on time to play this. Yes. Okay, somebody

JT as Video Narrator (11:10):
Hit play.
(11:15):
I’m coming. Alright. Okay, sorry chalkboard, this is your opportunity to join us in this exciting curriculum, which by the end of it will be your complete course load on learning how to stake Ethereum on the decentralized protocol rocket pool. In the next video we’ll discuss the responsibilities of being a node operator and try to make the decision if it’s right for you. Node operators must be prepared to keep their nodes secure, apply regular software updates and address any issues that may pop up, park your node anywhere you see fit at this point, as long as it stays on the same network as your client computer, which you will use from here on out. And with that, let’s head out to recess. Take a little bit of a break here and then we’ll be ready for you to come back in for the next video. For more on this, let’s bring in super fizz. How’s it going dude?

Super Fizz (12:09):
Good to see you. Hey, let’s

JT as Video Narrator (12:10):
Talk. We got

Super Fizz (12:11):
Bring, I’m to do all this stuff. Good to see you.

JT as Video Narrator (12:13):
Our mic’s probably touched careful now. Well it’s good to have you here. What a surprise. And really glad that you could join us for this first video of this series.

Super Fizz (12:23):
I’m excited to participate. I’m glad you let me come over.

JT as Video Narrator (12:26):
Alright, so we’re going to turn to you and you’re going to help me read through this script. What do you say?

Super Fizz (12:32):
I can do this. You can do it. I’m all game Good. I love Rocket Pool and I love the opportunity to join you.

JT as Video Narrator (12:37):
Alright, thank you. The other option for staking with Rocket Pool is to be a node operator taking on the responsibility of running the validator in exchange for a higher rewards. This requires at least an eight eat bond in addition to some amounts of the Rocket Pool token or RPL. Click okay on the end user license agreement, select your USB device, check the box, prepare this device. A warning pops up. Go ahead and click yes to proceed. Plug in its power and internet and a keyboard and mouse and monitor. Also plug the bootable USB drive you just created into one of its USB ports. Fun fact, A P TS stands for advanced package tool. You’re a tool. I don’t need anything out of you beanie. My bad. Moving on. Sounded like somebody’s node went offline. Oh my gosh. We’ve had a slashing incident. Doppelganger protection is highly recommended as it prevents you from getting slashed in case you have another future instance of your node running on another machine. This seed phrase, write it down, write it, don’t take a picture of it once you’ve written it down, double check your spelling and definitely check the number of words You should see 24 words. How many class 24. That’s right. 24 words. Wait, you didn’t write down my seed phrase, did you? Beanie River?

(14:22):
No. Okay, hand them over.

(14:30):
Oh wow. Well that’s actually impressive. You did that. Is this calligraphy? That’s astonishing. Actually, let’s move to the next step, which is setting a withdrawal address. For this we’ll simply use meta mask double bonus points. If you use cold storage devices for this wallet, such as a lattice one, a treasure, a ledger, or even a lattice one, I’m a big fan, what can I say? When you’re using Ethereum, your transactions are like bread and the crumbs are MEV value that can sometimes be extracted from your transactions. The ducks, also known as MEV searchers are very smart and fast and carefully watch for new transactions. And if they see any that drop crumbs of value, they will submit their own transactions to be executed along with yours at which time they gobble them up.

(15:32):
Those are some weird looking ducks.

(15:35):
Finally, we just wanted to say thank you for being a great student at Rocket School and for choosing to stake with Rocket Pool and supporting decentralization while earning that juicy Staking income. We really hope you enjoyed the course. This has been a production of the EV Mavericks main net DAO dedicated to advancing the decentralized Ethereum Web3 ecosystem by funding, developing and promoting public goods at education. We would also like to thank each STAKER and Rocket Pool for the grants that supported the development of Ro-JJcket School. Happy staking on behalf of Rocket School. My name is jt.

Voice off camera (16:15):
Cut. That’s a wrap. Great job everybody.

DoubtStars (16:23):
Well, that’s it.
weird-looking session

Moderator (16:30):
We have one question. That question’s from me. Can we get a OP for finishing the course, please?

DoubtStars (16:37):
Are there any other questions?

Audience Member (16:47):
Hi. So one thing that I think is a big hangup for a lot of people trying to run hardware at home is finding the right hardware. I know DAP Note has a pretty big name in the space, but they’re generally pretty expensive than just kind of rolling your own with a knuck if those are still available. I think Intel stopped building those. How much information do you have around that and the hardware setup step?

Auston (17:10):
We do have basically a dedicated video to hardware. We talk about all the various requirements. One thing that we do there is we reference outside sources. There are plenty of nice links, good references for which SSDs are fast, which ones are slow, and we do our best to provide a lot of references, link to those where we can hopefully help keep it up to date too as requirements evolve over time.

Session Moderator (17:40):
We have one last question from Discord. It’s from Ram and he asks about maintenance and updating the website. As things change on Rocket Pool, what are your

DoubtStars (17:50):
For sure. So actually when we submitted for the original grant to get Rocket School completed, one of the things that we talked about with the grants committee is that we are going to need to update this as Rocket Pool gets updated. We understand that, but they’re prepared to keep supporting us as we submit more grant proposals. So believe me, that is part of the plans that we will keep the website updated. This isn’t just going to be a one-and-done and the team is really committed to this. So thank you so much. Rocket Pool. Thank you. Rocket Pool Grants. Andr, this wouldn’t have happened without you guys.

Session Moderator (18:30):
Can we give them all a big clap? Thank you very much.And