Scratch

Because it's the school holidays in New Zealand I haven't had Hand-on-Homework from my teacher.  So we decided I would find something to do for my own Hands-on-Homework.  Mum found me a great program called Scratch and my goal was to make a Scratch project.  Scratch is a programming app where you learn some coding skills  and create projects by stacking 'blocks' of instructions to make all sorts of cool stuff.  Some people have made e-cards or games or little videos

Here is a great Ted Talk that explains all about Scratch and shows some of the cool things people have made with it...

http://www.ted.com/talks/mitch_resnick_let_s_teach_kids_to_code.html


And here is my first scratch project.  If you click "Look inside" you will be able to see all the different 'blocks' I used to make the characters move in different ways.  And while you're watching don't forget to press the space bar and then the up arrow.

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/24331226/



http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/24331226/

Barefoot Walk

One of my goals for my writing is to focus on description, not just moving the story forward.  Last weekend we went to Kew Gardens and did lots of fun things.  One of the things we did was called the Barefoot Walk.  It was a walk that had lots of obstacles that you could walk on in your bare feet.  I decided to do some writing this week about the Barefoot Walk and try my best to use of similes and descriptions.

The Barefoot Walk

Ouch!  The hard round rocks hurt under my skinny feet.  All the stones together look like a giant tortoise shell.  I tiptoed over them very slowly.

Next we came to a big tree truck that we had to walk over.  It felt smooth and fuzzy like a hairy caterpillar.





















After that I ran through a pit full of tiny pine cones. I thought they looked like shaggy armadillo noses.  It felt like they were nibbling my toes with their prickly spikes.

Then we went along half a dozen huge round branches, lined up beside each other.  They looked like rough tiger stripes.














Suddenly I saw our next obstacle.  At the end of the branches were 3 different paths with two logs in a big v-shape.  The paths were made out of soft golden sand, dark grey stone and sharp, glinting pebbles.















It looked like a huge catapult about to fire all three things at once.  I quickly zig-zagged over them so I wouldn't have to walk on the peebles for too long.














Just round the corner were a whole load of pure, brown tree stumps shaped like the curls of Georgian wigs.
















Thud!  My foot hit something cold and scaley.  For a split second I thought I had just stepped on the tail of a croc.  But it was just another tree trunk.  Phew!  I balanced my way across the trunk like a clumsy flamingo, clutching the rope on my left.  I wondered what the next adventurous task would be.












Just then the answer came to me.  It was a huge pond full of grimy water!  Oh great!  It looked really deep so I had to sit down at the side of the pond before finally dipping my feet into the freezing water.  In fact it was so cold I felt like I was trapped inside the biggest ice-berg on Earth.  I waded through the large round pond before carefully stepping out at the other end.  It was a relief to be out of that antarctic sea.

All of a sudden my stomach flipped.  The next thing was not something you'd want to walk through right after you have cleaned your feet.  MUD!!!!!  I squelched through the big, sticky, hippo-dung smelling pit like an ogre chasing a fly.

Finally the walk was over.

THE END








Here are some more photos of us enjoying the walk...

Hands on Homework Week 6 - Comic Strip

This week for Hands-on-homework we had to make a comic strip.  My comic strip only shows the start of a story so far...

What I learned at the Science Museum

When we went to the Science Museum, these are some of the things that we saw and learned.

DRY ICE

Usually when ice transforms it first melts into water and then if you heat it the water turns to steam.  It goes from a solid to a liquid to a gas.  

Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide.  It is so cold it would actually burn you if you touched it.  Carbon Dioxide is something that we breath out.  When dry ice transforms it turns straight into steam not bothering about melting into a liquid first.  

In this exhibit small pieces of dry ice dropped into this big bowl of water so you could watch it turn to steam.  As they gave off steam each little piece was like a jet zooming around on top of the water.  The bowl was covered with a big piece of glass.

This picture show my little brother Isaac blowing air into the bowl through small holes.  This made the gas rise and swirl around. 

 BOWLING BALL DROP

At this experiment you had pull a rope down which made a big bowling ball go to the top of a tube.  Then when you released the rope the ball fell down to the bottom.  The tube was connected to another tube that had a little yellow tennis ball in it.  When the bowling ball dropped it pushed air through the tubes which pushed the tennis ball high into the air.

MATERIALS DEMONSTRATION

At this demonstration a lady was using lots of different and interesting materials in lots of different ways.

This material is called D3O.  It is very squishy but quite hard and unbreakable.  It can be used to make knee pads or phone covers or anything that could protect something.

Here I am wearing a jacket that has D3O inside.  So if I fell off a bike or something onto my back, the jacket would protect me.  Even through the material was so stiff and hard the jacket was still very comfortable to wear.

Next she showed us how much pee you could fit into a nappy.

Isaac and I got to hold the nappy as the woman poured 2 cups of pee in.

At the end she showed us the inside of the nappy where there are lots of gel crystals that absorb the pee.  She said that she bet that nobody there had seen the inside of a nappy before.  But me and my brother said that actually we had from the time that our dog Mochi ate the baby's nappy. YUCK!!!

Next she burned a compact disc with a flame until it got really, really hot and soft.  Then she blew into it and made a big bubble.

Electrical Circuits

There was a section where you had to complete all these challenges to do with electrical circuits.  

In the first one if you could make a complete circuit (which means there are no gaps so the electricity flow around it freely) the lightbulb would go on.

Mum said I couldn't cheat and look at the answers so I had to work really hard and keep trying until I finally worked out how to get all 3 light bulbs going at the same time.

Next I worked out how to get one of the fans going in a circuit that you needed to complete and when you completed it a fan would start buzzing round and round.

Hands on Homework Week 8 - Writing Instructions - How to Set Up An Electrical Circuit

My hands on homework this week is to write a set of instructions.  We had lots of fun playing with the electricity circuits at the Science Museum.

Then my Mum gave Isaac and I a box of things called "Snap Circuits", which we can use to make all kinds of electrical circuits.  I made a lot of these and it was really fun to do so I decided to write some instructions about how to set up an electrical circuit.  Here they are...

HOW TO SET UP AN ELECTRICAL CIRCUIT

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

YOU WILL NEED:

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

= #3 wires

= #1 bulb

= #1 battery

=# 1 switch

      ( make sure it is turned off )-o/ o-

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

steps

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

1) first attach one end of one of the wires to the side of the battery pack.

2) next attach the other end of the wire to one side of the switch.

3) after that attach your second wire to the other side of the switch

4) then attach the other end of the second wire to the side of the bulb.

5)  now attach one end of the last wire to the other side of the bulb.
       

6) finally attach the other end of the last wire to the battery pack.

    

Now flick the switch to 'on'.  If the light turns on you have made a complete circuit.  Congratulations!  But if it hasn't gone on, go back through these instructions very carefully and you'll work it out.

What I learned at Universities Week at the Natural History Museum

For the first week that we were at London at the National History Museum it was Universities Week so we got to do lots of things that we wouldn't normally get to do.

Making DNA

The first thing that we did at Universities Week was making DNA out of lollies.  It was quite fun and we got to eat them afterwards.

I learned that DNA is like instructions of how to make you!  You get some from your Mum and some from your Dad.  That's why you sometimes look like one or both of them.  That's why my baby brother Patch looks a bit like Isaac and a bit like me.

This is me and Isaac making our DNA.  We used lollies and toothpicks.

This is what it looked like at the end.  Then we twisted to make them look like real DNA.

Because we were brothers the Scientist helped us put my DNA and Isaac's DNA together to make one big, long strand of DNA.

Knitting Veins and Arteries for a Man-made Trachea

Next we went to a stand where there a lady dressed up as a man-made trachea.  A trachea is a windpipe.  Sometimes there are people's whose trachea doesn't work properly.  So these scientists are doing research about taking out the sick trachea and replacing it with a man-made one.  They are trying to find ways for the new trachea to get veins and arteries.  So, for this activity you had to knit some veins and arteries for the man-made trachea.

Here's a picture of me knitting an artery.

Here is Isaac putting his artery on the lady dressed up as a man-made trachea.  And, here I am putting mine onto a big model of a man-made trachea.

If you want to find out more about what I learned about veins and arteries, check out this link:

http://www.theexcitingadventuresoffinn.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/finns-fun-fast-facts-1-how-oxygen-gets.html

Circus for the Senses

At the Circus for the Senses you do could do lots of things involving the senses taste, smell and feel.

Taste

The scientists had a special device that you put on your tongue.  It would trick your mind into thinking that you were tasting something sour when you're really not.  It does this by putting a little bit of electricity on your tongue.  They are working toward making a straw that would also trick your mind into thinking you were tasting something sweet or sour even if you were only drinking water.  

This is me with the little device on my tongue.  It really did taste sour.

Here's Mum helping Isaac to have a turn too.

Smell

These iPads had device on them to make you think you were smelling something like strawberries or flowers. But to me it didn't smell very much of anything.  Smell is a really important part of tasting.

The Sound Trunk

This was a large machine that looked like a magical tree trunk.  When the light was on you could make all kinds of sounds into a part that was a microphone.  Then it would repeat back all the sounds to you and you could change how they sounded by touching at different places on the trunk.

I think this was my baby brother's favourite because everybody was making duck sounds and he really loves ducks. So he was signing and saying "uck, uck" and looking very happy!

A Toilet that works with no water or electricity.

Did you know that  1 in 3 people around the world do not have access to a decent toilet.  Did you know that every day 2 million tonnes of human waste goes into water courses.  This is bad for the environment and for people as if there's not good toilets they can get very sick.

At this stand we saw a new invention of a toilet that didn't have to use any water or electricity.  When you close the lid of the toilet the inside of the bowl turned and dropped all of the waste into a big pipe.  Then it filters the pee into fresh water and burns the poo.  

I've also posted this one especially seeing as it sort of ties in with the work we've been doing on sustainability at school.  It's not wasteful of resources like water and electricity.  I think this toilet will make a big difference to the world.

The Lifecycle of a Smoothie

Do you know where the ingredients for a smoothie come from?  At this stand we had a chance to milk a cow and make a smoothie by riding a bike!  

This is me milking the cow.  

Here's me on the bike blending the smoothie.  This blender didn't work with electricity, but when you pedaled it spun round and round, so the faster it pedaled the faster it went round and round.

The finished smoothie tasted great!

 Bacteria

Did you know that there are lots of different tiny bacteria living inside our bodies.  Some are good and some are bad.  The bad ones can make fart really stinkily, make you have a sore stomach or make you vomit or have diarrhea.  The vomiting and diarrhea are because your body is trying to get rid of the bad bacteria any way it can.

We got to choose which of these bacteria to make.  These are of the bacteria from under a microscope to make them much, much bigger.  In real life they are so small that you can't even see them.

Here's what the actual bacteria looks like .

I'm making my bacteria.  I chose to make a BAD one.

 afterwards we got to hang the bacteria in a big glass tank along with bacteria that others had made.  The tank was supposed to represent the stomach and intestines where bacteria live.  
 

The Volcano

This University was teaching us all about volcanos.  They had built a model of a volcano based on an island in the Carribean.  It was exactly like how it was in real life.  Even all the dents and holes on the sides were exactly where they were on the real thing.

This is Isaac and I standing in front of the big volcano.

We got given a small paper house and were asked to think about where our house should be if a volcano erupted.  Then we got to look around the whole island and choose the place that we thought would be the best.

Here is my house.

The man said that we would be able to see if our house survived when the volcano erupted.  It was going to erupt the next day between 8-9pm so we were allowed to stay up late and go to the Museum to see if our house survived.  It was a little silly as there was steam and fire, but no lava or anything going down the sides of the volcano close to touching the bottom so none of the houses were even in the tiniest bit of danger.  Mum says you call that an anticlimax.

The World's Fastest Car

This group was trying to build a car that would go 100 miles per hour.  The current landspeed record is 760 miles per hour.

Here I am on the simulator seeing what it would be like to drive the car.

Next we got to design and build our own car that we thought would go really fast.  WE made these cars out of little lego like things called Knex.  Then we put in a special tube so we could connect it to an air compressor and see if it would go.  

This is the start of my car.  Once it was finished it went very fast on the special track.

Isaac and I (and Patch) had a lot of fun at the Universities Week at the National History Museum.  We learned SO many new things.  My favourite was the cars.