Saturday, September 24, 2011

Science Day/Maker Faire

This past weekend was a STEM weekend.

Saturday morning we attended the Family Science Day at my office. It's an annual event presented by the Merck Institute for Science Education and volunteers from among my coworkers.The girls really enjoyed it. When we arrived there were a bunch of walk-around stations where kids could experiment with different scientific facts. Then a representative from Mass Audubon gave an auditorium presentation with a live kestrel and a barred owl. That was followed by an interactive session where we learned a lot about sponges and also about making observations and performing experiments. Then we had pizza.

That was the warm-up for our weekend. After the science fair we hopped in the car and drove to New York to attend Maker Faire on Sunday. This was the second annual fair held in New York; there have been fairs for several years in the Bay Area. Last year Audrey and I attended the inaugural NYC fair.

Boy, where to start on what we saw and did there?

  • In the center of the grounds was a huge metal fire-breathing dinosaur/lizard machine - and they were letting kids climb on it! Audrey climbed up onto a sofa built into the rump, but then she decided that was a little too high for her. Charlotte sat in the driver's seat. Audrey also waited for a while to climb up into the belly of the beast. At one point the builder of the thing told one kid not to climb on a particular part because "it's dangerous." All of the parents looked at each other and said to each other, "The whole thing is dangerous!" But that's part of the point of Maker Faire: don't just passively consume stuff - take risks and explore! Like this. I loved the skin on the lizard that was made from old truck tires cut into long strips.
  • The Life Size Mousetrap, of course. See last year's video to see it in action.
  • The girls always love the Science Playground at the New York Hall of Science, the site where Maker Faire is held.
  • Played with Oobleck. We were really looking forward to the big vat of it that they had last year, but even without the big vat the girls enjoyed playing with a smaller tub of it.
  • We learned about electricity and circuits with Squishy Circuits. They have recipes that make playdoh either conductive (more salt) or insulative (more sugar), and then use it to illustrate those concepts with simple circuits.
  • Revisited one of my favorites from last year: the Brooklyn Aerodrome. They show you how to build a cheap remote controlled airplane out of recycled foam board.
  • The girls made paper bag puppets.
  • In the craft-related shopping area the girls had a good time at the Thumbooks booth.
  • Carol and the girls rode the Carousolar: a carousel powered by nearby solar panels.
  • We ate overpriced gyros. They weren't as spectacularly good as last year.
  • We *really* enjoyed the Sashima Tabernacle Choir (video).
  • I got to wander through a whole bunch of robotics and 3D printing projects and products. If you ever feel the need to buy me a $1300 gift, get me a Maker Bot. Make magazine, the sponsors of the fair, have a huge Maker Shed store tent there. I could spend a lot of money in that tent.

We wrapped up the day with a shaved ice and then got on the road home. We were pleasantly surprised to not encounter much traffic through Connecticut. We all had a great time and we'll definitely go again next year. I might even organize it as a field trip for the robotics team I mentor.

Now I just need to find the time to get back to those robot projects...

Cape Cod Cottage

Back when Carol and I were coaching Audrey's T-ball team there was a boy on the team named Zack. He and Audrey hit it off and it turns out they only live a block away. We started hanging out together. Zack's parents are Dana and Rachel and he has two brothers Linus (3) and Miles (2). They love to come over and play chase in our yard. When I'm not biking and I ride the train to work Dana and I are often on the same train.

They have a beach cottage in Dennisport on Cape Cod that has been in Dana's family since the early 70s. Dana and Rachel invited us to join them there on the weekend after Labor Day. We drove Ruby Tuesday down and camped in their driveway.

The cottage is classic: plywood walls, mixed flooring, big louver windows, outdoor shower and a Gorton's fisherman lamp. It is in a little community with a bunch of other similar cottages along narrow sandy drives. There's a pond on the property and the beach is a block away. Great bike riding for the kids and they took advantage of it.

We of course had to partake in traditional beach activities. We had ice cream at the Sundae School. We played mini-golf at Pirate's Cove. We petted animals and saw a cool live tegu demonstration at Zooquarium. It wasn't warm enough to swim in the ocean, but the kids and I flew a kite on the beach.

After we packed up and closed the cottage on Sunday we all visited the Long Pasture Audubon Sanctuary in Barnstable. It was fantastic. Right off the bat we encountered a bunch of goats running loose eating vegetation. The kids really enjoyed feeding and petting the goats. And naming them. Then we had a lovely picnic on the grass overlooking Cape Cod Bay and went for a walk through the forest to a butterfly meadow. It wasn't butterfly season but the walk and the meadow were pretty.

As our last stop we visited Four Seas Ice Cream in Centerville but we hit it on their last day of business for the season. They weren't serving scoops, they were only selling pints and quarts. So we bought a quart of chocolate and improvised with camping stuff from the van, using a knife and cutting board to slice servings for everyone. We successfully produced five kids with chocolate faces.

It was a really fun weekend.

End of Summer

We've had a great summer! It started with our trip to Audrey's circus camp in northern Vermont in June, then camping on Cape Cod; our fantastic visit to Seattle and Richland; camping with neighbors in Central Massachusetts and several fun day trips and also a nice visit from my parents. We're definitely getting good use of our camper van this year.

Back in August while Hurricane Irene was approaching we headed to the Franklin Park Zoo. Boston has two zoos run by the same organization. The Stone Zoo is about a mile from our house and we go fairly often, but we had never been to the "main" zoo which is south of town. It was fun to see it, but we're spoiled by Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo which is top tier. The Franklin Zoo has a baby gorilla which the girls enjoyed watching.

I figured we had until early afternoon before the first rain bands would arrive. Sure enough, after a couple of hours at the zoo the first bands arrived around 1:00. We got back to our car just before the third band came through and then it started getting torrential. By the time Irene arrived in New England she was only a tropical storm. We didn't get all that much in Boston: maybe a few 45-50mph wind gusts and 3 inches of rain total over three days. It rained nonstop all day on Sunday.

Then school started. Audrey is in second grade now and Charlotte started Kindergarten, both at the Roosevelt School two blocks from home. They are loving it. Although Audrey complained to me that they were teaching math that she already knows how to do, and Charlotte really wants homework and hasn't been assigned any yet.

Over Labor Day weekend we introduced my friend Mark and his wife Gretchen and daughter Ava to the Ipswich River Audubon Sanctuary. They live in Newton west of Boston and were curious to visit a North Shore site. We gave them the grand tour of the Rockery, the Old Stone Bridge and the marsh trail in between. Then we had a fun picnic on the grass at the visitor center. We also visited the Harvard Museum of Natural History which I had wanted to see for some time. They have a Harry Potter-themed scavenger hunt that is very effective at getting kids to 1) visit the whole museum and 2) look closely at exhibits.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

New School Year

  

Audrey had her first day of 2nd grade on Tuesday and Charlotte had her first day of Kindergarten today.

Audrey was nervous about starting 2nd grade. Last weekend she told me she wanted to go back to 1st grade because she already knows how to do 1st grade. But after her first day she told us that she really liked her teacher, Ms. Fargo, and that 2nd grade seems like it might be OK after all.

Charlotte couldn't wait for Kindergarten to start. She's been anticipating it since preschool got out in June and counting down the days for the past two weeks. Last week we all went to meet her teacher, Ms. Devino, and Charlotte was instantly in love. I think she hugged Ms. Devino ten times. She reports that today (which was only a half day) was "boring" because "we only got to spend three seconds on the playground!"

Carol is very glad to be finished entertaining the girls all day. This year both girls are in the same school on the same schedule (8:15-2:20). Much less running around for Carol and nice big blocks of time.