Smirkus Camp/Santa's Village

Our most recent adventure was a trip to northern Vermont. Photos and video are presented in three parts. As always, click on the images to go to a photo album for each story. And don't miss the "video" links below the images.

Photos | Video Smirkus Camp Last August Audrey's classmate Sophia invited us all to her birthday party which included a group trip to see Circus Smirkus. It's a circus that travels around new England in the summer with a cast made up entirely of kids aged 8-17. They also run a summer camp where campers learn circus skills, and campers can audition to join the traveling show. After the show I immediately went home and put a reminder on my calendar to sign Audrey up (Charlotte's not old enough yet). In November I was able to register Audrey. Sophia also registered and Audrey and Sophia requested to be roommates. The introductory camp is called Smirkling Camp and was held this past weekend from 9:00am Friday morning until 3:30pm Saturday. I took Friday off and we drove up Thursday night to a campground in Danville, VT. Friday morning we got up early and delivered Audrey to camp. We got her all settled in her room and met her counselor and she was good to go. We took off to explore the area with Charlotte and Sophia's parents and 4-year-old sister Maya. We returned to camp at 3:30 on Saturday for a demonstration of what the campers had learned. Audrey demonstrated a ton of skills for us: rope climbing, hanging fabric aerial tricks, a trapeze "pyramid" with 6 kids, tumbling, human pyramids, mini-trampoline, plate spinning, tight wire walking and rolling globe walking. I was impressed especially by the trapeze and hanging fabric work. Audrey had obviously been paying attention which can sometimes be a challenge for her. After all the demonstrations it was "Pie Day". The clowning instructor taught us all how to correctly deliver and receive pies to the face. Then the campers got to pie the counselor/instructor of their choice and then they got to pie their parents. Audrey got me good. Audrey obviously had a fantastic time. We look forward to her returning to circus camp next summer, either for Smirkling Camp again or perhaps for a week. Charlotte says she doesn't want to go but she may change her mind.

Photos | Video Santa's Village While Audrey was at circus camp Sophia's parents Marie and Dan and her sister Maya joined us to drive an hour to Santa's Village in Jefferson, VT. It's an amusement park aimed at elementary school kids and was a perfect treat for Charlotte while Audrey was off having fun. Charlotte is always a little wary of amusement rides but she warms up eventually. That's what happened this time, too. For example there is a sleigh ride monorail that traverses the park and she at first wanted nothing to do with it because it travels about 20' off the ground. But after watching our friends ride it and thinking about it for a bit she decided she really wanted to go. She loved it and was proud to conquer her fear. We also rode bumper cars, antique cars, and a gentle spinning ride that she and Maya could have ridden all day. Charlotte even got on the ferris wheel with me, but she got a little scared at the top and we got off early. We also got to pet and feed reindeer with antlers covered in soft velvet and we got to play a little in the small water park ("Ho Ho H2O"). Audrey is of course jealous that Charlotte got to go to Santa's Village. So we'll have to make a return trip later in the summer after our Seattle visit.

Northern Vermont Northern Vermont While Audrey was at circus camp in Lyndon Center, VT we spent some time in nearby St. Johnsbury, VT. St. Johnsbury grew in the mid-1800's as the home of the Fairbanks Scale company. The founders got rich and built significant buildings in the town center including the Athenaeum and the Fairbanks Museum. The museum is pretty cool. A slice of Victorian times, both in its architecture and its collection. The landscape in northern Vermont (the Northeast Kingdom) and New Hampshire (the Great North Woods and the White Mountains Region) is beautiful. Verdant is a good description. It's also pretty remote. As we drove there on I-93 and I-91 I imagined what it was like before there were interstate highways. It takes over 3 hours today from Boston. It would have taken a very long time to travel there in pre-freeway days. Or on a horse. One of these days we'll push on even farther north and visit Montreal and Quebec City.

May-June Miscellany

May-June Miscellany

Here is a collection of miscellaneous photos from the past couple of months.

Also, here's a silly little video made from rapid-fire photos Carol took of Audrey.

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend

We had lovely weather for Memorial Day weekend and the family got out for fun activities each of the three days.

Saturday we started at the Institute for Contemporary Art where there was a "play date" with paper artist Giles LaRoche. Only Audrey was old enough to participate. He had the kids making paper representations of Boston landmarks for a mural of the city. Audrey made a pretty decent version of South Station.

The girls didn't understand the modern art in the gallery exhibits at all. It's pretty hard for a kid to comprehend abstract concepts like a critical comment on consumer culture. Oh well.

A couple of blocks away is the Boston Children's Museum which was far more attractive to them. We spent a couple of hours there and a lot of fun was had.

Sunday we visited another Mass Audubon sanctuary: Drumlin Farm. It is a working farm with chickens, goats, sheep, cows and horses, and crops, too. Then there are paths through the farmland and woods, including trails to the top of the drumlin.

On Monday we decided to have another "one on one day" where each girl goes off alone with a parent to do something special. It was my turn to pair up with Audrey and Carol with Charlotte. Audrey and I went canoeing at our favorite Mass Audubon sanctuary: Ipswich River. The Ipswich River is very still. It meanders through a very large wetland. We saw goslings. Audrey's favorite part was seeing a red-winged blackbird pretty close; finally close enough that she could clearly see the red and yellow markings and hear his song very clearly. Carol and Charlotte went shopping and bought Charlotte some sandals she had been wanting.

We were invited to barbecues at neighbors' houses each of Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. We met a lot of new neighbors (new to us) and the girls had tons of other kids to play with. We very much enjoyed the highly social aspect of the weekend.

End of School Celebrations

Both girls' classes had end of year celebrations where the classes sang for parents. Here is video of those events:

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Ballet: The End of Year One

End of Ballet Year

Charlotte and Audrey both took ballet classes all school year the Northeast School of Ballet. This school doesn't have recitals. Parents are not usually allowed to watch except for the "sneak peek" at the end of each 8-week session. But the school holds an end-or-year demonstration at Melrose Memorial Hall, the town auditorium.

The girls were getting a little weary of it by the end of the year. But they were both inspired by the demonstration, which is one of the goals of the event I'm sure. They loved seeing the older dancers and want to emulate them.

We shot video of both of the girls' levels, plus the highest level 7; a special modern dance piece meant to introduce the older dancers to non-ballet styles; a duet featuring the star graduating dancer and a professional male partner; and finally a piece meant to introduce dancers to the concept of a Corps de Ballet. Here are links to the videos:

• Pre-Ballet (Charlotte's level)
• Basic Ballet Age 6-8 (Audrey's level)
• Level 7
• Modern Dance
• Duet
• Corps de Ballet (partial)

The girls expressed a strong desire to sign up again in the fall. We'll see how that plays out.

Kitchen Backsplash Complete

Kitchen Backsplash

I posted a while back that I spent my birthday weekend tiling the kitchen backsplash. I finally had an opportunity to take some photos of the completed job. Now you may revel in my spectacular tiling abilities.

April Bike Riding

Way back on the first warm weekend in April Audrey and I took our bikes to the school parking lot and rode for a very long time. Later that week we rode with Charlotte in the driveway. Click the image for video.

First Arduino Robot, with Wii Nunchuck Control

I received some generous cash gifts for my birthday and I knew just what to use them for: to buy some parts to build a robot I've had in mind since December. The parts came Friday so I spent my free time this weekend getting the basics up and running. Click the image at left for a short video of the results.

The robot chassis is this kit from Maker Shed: a nice, simple base to build on. The brain of the robot is an Arduino microcontroller. And I also used the Motor Shield from Adafruit.com which is a very flexible and convenient way to control motors from an Arduino. A "shield" is another circuit board with pins that line up with the Arduino's pins so you can just put the shield right on top of the Arduino. You can even stack multiple shields. My ultimate goal is to use my iPhone as a remote control for the robot so it will also have a wi-fi shield soon for wireless communications.

I've had the LEGO Mindstorms NXT set for a few years and have enjoyed it. I'll keep using it and in fact will learn how to interface it to the Arduino. But the Arduino is a much more open and flexible controller. If you google Arduino you'll see that it gets used for an amazing number of creative projects.

I needed a way to control the robot until I get the iPhone remote control figured out. One of the easiest ways to provide directional input is with a nunchuck controller from a Wii. The communication protocol that the nunchuck uses (I2C) is supported directly by the standard Arduino libraries, and the Arduino community is broad, so it was easy to find the code I needed to make that work.

I'm very excited to finally be working with the Arduino. If I can find the time, I'd love to demonstrate a project at Maker Faire in September. And I'd really love to take a robot to the Robot Block Party at the Boston Museum of Science next April. I have a concept in mind for a great demonstration robot that kids would love - it will make souvenirs for them.

In the Arduino open source spirit, you can find the source code here:


Arduino Nunchuck 2-Wheel Control is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License