Brain Twister

So now that we're done with the first yoyo session I'm sure that even if you didn't get brain twister completely, you at least have your real brain twisted. :) Congratulations if you got it, if not Feel free to ask me and we can work out the details. Some of these things really come easier after a one-on-one session. Also let me know if any of you are interested in doing another session next week. We can continue to work on the tricks we did today, try out some new ones, or do a combination of new and old.

You guys did a really great job, let me know if you want any help for doing something at the talent show. :)

Speaking of talent shows, I just discovered the show America's Got Talent on youtube. It's crazy... there are talents I didn't even know you could have. Here are a couple of my favorites:


Amazing singing 11 year old





A guy that dresses up like a giant slinky...





And I don't even know what to say about this one.... wow.

Monday Monday

I don't have a whole lot to say today, but I found the following amusing.


hmmm...



Snakes on a Plane



And a very easy math problem....



Hope you enjoyed those. :)

I'm Done!!!

I finished the book today!!! It was really good, don't worry I won't say anything more in case any of my readers have not yet finished. Let me just say I highly enjoyed it.

Today I went with the group to the Science Museum which was pretty fun. They have this computer set up which predicts what you will look like at age 70 based on a current photo. Let's just say it was kinda scary... I will be a pretty frightening looking 70 year old!!! Other fun things included a bunch of optical illusions and fun interactive science gadgetry.

In other news, the yoyos have arrived so expect exciting times in the near future.

Excited... yet also Apprehensive

Harry potter comes out today!!! Okay, technically tomorrow, almost today since I'm getting it at 12:01 AM. I am very excited, but also apprehensive because I'm afraid I'll overhear the ending while I'm at the release party. Ahhh!!! I am soooo torn... to go and risk finding out the ending, or to not go and not have the book until tomorrow afternoon!!! One of life's most difficult questions for sure.

Yo!

Here's a picture of me at the Idaho State YoYo competition. I'm not from Idaho, but it was fun anyway. :)






So we officially ordered a whole bunch of yo-yos yesterday so they should be coming soon I hope. I'm really excited to get to teach some cool tricks, I'm still trying to decide which ones to teach right now I'm thinking

Sleeper
Stop and Go
Rock the Baby
Brain Twister
Eiffel Tower/yo-yo

and if we have time...

Split Bottom Mount
Trapeze
Split the Atom

Let me know if you have other ideas!


Just to give you an idea of what kind of cool stuff you can do with a little practice, here is a video my friend Jason made. I helped a little so I'm in the credits, yay!!! (almost like being famous... maybe... okay maybe not... I can pretend though)

It's not easy being green

It's Friday of week one, and all in all it's been a great week. Today the students are learning about loops and how to edit photos by writing loops that alter each pixel. Some have made very cool photos, I will try to post some of the best here later today The second lecture today is covering conditional statements. At the end of the lab today they will use the combined power of loops and conditionals to turn Kermit the frog blue.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Today we went to a Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park to see a presentation about what MySpace and Facebook mean for privacy. However the presenter was stuck in traffic so it ended up being a dialog moderated by a professor from USD between the Cosmos students and the adults in the room about how social networking sites are used. The students did a very good job and we found that most of them do use social networking sites but are very cautious about adding friends and have most have their profiles set to private. Smart!



Above is my favorite photo of the day. It's a sidewalk but very wavy... (This photot courtesy Luis)

First Day

Today is the first day of Cosmos and I'm pretty excited. Today we did some introductions, both to each other and to computer science as a whole. The students are great so far and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better as the month progresses.



Above is my favorite picture of the day, not sure how it happened, but it's pretty awesome (Photo complements of Wesley).