Tumblewing gliders.

Hello everyone, I've been looking at this amazing site, instructables.com , and I found this how to for the tumble wing walk-along glider. I know it's a mouthful, but it's very, very cool. If you don't know what a tumble wing glider is, it's a piece of paper that's folded so that when you drop it from above your head, it spins forward rapidly while it descends. but, if you drop it from above your head, and then hold a large piece of cardboard or Styrofoam at about 15 to 20 degrees from vertical slightly below it and walk along, it will slowly move forward, supported on the cushion of air that is being directed upward by the board as you walk along. Hence the name: walk-along glider. Now, a true walk along glider looks something like a boomerang, and all you have to do is hold you hands underneath it and walk, or run, just moving your hands to steer it. Here's the link on a how to to make the easy to learn walk-along glider. 
If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you'll see that there are a couple pictures of some other instructables that this guy has made, along with a walk along glider he made out of a dead Monarch Butterfly. Kind of weird but very cool.
Well now you go and try it, all you need is an old phone book, some scissors, some cardboard and your on your way.
Happy walk-along gliding!,
Josh.

it's all over.

Hey there everyone, I just got back from our FLL competition, and boy was it an experience.  We were competing against 40 teams from across Alberta and ended up in the top ten, we placed in 9th to be exact.  We even won an award for our presentation on environmental technology and our research on energy efficiency.  The other teams that were there were also amazing and very friendly,  as were all the volunteers and judges, coaches, and the MC. I'm really pumped about how we did and we all got a lot of comments on our costumes and one of the judges for our presentation even said that Dilbert would be proud.

I'll post some pictures later,

josh. 

FLL competition,1 day to go.

well today is our last day before the competition and were going to be working on getting all our programs in working order, so that we know which programs to use when. knowing that all the other teams have probably been doing this for about a month or so is kind of worrying, but it's going to be a lot of fun and we'll be able to go out in public dressed as geeks.
if you guys cant come to the competition you can still watch us ( and all the other teams) compete, because the head honcho people at the Lego competition have set up a live web cam set up for tomorrow starting at 11:45 AM. here's the link

just scroll down the page and look for the part that says: Tournament details. at the bottom of that little area there is a link.

well adios amigos, I'm off to Lego for today.
Josh.

First Lego League

First Lego League, that's the competition I'm in for Lego. we've Been building and programing Lego Mindstorms robots for an international competition on the 26th of January and right now it's crunch time, that's why I haven't been posting for so long, I've been at the Lepines house almost every third day for about two months and were really making headway now. the theme for the First Lego League this year is Environmental awareness and each team has to build and design a robot that will do certain tasks on a table which has Lego models on it, such as a house and a satellite, an off shore oil rig, and a power plant. we (as a team) have to build a robot that will do various tasks on the table and we also have to make a presentation to a panel of judges. for our presentation we had to pick a local building that the entire team is familiar with and then we had to do an energy audit and brainstorm ways to help improve the energy efficiency of the building, and the fun part is that our "recommendations" do NOT have to be feasible and they do not even have use existing technology, so we all whipped up some crazy new (and not so new) technology that we researched and then we put together our presentation. but right now our presentation is about 15 minutes long, where as it should be about 5 minutes or less.

yikes.

well all is not lost, we have got all our programing done (with just a few loose ends) and we have figured out our team costume. now every year teams have been dressing up in crazy costumes with big hair to make them stand out from the crowd, and well, we're really gonna show them now.

we are dressing up like geeks and nerds.

yes, you heard me, geeks and nerds. we are going to wear white dress shirts, plaid pants that are to small, slicked back hair, glasses that are all taped up, ( mine have green masking tape, how delightfully nerdy!) pocket protectors (if we can find any) and last but definitely not the least, Duct tape ties. we have green duct tape ties, black duct tape ties, red duct tape ties, and I am, just to add to the ultra geeky look that I'm going for, going to have a Dilbert tie.

now, if you've never read the Dilbert comics you will not know what I'm talking about. A Dilbert tie is a tie that sticks up, instead of laying down flat like a good tie should. mine is also made of good ol' silver duct tape.

so watch out you other Lego League Members, for the Envirobot Geeks are coming your way.

Josh.

( P.S, if you would like to come and see us at the Competition, it's going to be held at the NAIT building in Edmonton, the table competitions will be held in the main gym on the 26th of January and the madness will begin at about 12:00, about. hope to see you all there!)
(P.P.S, here's two pictures.)

where's willy?

hi there, I just found this really cool site that you can enter Canadian bills and track where they go. so far I've only entered one $5.00 but I plan on entering a whole lot more. ( now all I need is some money... lol)
here's the link, check it out, it's really cool, although they're website is kinda crappy... http://www.whereswilly.com/
lets see how many you can do, eh?.
Josh.