Tagged!.

Hi all, I've been tagged by the generous and talented Arlene of ArtDeMe,

Here are the rules. Feel free to adjust them. Or not. Your call.

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. My favorite color is blue.

2. I used to have a "pet" chicken.

3. I have played a piano with 95 keys.

4. I've been to Mexico.

5. I want to go to New Zealand.

6. I have broken 1 arm. 

7. and one of my favorite songs is Into the West composed by Howard shore and performed by Annie Lenox.

now I have to tag 7 people.

I tag:

Daniel,

Raine.

ummmm...

that's about it.

for now.

I guess.

see you next time,

Josh.

 

threadless T-shirts

Hey everybody, I have been really liking threadless T-shirts for awhile, if you haven't heard of them it is a community based T-shirt design company, which means that you submit designs for T-shirts, and everyone else votes on it, and if you get enough votes they print your T-shirt and you get a pile of money.
Sounds great!, doesn't it!.
I have a couple of T-shirts from them and I love them.
Now there's another thing to,
if you click on the link in the sidebar that says something like: Threadless T-shirts, very cool,
then I get a $1.50 in credits, and if you like a T-shirt and buy it then I get $3.00
So click away my dear friends and let us (me) be merry!.
Josh.

silk screening

Hi, well I'm done my Silk Screening course and I must say it was very very very fun. At the course we learned the basics of silk screening and which materials are best and what to use and how to use them. We started of by cutting out stencils out of newsprint and then we worked our way on to photo emulsion. with photo emulsion what you do is basically pick and image, run it through a Xerox machine and then print it onto a piece of transparent plastic. then you coat your screen with the photo emulsion and let it dry in a dark room. after it has completely dried you place your transparency on top of the screen the way you want it to look when you print and then you place it under a bright (very very bright) light for about 7 minutes. after the time is up you quickly wash your screen under lukewarm water until all the photo emulsion that did not harden under the light is gone, leaving you with a screen with your design on it. what happens when you place your screen under the light is that the photo sensitive stuff in the emulsion hardens, except for where the light cant get through (AKA, the black areas on your transparency.) the image that I picked for my image was a picture that I took in Mexico of the mission in the town we stayed in, and here's a picture of the final project.



this print is on paper, but I did most of mine on fabric.
well I had a lot of fun with this class and I hope that Lee teaches another class again,
Thanks Lee!,
Josh.

fun with kirigami

Well I've been having lots of fun with Kirigami, it's just so interesting to look at and the end result is just so great!. I made a really cool kirigami sphere, it's a sphere that is made of a whole bunch of pieces of paper that slide into each other to form the sphere shape, and another really cool thing about it is that it folds down flat, really really fun. but I don't have any pictures of it, I'll take some and post them later. I also made a card for Aunty Karyn but I wont post any photos until she gets it so that I wont spoil it for her. : )
Well our other computer crashed and we might have lost all our data, which really sucks since we haven't backed up any photos for so long, yikes, I don't even want to think about it. Well we try to get that up and running I'll see if I can load Mom's camera software onto this computer so I can upload some pictures.
I guess the moral of the story is ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR PHOTOS.
now go and back up all your photos and anything else that you can think of backing up.
I mean it.
Really.
Really really.
No kidding.
See you next time,
Josh.

here's some more pictures

well here's some more pictures, there are pictures of the Taj Mahal and of the Echmiadzin Cathedral, yes I know it's a mouthful but it didn't turn out to bad. well here they are,




I built these two today, the cathedral taking up most of the day and the Taj Mahal taking about half an hour to forty five minutes.
well I hope you enjoy!,
Josh.

Kirigami

Hi there, I just found the world of Kirigami, and it looks very, very cool. Kirigami is the art of folding paper and cutting it, unlike Origami, which frowns down upon those who would dare to cut their paper. you've probably done Kirigami before, you know those paper snowflakes that you cut out of folded paper?, that is a variation of Kirigami. I decided that I better try it, it looks so cool once it's finished, so since it was my friends birthday, I thought it would make a really cool birthday card. here's some pictures.




basically I'm making pop-up cards, and it wasn't all that hard to make either, the hardest part was the cutting out since my printer only printed out half the lines of the pattern ( yes, I know, I did use a pattern, and here's the link to the site I got the pattern off of.)
so if you make some Kirigami models, post a link in the comments to the post and I'll have a look at it, cant wait to see what you guys will do!.
until next time,
Josh.

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.)