Robotics Camp: day 2

Nothing much to report yet on Robotics Camp.    Jack came home from day 1 with a Firefly-bot,  more of a construct than a robot, the tail of which would light up when you crossed its antennae.  And he came home yesterday with a ping-pong ball with pennies it, which was apparently unrelated to the main curriculum.  But on each of those two days, he’s spent the majority of the day wiring up the main project, which he tells me is an Orangutan Robot, one that will respond to sound and be able to hand over hand on a wire.  He said he got the motherboard and the microphone installed in it yesterday, and today he’ll be able to bring it home.  Now all I have to do is figure out where to get some wire…

He is having fun, though.  I’m glad!

Robotics Camp: day 1

Rough start for Jack on the Robotics Camp this morning when, after the sessions had already been postponed for a day due to intense snowfall, we showed up at the Ivory Grove Water Buffalo Lodge to discover that the pipes had frozen during the night, and that the Camp couldn’t use the building.  The teachers, while blameless, had no power to relocate the class without the direction of the administrators;  the administrators, while also blameless, had no back-up plan.  We stood around in the cold for a half-hour, until finally they arranged for us to relocate to East Side Church, up the road, only a stone’s throw from where our house used to be when Jack was a baby.  I hadn’t seen the Church in years, since around the time when they began to rebuild it, after much of it was destroyed in a fire.  It’s now a massive, sprawling church complex, with classrooms and hallways and courtyards and elevators, beautiful and terrible.  The students were settling down, perching themselves on blue plastic chairs in front of clean formica tables when I left.

Jack was very excited about this when we started.  I hope, for all our sakes, it turns out to be more than just another Build A Kit class.

It’s a Tradition

Habit

Just realized that I’m labeling all of Jack’s Christmas gifts with his name, even though there’s no one here but me and no gifts for anyone except him.

Tis the Season

It’s a pretty loose affair this year, or even compared to the Halloween party;   no massive build, no über playlist.  (No surprise marriage proposals.  I don’t think… ;) )  But we did manage to resurrect Skybase Luna after the Devastating Deletion Disaster, and there’ll be Holiday music on from somewhere in the neighborhood of  5 Pacific/ 8 Eastern to 9 Pacific/ midnight Eastern, through the usual link, if you want to listen in.

Vacuum

Bottling the cider this weekend, and still no ideas for a name or a label.

My son better get on the ball with that…

Eckhart Tolle Moments

The motorcycle pops a wheelie and shrinks to a pip in the distance, rounds the curve of the fountain in the town square and disappears. “He’s got me,” says Jack. “Can’t catch him now.”

We are plopped on the bed in our bedroom playing Super Mario Kart Wii- revisiting some of our old games rather than buy new ones, in a concession to financial economy. The game allows you to run Time Trials, and saves a “ghost” of your best performance, which you or other people can then race against later on.  As Mario Kart was the first game we ever got for the Wii, and we have had it for some time, the ghost of himself that Jack is racing was recorded when he was significantly younger, and also much more in practice with the game:  a strange, digital echo from a happier time.  He is unable to beat it, or even to match it, and thus is learning the interesting lesson that getting older doesn’t automatically mean he’s getting better at everything he tries.

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