All posts by Ben

San Antonio Zoo

Hi, today I went to the zoo. Since I got almost 250 photos I can’t show them all, but more will be in the pictures section. Here are my best:

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My favorite exhibit was the Komodo Dragon. Yes, they had a live one. They also had alligators, lions, crocodiles, elephants, and flamingos. There were 2 special exhibits: Amazon Live and Amazonia. Another thing was Toad Alley. In Toad Alley they had different types of endangered amphibians.

Plutopia

Last night we went to plutopia again. They had some really cool prototypes/future products there.

One, called Sphero, was a robotic ball controlled by a smartphone. I got to drive it around a bit. Currently, they only have prototypes. The ball was fun to drive.

Here are some pictures of the ball:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sphero’s website is here.

 

Another cool thing I saw were Sifteo.

Sifteo are little cubes that are controlled by a computer and play games. They know what edge of what other Sifteo they are touching. These are closer to release, and you now can sign up for the early access program.

Here are some pictures of Sifteos:

Here is their website.

 

The Edge of Imagination Station was an interactive chalkboard stop motion animation station. You could make an animation with chalk. I made a spiral that made itself then a piece of chalk ate the spiral from the inside out. Their website is here.

Here are my pictures:

 

Someone from U.T. came to show his soccer robots, but the robots didn’t make it so he showed his computer program that you could teach tetris. I came back too late to get pictures of the computer playing tetris, but instead they were playing videos of the soccer robots.

Here are some pictures of the videos:

 

Some random things were:

Someone (I don’t know who) had a motion capturing screen. A webcam sensed motion and the screen displayed a figure moving. Here are the pictures:

 

Another random thing was singing plants. If you tickle them they would chirp like birds.

Here are my photos:

 

Plutopia’s website is here.

Bye!

Science Fair

Today was the regional science fair. I got a 1st place ribbon like at the district fair. They give ribbons based on your score, not the overall ranking.

The entertainment before the awards ceremony was awesome. ArcAttack brought 2 music playing tesla coils. They were a lot more cool then they sound. They played songs like a piano but still hummed like regular tesla coils.

Note to my friends who missed out: The tesla coils were awesome! You should have come.

Here are my pictures:

 

 
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KRja415Iwk&feature=player_embedded

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJqoRaphiEk&feature=player_embedded

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcaf9Qb4ncA&feature=player_embedded

You can watch more at ArcAttack’s website here

Bus vs. Car

As we have had some icy weather I wondered if buses were really safer. There are 2 main things: 1. Buses are heavier; therefor they won’t slip easily. 2. Buses are heavy; therefor if they do slip they won’t be easy to stop. It still seems like buses are safer. I am still waiting for Chris to send me his opinion.

Ice and Snow

Here we don’t get the worst of the storm. Today and yesterday we got ice. Here’s yesterday’s ice:

Today we didn’t get much ice.

 

Also: I  think I will just put a photo stream so I don’t have to post every day BUT I will try to post.