Can We Do It

CAN-TASTIC: First thing after breakfast this morning, the kids and Christian opened up the cool Tin Can Robot kit that Aunt Renee & Uncle Jim brought last week.

The first thing they did was take inventory, making sure they had all the pieces, and familiarizing themselves with the components.

Then they read the directions step-by-step. They each did some work with the screwdriver (which wasn't easy, the screws were so tiny).

They had to make the framework that would hold the can, and attach the electric motor, the battery housing, and the wheel assembly.

















CJ says "lots of them were hard parts" when it came to assembling the robot. He says the easiest part was "putting the can in the robot."

We used an orange soda can, which Annabelle happily drained a few days prior.

One of the most fun parts of building the robot was attaching the eyes. The kids each got to do one.

One of the last steps was putting in the AA battery. Imagine the excitement when it was time to flip the switch on. ... And imagine the disappointment when nothing happened. :o

I suggested to Christian that maybe the electric motor was stuck. That happened to us when we were using an electricity experiment kit about a month ago. So, they had to disassemble a few components to get at the motor. Christian pinched its shaft and gave it a twist and then put it back in its housing, reassembled the robot and ... HOORAY! It worked!

The kids enjoyed watching Canbot roll around the house. Kirby wasn't quite as enthused.

Overall, it was a fun project and the final product was a bit hit.ZIP-A-DEE-DO-DAH: The kids have been itching to get back to the zipline we discovered at Discovery Park last Friday, so for today's P.E. we went and parked the VW bus a ways away from the park and rode/ran there.

The kids were even more adventurous today with the zipline, including playing some games of 'chicken' with the line.
On the way back to the van, we stopped to read a sign at a green belt we passed. Turns out it's the Kiwanis Ravine, which hosts the largest Great Blue Heron colonial nesting site in Seattle. Interesting.

We didn't see any herons today, but we'll definitely be keeping our eye on the spot in the future, especially during hatching season.

GRAPHIC ARTIST: This afternoon, out of nowhere, CJ asked me if he could do some Photoshopping. Apparently he's been seeing some of the creations of other Photoshop artists in the YouTube videos he watches, and he wanted to try his hand and some image manipulation.

I had him pick an image of Mario of game fame, and the first thing I did was show him how to use the "liquefy" function in Photoshop, which is a fun and easy way to morph images.

He wound up with the cool mix on the left using the original image on the right.

We've already talked about tomorrow's Photoshop projects. :)

MISERABLE MARINERS: Tonight we went to Safeco Field to watch the Seattle Mariners put on a display of some truly awful baseball.

I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say, on our way out of the stadium, CJ told me he wanted to whisper something in my ear. I leaned down and he said, "The Mariners played like hell!"

That just about sums it up.

WONDERFUL WEEKEND: It likely won't surprise you to learn that even though this tired mom takes Saturday and Sunday off from blogging, things don't grind to a halt here at MPA. We had a busy weekend. On Saturday, after spending the day working around the house, we headed across the Ballard Bridge and northwestward to Golden Gardens park. It has a long swath of sandy beach, where the kids built sand castles and jumped very small waves.
There are lots more pictures for our beach trip here.

And then on Sunday, in part to prove that I Am Bigger than my Huge Fear of Clowns, we went to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

What a spectacle that was! Before the show they let the public get to see the animals up close, and then go down onto the three-ringed circus floor and mix and mingle with the talent.

The show was wildly entertaining. I took lots of photos, which can be seen here.