Angels and Rovers

HEAR THEM ROAR: The Blue Angels are in town for Seafair, and their unmistakable  engines announce their presence.


Every time we hear them, we run to our east windows in hopes of catching a glimpse. We saw them doing some wild stuff in the distance today - straight up climbs like this ...

And then shoot straight down, like this!

All at breakneck speed. Love it!


WIMPY MOVIE: Today was a day the kids have been looking forward to for weeks/months. The latest movie in the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series debuted - "Dog Days." 


Rick was kind enough to take them to see it late this morning. 


When they returned home, the kids both said they liked it. Rick was markedly less enthused. In fact, he didn't have a single good thing to say about it. I didn't ask him to write a review, but CJ and Annabelle did.


CJ was afraid of spoilers, so he chose to write about the similarities and differences between he book and the movie. 

In this review, I am going to talk about differences. 1, Locker room: In the book, Greg only has to walk past the nude people in the locker room with Manny. In the movie, Greg has to go in much more places to find where Manny went in the locker room.  2, Tingy: In the book, Frank Heffley throws Tingy in the trash because he thinks Manny Heffley is a big boy. In the movie, Dad still throws Tingy in the trash, only for Manny to get it, and also, the dog Sweetie rips it apart, destroying it forever, which makes Manny mad.  3, Sweetie: In the book, Sweetie is named by Susan Heffley. In the movie, Manny Heffley names Sweetie.

Frankly, what he's written is completely cryptic to me. I guess he was successful in not spoiling anything. 


Annabelle came up with the following ...

Today I went to see "Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days". It was a good movie, yet it was not about just the "Dog Days" book, it was also part "The Last Straw." The movie was very good and was a medium length.

In the movie there are some tweaks to the content of the books, but I still recognized all the scenes. Like on one of the scenes, Greg was riding the 'Cranium Shaker' with Rowley, but in he book he went WITHOUT Rowley. this is one of the tweaks. And in the book, on the Cranium Shaker, you had to stand in a metal cage meant for one person only. But in the movie you sat on couch-like chairs and they would use those little things where it was like a cushioned child's seat belt.

Over all the movie was good and I liked it, the screen in the theater was nice and big and the sound was loud enough for it to feel like a movie, but quiet enough so that in the loud parts your ears would not bleed. The movie was obviously a "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" movie, but the actor for Greg made him look older. I sort of liked this fact, it was as if Greg had grown a little since last movie.

GETTING SOCIAL: Today there were multiple NASA Socials held across the nation, ranging from Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California to the Johnson Space Center in Texas to Florida and more. There were seven Socials in all. We listened (and looked) in via NASA TV, Facebook and Twitter, and learned even more about the amazing Martian rover, which is now less than half a million miles from Mars. 


The excitement continues to build for Sunday night's landing of the Mars Science Laboratory. I read one Tweet from an MSL team member today who said co workers are starting to bring cots and bedding into work in anticipation of long work hours in the days to come. 


One gentleman from NASA speaking at the JPL social today reminded those gathered and watching that this mission's "difficulty is off the scale of anything we've ever attempted before," and that "Mars is really hard." The fact of the matter is, less than one third of the missions to land on the surface of the Red Planet have been successful. "This is a very difficult thing," he summed up. 


I know he's right, but I'm still hanging on to that whole "Failure is not an option" meme from NASA's Apollo days!

FAR OUT DJ: This afternoon, we tuned into our favorite radio station, Third Rock Radio, which streams live via the Internet. Today's very special guest DJ was astronaut Joe Acaba, broadcasting from the International Space Station. 


The music sounded the same, in case you were wondering. ;) He played everything from Lenny Kravitz' "Fly Away" to the Foo Fighters ("Times Like These" acoustic), and ended his 29-song set with Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole."

LIGHTS, CAMERA: 

 Today CJ asked me when we'll see the first photos from Curiosity. It was pretty clear he was hoping a crew was flying along side the rover, to film its descent and landing (also known as "Seven Minutes of Terror" but I explained that wasn't going to happen.


According to a NASA press release today, "A set of low-resolution gray scale Hazcam images will be acquired within minutes of landing on the surface," said Justin Maki of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Once all of the critical systems have been checked out by the engineering team and the mast is deployed, the rover will image the landing site with higher-resolution cameras."


However, none of the images will be immediately available to the public - or even mission control, as it takes about 13.5 minutes for signals to reach Earth from Mars. I told CJ when he gets up Monday morning, hopefully NASA will have a stack of Curiosity pix for him to peruse. He asked me to wake him up early. :)


Curiosity has no shortage of cameras. Take a look at this graphic. ...

Graphic: JPL/NASA


According to the press release, the very first images we see will come from the one-megapixel Hazard-Avoidance cameras (Hazcams) attached to the body of the rover (on its front and back). In all there are 8 Hazcams. 

Curiosity also has four  Navigation cameras (Navcams), at the top of the rover's "look-out" mast. The Hazcams have wide-angle, fisheye lenses, which are capped with clear dust covers designed to protect the cameras from dust that may be stirred up during landing

The (color!) shots I'm looking forward to will come from the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI), which will acquire them as the rover descends to the Martian surface. MARDI pics are expected to be released some time on Aug. 6. 

The Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, will take color photos of the planet surface. MARDI is one of five devices on the rover's forward arm. MAHLI will take close-ups of rocks and soil, as well as images out on the horizon. 

Once the rover's mast is deployed, its Navcams will begin taking one-megapixel stereo pictures 360 degrees around the rover, as well as images of the rover deck. These 3-D images will help mission specialists on the ground decide where and how to drive MSL and what rocks to check out.

And ChemCam (Curiosity's big "eye" on its "head") will provide a telescopic view of targets at a distance. 

Jump to It

STILL COOKIN': Yesterday it was a Mars cake. Today, it was Curiosity cookies.

They're some dee-licious thick, soft chocolate cookies covered in Mars-marbled fondant, decorated with edible ink. 

We added (white chocolate) polar ice caps on a couple, and used a nifty new kit we had to emboss words on some. CJ impressed "Welcome to Mars Curiosity" on his.

THE COLBERT REPORT: Last night John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, was a guest on the Colbert Report, discussing the upcoming Curiosity Mars rover landing. The Mars talk started about 2/3 into the program, in case you interested in seeing it. (Just endure the ad and then fast forward.) 

After we watched the interview, I explained to the kids that Stephen Colbert is a huge NASA fan and that there was a treadmill on the ISS named after him after he got "Colbert Nation" to vote for him in a NASA contest. (Interesting story here in case you haven't heard it. 

THURSDAY MUSINGS: If you've ever spent much time with CJ, you know he spends a lot of time chuckling quietly at things that amuse him. Today, he was tittering at his computer and I asked him what the giggling was all about. It was a Cake Wrecks disaster a Santa cake with "Merry HooHoo" written on it. Hysterical, indeed. 


CJ kept going on and on about it and told him "Happy Hoo Hoo" sounded like a clown on a children's show to me. I thought as a writing assignment for the day, it might be fun for CJ to flesh that character out, so that's what he did.


The Legend of Happy Hoohoo! by CJ

Happy Hoohoo is a clown. The thing that makes him memorable is that instead of juggling balls, he would juggle hand grenades. Happy Hoohoo's origin is this: In 1987, a man named Steve Robert woke up. He went to a circus to get a job, and he signed up to be a clown.

After that, Happy Hoohoo went to the fair and started juggling hand grenades. Then, they landed on the ground and.... KABOOM! It blew up the whole fair, but Happy Hoohoo survived the explosion. After that, Happy Hoohoo came to court and said: WAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I AINT DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Hoohoo went to jail for explosion, but demanded another court trial. So another trial happened, and Happy Hoohoo was found innocent. So, Happy Hoohoo is a clown in circuses, and fairs.

LOL and my oh my, CJ. And that's all I'm going to say about that. 


Annabelle chose NOT to write about Happy Hoo Hoo. Instead, she fleshed out Cheetah Girl, a character she created in a drawing a few weeks back.


The Adventures of Cheetah Girl by Annabelle

Once upon a time there was a girl named Katie. She loved watching cartoons, especially the ones with super heroes and heroines in them. When she walked, it was more like running. And when she ran, she was a blur! Her parents thought that this was because she got so much exercise, and they did not mind this unusual quickness of their daughter.

When she was in high school, she was never late for class due to her speed. When she was done with school she would go home (she no longer lived with her parents) and think of an idea for a suit that would compliment her speed. She, loving animals, turned to her picture of a cheetah which she took on a safari. Then she thought of an idea. She then started gathering cloth that looked like cheetah fur, and stitched it together, making a dress with a hood that went over the head. She also sewed herself some gloves and boots (more like slippers) that looked like cheetah paws. Then she went out to do what she always wanted to do- be a super hero[ine].

When she went out, of course, she did good deeds like all heroes (and heroines) do. She was helping the police chase a criminal when the criminal ran right towards the police and hid behind them. A shadow towered over them. It was a giant frog with a dinosaur tail and dragon wings, but Gheetah Girl outsmarted the mutant frog, and defeated it.

THE END

CALENDAR GIRL: Today I finally took the time to sit down and do something I've been toying with doing for months/eons. I've wanted to create a 'this day in history' type calendar to remind me of landmark events in history so that the kids and I can cover them. I used three primary sources: History.com, the Pacific Science Center's online science calendar, and History Orb- a new-to-me  Web site .  

I like the idea of doing this for several reasons. First, of course it's a history lesson, and as they say, how do you know where you're going if you don't know where you've been? Second, these factoids usually wind op being cross-curricular. For instance, note the start of World War I on Aug. 2 and you're going to wind up talking geography, politics, math (how many years ago was it? How long did the war last?), and so on. A number of them have to do with science (of course!) and they would all have a language arts element, as no doubt we'll wind up reading some about them and often writing about them. 


MIGHT AS WELL JUMP: We got back into the swing of our MPA mini Olympics today with a standing long jump event. But rather than just jump jump jump, we turned it into a bit of a science lesson. I asked whether you could jump further if you were standing in place or running. Both the kids said running, because you're moving and you keep going. And so, we talked about momentum. I then had them experiment with standing jumps, including one where they couldn't bend their legs or move their arms. Why couldn't they go very far like that, do you suppose? Ah, physics!

They both made several jumps. CJ had the day's longest, at just over 50 inches.

I love Annabelle's body English in the background of this shot - 'helping' CJ jump further. That's probably why he won. :)

Let Them Eat Cake

LAYER CAKE: Yesterday during the planetarium show, the host was telling the audience a bit about how Mars rover Curiosity's landing site was selected. Naturally, that involved talking about the geology of Mars. He mentioned how mars has canals and canyons, and he threw a LARGE graphic up on the domed ceiling to illustrate how the layers beneath Mars' surface are intriguing, as they hold keys to its past. 


But rather than just showing some rocky canyon, the photo he used was of a 7-layer cake in rainbow colors. Ever since then, CJ has been obsessing about making a Mars cake. I told him I was down with that - and that we even have a sphere-shaped cake pan!- but OUR Mars cake would be Mars-y colors. He was OK with that. 


So, this afternoon we whipped up some vanilla cake batter from scratch, separated it into several bowls, and the kids mixed up multi colors for the strata. 

The kids carefully coated the inside of the cake pans so that Mars wouldn't stick to its sides. 

While we waited for it to bake, there was some beater licking. ... 

The kids were pretty happy with how their halves turned out fresh from the oven.

We used some bright red buttercream to stick the planet's halves together and melted some white chocolate to swirl on for the polar cap atop it.


But the real thrill awaited us on the inside. ... Don't worry, Mars, this won't hurt a bit ...

Look at how beauteous the Red Planet is, with its layers of different colors!

And it tastes good, too! :)

ROVER BUILDERS: We haven't done anything crafty in too long, so today we broke out the scissors, glue sticks and card stock and used a template gleaned from JPL's Mars Program Web site to build a Mars Pathfinder replica at 1/17th scale of the original version (or so the Web site says). The Pathfinder template included three parts - a lander (which NASAlater renamed for Carl Sagan, BTW), an electronics box and a cute lil micro rover named Sojourner (pictured below, image courtesy of NASA, of course).

And here's what the kids' version looked like ... Their rovers are emerging from their landers, BTW.

To get some writing in for the day, I asked the kids to write a story about their rover exploring a place that was familiar to them. Read on ...



The Rover Safeco Field Disaster by CJ

R4-X8 is a rover. One day his commander said, "C'mon guy, today you are going somewhere." R4-X8 said "OH BOY!!! I AM GOING SOMEWHERE!" During the flight, he noticed that he had never been there before.

R4-X8 was dropped off at the Mariners game. Then he said, "What the Mars is this place?"  In the game, a ball was thrown at R4-X8, but he caught it, took a sample out of it, and his screen read "ERROR! COULD NOT IDENTIFY!" After that, a player for the Mariners said "HEY! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WIT-". He was shot by R4-X8's laser before he could finish his sentence.

After that, all of the Mariners and R4-X8 got in a huge field fight. The Safeco Field alarm went off, the police came in, and people rushed out the doors. Eventually, the police managed to shut R4-X8 down, and NASA was sued for a fine of $30,000. After that, NASA was forced to burn the pieces of the rover, and bury the ashes 500,000 myrameters deep.

Ruby the Rover by Annabelle

There once was a rover named Ruby, who was made in 2012. Ruby was new to the world when she first opened the lens to her camera. So, in a robotic voice, she said, "Where am I? I do not know what planet this is..."

"Welcome to the world, Ruby" said a scientist.

Ruby said, “Who are you talking to, stranger?"

And then the scientist said, "I'm talking to you, Ruby."

"I'm Ruby?" said Ruby.

"Just try to move, we want to test you," the scientist said.

Ruby said, "O.K." And Ruby started moving around, just about as fast as a walking person. The scientist opened the door. "Try to get through here" he said, and since Ruby was about as big as a dog, she easily fit through.

Once she got out of the door, the scientist said, "This is Earth, go ahead and explore a bit." So Ruby went around to explore. She soon reached the park, read the sign and said "Bayview Park....I wonder what a bay is..." But she went to explore Bayview anyway.

There were kids playing at Bayview, and Ruby, noticing this, went really slowly up to one of the children. The child noticed Ruby and said, "Hey, a rover! Hi there little guy, what are you doing here?"

"I am exploring 'the world'" said Ruby.

"Oh, well would you like to explore my house?" said the child. "Oh wait, I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Annabelle, and what's your name?" the child asked Ruby.

“My name is y3s9, better known as Ruby."

Then Ruby and Annabelle went home.

THE END!

FLASHBACK: I figured since Curiosity is about to land, it is probably about time I FINALLY get photos from my MSL launch party/Tweetup last November online, eh?


So here, without further ado, they are.



WANT: I can't remember the last decade I bought any Hot Wheels, but I'll be stalking the toy aisles come September for Hot Wheels Mars Rover Curiosity!


PROGRESS: About half past noon we watched an unmanned Russian cargo ship, Progress 48, launching to the International Space Station today. Its mission was unique, as its goal was to become the first spacecraft ever to dock at the orbiting laboratory on the same day as its launch, according to NASA officials. (Historically, it's been a two-plus day trip). 


I also asked the kids what they thought would happen next if Progress 48 was successful in its speedy docking. Annabelle replied, "Humans?" 


Sure 'nuff. According to plans, Russia intends to use this same-day rendezvous and docking process for manned Soyuz flights to deliver new crew members to the ISS. That would be progress, indeed.


I asked the kids why making the same-day trip might be beneficial. Annabelle immediately noted that with the short trip, astronauts would need less food and water ('provisions' I told her). CJ noted that if that were the case, there would be room for other cargo. Another BIG bonus would be astronauts' comfort. I said to the kids, 'You've seen a Soyuz capsule at The Museum of Flight. Would you rather sit in it for six hours or two and a half days straight?"


They both shot back SIX HOURS! without hesitation. I'll bet astronauts everywhere are hoping the Progress 48 approach works.


Just like clockwork, Progress 48 launched from the Baikonour Cosmodrome in central Asia; it was set to arrive at the ISS at 6:24 p.m. our time. 


We have advanced technology now," said Bee. Right! Better computers = better math and calculations. Being able to make the 6 hour trip means you have to launch at the right time and place and have your target at the exact right time and place. In other words, the orbital mechanics of the launch have to be spot on. 


During dinner, we watched Progress 48 approach the ISS. Everything was on target, and the unmanned spacecraft actually arrived a few minutes ahead of schedule and docked without incident about 253 miles above the west coast of South America. Mission Control in Russia erupted with cheers.

Potpourri

BOUNTIFUL HARVEST: Today, we picked the first carrots from our new raised bed garden, and what beauties they were. Admittedly, we probably planted the seeds too closely together based on the Alien-worthy looking one that seems to be attacking CJ's face.

Carnival carrots they were, picked in a packet in a hardware store by CJ months ago, planted with care by the kids, first in a peat pot and then in our garden, where they were watered until harvest time, and washed after harvest.

They're interesting in shape and color, and super flavorful.

BEAM ME UP: We continued our MPA Mini Olympics today. This morning, while the USA gymnastics team battled their way to the gold medal, CJ and Annabelle were working the balance beam.

Annabelle nails the dismount

I assigned them a 'routine' of sorts. They had to walk the length of the beam (in our case, a 2x4 on the floor of the addition), do a one-footed pivot, walk back to the other end of the beam, do a scale (foot out behind them) and then a hop off dismount. 

The both had trouble with the pivot, so basically it came down to who could do a clean one first. In this even, CJ was the victor. Another gold for him. 

For our second event, it was simply about balance and strength. I had them do the scale and see who could hold it longer. Annabelle was victorious, scoring her first gold medal of our games

THIS DAY IN SCIENCE: Whilst looking for the schedule of events at Pacific Science Center today, I stumbled across something I'd forgotten about. It's PSC's Calendar of Science. They have it on their Web site, as well as in daily Tweets. It's full of fun factoids and would be a great resource for any teacher as a daily item of interest for their students. For instance, today marks the anniversary of the founding of  Schönbrunn, the world's very first zoo, in 1754, and it's still in operation today!

DOME-O-MARS: This afternoon we headed to Seattle Center. Our mission was two-fold. First, we needed a Space Needle cookie cutter. Mission accomplished. 

The real live Space Needle looked lovely today against the blue sky. I will just never get tired of staring at it.

Adjacent to the Needle, we sneaked peeks at the newish Chihuly glass palace (not its official name). We still haven't been there yet. However, there were people standing outside it passing out two-for-one coupons today, so maybe we'll use that as our excuse to go. It's certainly intriguing from beyond the gates!

Next up: a special planetarium show, a mash up of their standard "The Sky Tonight" offering "with special content focused on Curiosity's 8/5 landing on Mars The show will highlight brand-new NASA content and images." Well count us in!

The host of the show was great. Super enthusiastic and he knew his MSL pretty well.  Though we didn't necessarily learn anything new, it was very enjoyable ... except, the host kept mentioning how so many things could go wrong and how Curiosity could crash onto Mars and we wouldn't know it for 14 minutes until after it's toast. I've known this all along, of course, but something about sitting in the dark, hearing him say that, looking at pictures of MSL really made it hit me. And true confession time, I started feeling verklempt. That's right, getting misty over a friggin Mars rover. Yup, that's me. What a hopeless nerd. :/


WE SURRENDER?: Came across an article today that caught my attention. The headline reads "All the American Flags On the Moon Are Now White".  Of course the first reaction is, 'What happened to Old Glory?!" Upon reading the article it turned into a, "Well of course, DUH!" moment. 



The kids saw the headline on my screen, but I didn't let them read the story. Instead I asked them if they took their shirts off and went outside and hung them on a stick and left them there, if they returned 40+ years later, do they think their shirts would look just the same? 


CJ immediately said "yes" but I asked him, "Really? With the sun and other elements on them for FORTY YEARS?" At that they both answered, "No," and that's what happened to the moon flags, too. While the moon might not have snow, sleet, hail, tsunamis and such, it certainly does have sunlight and its UV rays to contend with. And those flags weren't exactly made with space age textile technology! Rather, they were normal nylon, made in New Jersey, and cost $5.50 in Apollo days. Moon weather - an interesting topic to think about, eh?

Going for the Gold

GAME ON: We've watched several Olympic events so far. Everything from archery to equestrian events, gymnastics to water polo to badminton, judo and more. Inspired, I told the kids we'd be having a very local Olympics of our own.

We headed up to the neighborhood park. There, monkey bars provided today's challenge. 


First, we had a "hang off." The kids each hung on as long as they could. We were going to do a best of 3, but when CJ won the first two, a third round wasn't necessary.

Up next: Crossing the great divide. CJ and Annabelle both declared that crossing the monkey bars wasn't their gift. I told them that didn't mean they shouldn't try.


Annabelle didn't exactly give it her all. She dropped off a couple bars in. Not exactly an Olympic-worthy effort. 

CJ, on the other hand, dug deep and I'll be darned if he didn't cross the bars the entire way for the very first time. Good for him! Definitely gold medal worthy. And so, after one day of events, the medal count is CJ: 2, Annabelle: 0.

ROCK HUNTING: This morning the kids test drove an interactive Mars rover feature on MarsQuestOnline.org.

From reading the introduction to the exercise, we learned that because radio signals take at least 20 minutes to reach Mars, you could never steer the rover in real time, and that Mars rover Sojourner could only receive one command sequence a day from NASA Mission Controllers. 

Normally the kids want to just dive right into online games - and today was no exception - but I told them that for this exercise they HAD to read the directions. They were straightforward.

It sounded simple enough, so we cued the game up and took a test run on my computer first. We had eight mission days to try to collect 5 rocks. The rover is the little rectangle that has rolled off the upper yellow-ish ramp near the center of the screen.

We entered 10 moves and I think on our first attempt we wound up in Nowheresville. But that did give us a better idea of how the rover moved, so then the kids each went to their own computers.


They each completed two missions and each got 3 of the 5 rocks both times. Here's the path Annabelle's rover took on one of her attempts. 

The intro told us that it was possible to get every target with one day to spare. We'll have to keep trying until the mission is accomplished. Failure is not an option. 

CAPTAIN'S LOG: Today, NASA released a new video narrated by the one and only Captain Kirk (William Shatner) about Mars Science Laboratory's travels, landing and mission. Titled "The Grand Entrance," NASA reports the video will be used at events around the country and on the Internet and social media to educate the public about Curiosity and build awareness about its landing at 10:31 p.m. Aug. 5, Pac Coast time, 11:31 EDT on Aug 6 for right hand coasters. 

We couldn't help ourselves. CJ, Annabelle and I all started clapping when the video was over. 

Another Star Trek family member, Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher of TNG fame) narrated a very similar  video. 

And speaking of videos about the Mars Science Laboratory, a Tweet today let me know about a video by PhDetours about MSL. it's a fun look at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where most of Curiosity was built. I encourage you to check it out. 

In case you haven't caught on, I'm going to be blathering nearly incessantly about MSL between now and Aug. 6. Just sayin'.