Flighty

STEM SESSION: Twice in the last 24 hours, we have had activities involving the always-awesome The Museum of Flight.

Today, from 9 until 1 p.m., CJ and Annabelle participated in a 'home school' event at the museum. The event was comprised of several sessions for which the students could sign up. CJ and Annabelle's three sessions were LEGO Mindstorm, Drones, and Pilot Experience.

CJ can tell you more about it. ...

On 6 March 2019, The Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA hosted Homeschool Day: STEM Exploration, a museum-wide event featuring a number of workshops related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). The event was open to Museum of Flight Connections members, and featured both ticketed and non-ticketed workshops. My sister and I went to three workshops, all of which were ticketed. They were as follows:

First, Annabelle and I met a group outside of a hidden stairwell, to get upstairs, where the room where the first activity was being held was. The first activity involved what are known as LEGO Mindstorm robots, simple machines that can be programmed by users using a "connectable block" interface. At the table my sister and I were assigned to, the LEGO Mindstorm robot was designed to resemble a hypothetical Mars rover, having to retrieve another robot. We could do three "missions": The first being to move the rover to a ramp, and making it move back, the second being to move the rover to the ramp, catch the other robot, and bring it back to the starting point, and the third being to start at a different starting point, and bring the rover back to said starting point. My sister and I had some difficulty programming the rover to act the way we desired it to, but eventually completed all three missions.

The second activity involved us using drones (relatively small flying machines), and learning how to use them. But before that, we used a simple drone-simulator app on tablets, to help us adjust to flying the real deal. After getting into the "drone area", we were presented with tablets, giving us controls for our drones. The app also came with buttons to make the drones do "tricks", such as back-flipping. Usually, this would result in a crash.

The final activity that my sister and I took part in was The Pilot Experience, an activity divided into two parts. First, the group was split into teams of two people (predictably, my sister and I both ended up in the same team). We were given checklists, shown a decommissioned plane and told to either check (meaning a pass) or cross off (meaning a fail) for various safety checkboxes (example: Is the airway unobstructed?) Noticeably, there were a large number of dangers in the plane as it was, so it was certainly not ready for prime time. After this activity, we were shown a map of part of the State of Washington, and told that we would be flying over a part of that map in a flight simulator.

The "trip there" involved flying a simulation plane from The Museum of Flight's runway to one of Boeing Field's runways. For "the way there", I took control of the wheel, and my sister was the co-pilot. We had to cross over various landmarks (for example: The Space Needle) while making our way from Point A to Point B. After landing, Annabelle and I switched seats, and, strangely, the simulation told us to take a "scenic" detour on our way back to The Museum of Flight. The Pilot Experience was probably the most enjoyable part of that day's workshops.

While the kids were at the museum, I got some work done around campus. It was odd being home alone, that so rarely happens. I did pop over to the museum at 11, to take the kids lunch. They ate in the lobby of the space gallery - a pretty cool lunch spot, if you asked me.

They also came home with a backsack and some pretty cool swag!

When I picked them up today, CJ said, "I'm really glad I went." I told them they are also registered for another STEM event at the museum in April, this time a mission to Mars-themed session. They are already looking forward to it.

MARVEL-OUS: On Monday evening, as one of the perks of being part of Amelia's Aerospace Club at The Museum of Flight, Annabelle had a chance to attend an advance screening on the latest film in the Marvel franchise of movies.

I dropped her off at the museum a bit after 5. I'll  have her tell you about the rest of the event.

promotional photo from Marvel Studios

Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending an exclusive screening of "Captain Marvel," the newest Marvel film. This filming was restricted to press and reserved groups only, and we had to give up our phones at the entrance and keep a ticket to get them back. The movie ended up starting a full 30 minutes late for some reason, though it was preceded by a small reminder that this was an exclusive event and anyone that had snuck a phone in would be removed from the theater and not allowed back inside.

The movie itself was rather good. On the way in, I was talking with my friends about how I was hoping the movie would avoid boxing the titular heroine into overused roles or shoehorned romance plots, which the movie thankfully avoided. The jokes were well-paced and action was easy to follow. It also did a good job of ensuring audience members not well versed in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) could understand some of the more unique concepts without dropping major exposition.

Overall, I had a rather pleasant experience at the theater. Other than the cold bus to and from and some rather large wait times, the movie was good and I had fun meeting and talking with old friends. The movie is out now in theaters, and while some describe it as rather mediocre it does have a few credits scenes longtime Marvel fans will enjoy.

Below is one of the official trailers for the movie from Marvel Studios