Events @ San Jose Public Library

I remember the days when I was a school kid in India, the first library that I was introduced to was our school library. We were allowed to borrow 1 book per week. Outside of school if we wanted to read, there were scarcely any libraries. If there luckily happened to be one, it would carry only story books and novels. Needless to say these were privately owned libraries, had monthly fees and lots of restrictions on borrowing.

Here in the US, access to knowledge comes without much hassle. From a small baby to an adult, anyone can walk in to their community library and lay hands on whatever interests them. Apart from being a place to "borrow resources", these libraries are engaged in conducting numerous art, math, science, entertainment  etc activities and events on a daily basis.

One such library I have previlege to go to is the San Jose Public Library. It has multiple locations throughout San Jose. For past 3-4 months I and my kids have enjoyed some quality programs here. Hansel and Gretel performance by Opera San Jose, Juggling show, Happy bird show, puppet making, scrap art making, astronomy, insects  are few of the events that we have attended at the library. After each of these activities when I ask my kids if they enjoyed it, they show me a thumbs-up and I realize that happiness comes in small packets...

Geocaching at Almaden Quicksilver park

Today we went for Geocaching at Almaden Quicksilver Park! Before going for this Geocaching class, we did not know what to expect. However we did know that we have to hike and so carried the basic necessities like caps, water, some snacks, binoculars and sunscreen. At the end of this class we were glad to have attended it. I have added some information about Geocaching here.



The class was conducted by some experienced Geocachers with thousands of caches on their account. We were given an introduction to geocaching, its history and what to expect. Then we were given GPS which was already fed with the coordinates for the nearby caches.



As we were first timers we were grouped with one of the volunteers who guided us in locating the caches. She pointed out what hints to look for, like a sidepathway in the trail or things that don't belong there or look different from the rest. The hike was about 1.5 miles on Wood road trail and we located about 6-7 caches! That is good for a start.




One of the caches was cleverly hidden. It had a difficulty level of 3.5 and was located in a fence post!

Here is a picture of how the fence post looks to an onlooker who is unaware of caches.


Here is a picture of the hidden cache. The post looked different from the rest and had a slit that separated the lower and upper section of the post.



Here is another example, looks like a normal rock, but there is a cache behind it.


Here is the content of one of the caches that we found. We also got to trade some of the toys in the cache.



We all are excited about Geocaching and want to do more of it. It is addictive!

Geocaching - Fun way to get kids outdoor

What is Geocaching?

In the lay man's term Geocaching is using expensive GPS tool to locate tupperware! Geocaching has been started by enthusiasts all around the world and is pursued as a hobby for fun and recreation. "Caches" are located all over the world in parks, urban areas and some public places. The caches could be boxes (not easily destroyed by weathering) containing inexpensive things like squeeze toys, fake money, small toys etc. An important ingredient in the caches is a log book, which the finders of the cache can date and sign it.


Where to look for caches?
There is a website http://www.geocaching.com/ where you can register and get the location coordinates of the caches near the area you are interested. Along with the coordinates there could also be provided description of where to look and hints. It also tells the difficulty level.


How to find caches?
You will need a hiking GPS to locate the caches. It differs a little from the auto GPS - has more battery life, can be used in the mountain/trail areas. On the GPS you plug in the coordinates and off you set to find them.

What to carry while going for Geocaching?
GPS(hiking or regular that will not fail in wilderness)
Plenty of water
Caps/hats
sunscreen
Printout of cache locations(with description and hints)
Snack
Trading items : Yes you can trade any of the items in the cache for your items.
Lots of enthusiasm and ready to have fun.

CSI Open Lab : Rover Challenge

The Chabot science center holds hands-on activities for kids. This weekend the challenge was to build the tallest and/or heaviest and/or fastest Rover with Legos, motors and solar powered batteries.

Me and the kids quickly grabbed a table and set off to work.


Try 1: Our first version was to build a rover with the smaller wheels attached to the motor. It was a push model i.e. the back smaller wheels pushed the Rover. We did very badly with a 18.47 seconds.


Try 2: We decided to try attaching the motor to the bigger wheels and this time it was a pull model. We did way better with 8.89 seconds and a 4th place.



Try 3,4,5: we tried to improvise the design by reducing the resistance, however that did not give us any advantage(I guess the model became less stable).Since we wanted to explore other areas on Chabot we concluded our efforts.


There were demonstration booths set-up where the voluteers were high-school students. Two such activities were identifying meteorites (the charactersitics were given) and making soap bubbles with dry ice.

Science Olympiad -Event day

Finally, it was the day to showcase the Science and engineering projects aka "Build events". The elementary kids had been working hard on these and theory events for past few months. "A" was participating in one of the two teams from her school. The team was a good mix of 4-6th graders. All the kids were first timers and this surely was going to be a great experience for them, and it turned out to be.

Build events: The build events open for viewing were Battery Buggy, Mission Possible and Rubber band Catapult. The remaining build events - straw tower, write it build it were closed events and not open for public viewing.

Battery Buggy: In this challenge the goal was to design a battery operated automobile with braking mechanism, that could go in a straight line and can be configured to stop at a distance given during the time of competition. Here are some of the Battery buggies:



Mission Possible: This event challenged the kids to build a Rube-Goldberg type of machine to either raise a flag or roll a marble for 30 cm. A had participated in this event. Here are some of the Mission Possible creations:



Rubberband catapult: The challenge was to build a launcher for rubberband. This launcher had to be built configurable as the distance to launch the rubber band was given at the time of competition. Here are few catapults:



Pentathalon:
This activity is based on Marathon. The kids at one station answer science questions then do an activity and reach the next station where another set of kids repeat the same. These activities and the number of stations are announced on the event day. Luckily there was only one - event carrying marble in a spoon.


Theory events: These were Ecology, Road Scholar, Reach for the stars, Science Jeopardy, Disease Detective and Science Jeopardy.

Science Jeopardy:
This event was partially an open event. The initial elimination round was a closed one and top three teams were picked to play the science jeopardy with buzzers. This final round was open for all the parents to view.

At the end of the event our teams did well considering the fact they they were first timers. Hopefully it has boosted the confidence of the kids to perform better in the next Science Olympiad.

Building Rube-Goldberg setup

For this year's Science Olympiad my daughter picked the build topic, Mission Possible. In this the kids have to build a Rube -Goldberg machine to either 1) raise a flag or 2) roll a marble for a certain distance.

There are other requirements: they need to have atleast 5 simple machines , have 5 action transfers, the whole setup should be 30 seconds from start to finish, not more nor less.

"A" and her partner have so far come up with the setup below.




This is the final version of the Rube Goldberg device, which took 30 seconds from start to raise the flag.

Blog Anniversary

Its hard to believe that I have been blogging for an year! This also means that its one year since I started seriously involving my kids in science and art activities.

What I gain from this? Its beyond measure! The number of occassions that we have had a quality family time has grown significantly. My kids look forward to weekends, they love nature and hikes, are observant of the life around them, love to experiment and know what to expect from events that we attend. The art activities have boosted their creativity and imagination. When we had been to the recent garden show, my little one was amazed by the carnivorous plants and drew her own version of a bug-eating plant! My older one is using some of the creativity in her science olympiad.

I have supplemented my science activities with reading. Some of the books that we read present a great opportunity to try out the concepts, like the "Hello red fox!"

What I learnt? You do not need expensive toys or wii's or spend a whole lot in traveling to far off places to teach science to your kids. A local neigborhood activity is all that they need!