Mechanical Lego Arm

I worked on building a mechanical arm with Lego today. 

This is the arm in it's open form.

This is it closing up.

If I disconnect the bottom, it becomes a shorter tool.

It takes a while to fix if it breaks.  It has to be adjusted exactly the same on both sides until it's working properly.  In this photo, I'm adjusting it so that it will become curved, as you can see in the next photo:

This can be useful reaching something high up on a shelf, or on the top of the fridge, like today when I reached my mom's camera.  (She's just finding this out now.  She seems a little surprised and unimpressed.)

The mechanical arm can also be useful in reaching for random objects, as long as they're not too heavy;

in touching food that you don't really like;

and in reaching small snacks that you do like to eat.

I might make a few adjustments to the arm, and make it look better.

Science with Candy

This is some of my Halloween candy.  You can do awesome experiments with your Halloween candy.

In this experiment, you can get many colours out of a bag of m&m's.

Once you get all the colours painted on a piece of paper, the dye in the colours might start to separate if you add water.

This is a smartie experiment.  If you use a small sieve and rinse the smarties, you can see how the colour washes off.

If you soak the smarties in a glass of water, you can get colours like this,

and this!

Colours and letters will soak off skittles too.  Look very closely for the floating 'S':

Hint: it's between the orange and red skittles.

Next, my caramel experiment.

For this experiment, I soaked caramels in warm water, cold water, and vinegar with baking soda.

The hot water is the mushed up one; the one soaked in cold water has the deeper lines; and the one from the vinegar and baking soda dissolved the little bumps.

Next, an experiment to see which chocolate bars will float.

We found that the kit kat and aero bars floated because they have air bubbles inside.  The crunchie, oh henry, caramilk, and hershey bar all sank.

Then we stirred them around in hot water.  The aero and the hershey bar dissolved completely.

See if you can guess which the others are:

Another experiment with m&m's showed us that you can paint with them.

Dip them in water for a few seconds, and use a paintbrush in the colour or just hold them in your fingers and draw with them like crayons.

For my last experiment, vinegar and baking soda takes the colour off m&m's and smarties quicker than just regular warm water. 

In this photo, you can see the carnauba wax floating at the top of the glass.  That's the glossy glaze put on candies to make them shiny.

Halloween

Here is my magical cat, and the pumpkins me and my brother carved.

The one on the right is my brother's, and the one on the left is mine.  His name is Jack.

Slingshot

This is my new slingshot.  At the moment it's folded up.

Now it is unfolded.

I'll show you how to hold it:

 Time to sling some ammo.

Make sure that when you're using a slinghot, everyone is behind you, including your pets.  Also make sure that there isn't a twist in the band that stretches back, or you might hit yourself or someone else.  Unless you're a professional, never fire your slingshot up into the air.

 This is my target:

I practiced all afternoon, and this is what it looked like by night time.

Finding Ancient Treasure

Me and my family heard about a secret pirate treasure buried in my grandparent's yard.  Me and my brother used a gps to locate it.

We started to dig the treasure up.  My grandpa helped.

We found the treasure!  It was a box filled with pirate jewels.

Lego Chess

This is the first stage in my Lego chess game.  On the left side is the human team, and on the right side is the team of the dead.  The game started out just using figures, but then I realized that the queen could just slide forward and knock out the king, ending the game, so I added some pawns.

In the treasure chest, you will see jewels but I call them pawns.  The rule about the pawns is that if one is knocked out, it goes into the treasure chest.  The winner gets the treasure chest at the end.  Also, once you knock out four players, you get a wizard which can trade places with any other figure on your team. 

Huaman team, with pawns

My favorite guy is the one with the double crossbow.

Team of the Dead, with pawns

When I played with my mom, I was the human team and she was the dead guy team. 

I won (here's one of my attacks). 

-My mom never knew how to play chess until I taught her.  She's still not that good.  But she wants me to add that she's slowly getting better. ;)  ...very slowly.

Secret Writing

Here's how to make invisible writing:

First, you need lemon juice.  One lemon works fine.  Then add three or four drops of water and stir.

Dip a Q-tip into this and write with it on a piece of paper. 

Once you're done writing on it, let it dry.

But don't hang it on  the clothesline.  It might blow away. ha ha ha.

To read the message, you have to hold it very close to a hot element like a candle, a hot lightbulb, or the stove.  Make sure it doesn't catch on fire.  Keep some water close by.

This is my map.  I won't show you the rest of it, otherwise you'll find my treasure. ;)

Dissolving Chalk

Using vinegar, lemon juice, and water, I am experimenting with dissolving chalk.  So if chalk has been mean to you, put it in vinegar or lemon juice.  They seem to work the best.  Watch for final results, which will be posted soon.

Update- Results:  Lemon was the most corrosive, vinegar came in second, and water hardly did anything.

Stories with Chinese Characters

Practicing writing characters in Chinese:

I learned some Chinese characters from reading this book.  I tried to make a story with them:

A little person had a tree and a cow and a dog. 

The little person liked to climb big mountains that reached the sky.

When he got to the top, he ate some beans.

Playing with Food

More Foods with Moods in these books.

Spiderman Heros and Villains

Spiderman

Sandman

Green Goblin

Dr. Octopus

Monsters from the Lab

I have been doing some sewing in the squidlab. My first creation (mwaha ha ha ha) is Yeti:

He likes cookies. And snuggles at bedtime. Mwaha ha ha.

My next creation is 4est (pronounced 'Forest')...because he has 4 arms and 4 eyes:

He also likes cookies. He lives in the forest during the winter.

~These creations are inspired by Ugly Dolls.