"The Magic School Bus: Soaring into Flight" Science Kit and More

by Joshua

There are A LOT of experiments in "The Magic School Bus: Soaring into Flight" and the last one is about parachutes. First, we did the parachute that comes for the experiment and then we decided we wanted to make a little competition to see who could make a parachute that stays in the air the longest while connected to a Lego guy.

Jeremiah's hypothesis: I think my parachute idea will work the best.
My hypothesis: I think my circle will slow it down 4x more than the control.

Our Lego guy is ready!
So here's what we came up with:
First, we did a control which is basically just the Lego guy on it's own

It took only 0.3 seconds for it to reach the floor
Next, We did Jeremiah's design: just a regular bag. "I did it because there would be so much air in the bag I thought that the air would create drag to slow down the Lego guy."

It did it in a slower 0.9 seconds.
Next, we did Mom's bigger design: a cut-out square. "I did a square design because it would be easy to implicate and the only difference between the two squares would be the size," said Mom

It did it in an extremely slow time of 1.4 seconds.
Next, we did Mom's smaller design: also a cut-out square.

It did it in an faster time of 0.8 seconds.
Next, we did my design: a circle. I thought most modern parachutes are a circle because the circular effect creates a lot of drag on that upward going air. Jeremiah's design does that also but if it flips 90 or even 180 degrees in the wrong direction it will make it stop collecting air and collapse. For my design it would be extremely unlikely.

It did it in a nice 1.2 seconds.
Then Mom made a larger circle and we did that one.

It did it in a very slow time of 1.8 seconds.

Here are the results all together:

Conclusion: My hypothesis was right on. We also found that a larger circular parachute slowed down our Lego man the most.

"Starbounders" Book Review

by Jeremiah, age 7 1/2 (transcribed by Mom)

I suggest this book because I have really liked it. It is about 3 kids trying to save Earth from destruction. They are Starbounders. In part of the book the Starbounders fight these slug-like organisms called Vreeks (it sounds like "freaks"). The place where the Starbounders train is called Indigo 8. This book is kind of scary in some parts. It has kind of scary pictures for the chapter headings. Even though it's a very long book (304 pages), it's a great book. I got it in the science fiction section of the library. I would recommend it to people who like sci-fi books.

Lego Pyramid

by Joshua

I'm going to start a new label theat you might have noticed which is called Legos! In these ones I'm going to show you things we've built and I'm going to start out with a pyramid!

Name: Pyramid
Legos used: 45 legos
Height: 3 inches
Width: 4 1/2 inches
Notes*: Used just about every yellow Lego we have!


*I will not use notes on some of these.

Scratch

by Joshua

Just like the Khan Academy post this is also about a cool website and unlike Khan Academy this one is only coding.It's the simplest type of programming and like the name imply's it's called Scratch.This is really fun programming and all you have to do is drag the blocks in place and you can make all sorts of complicated stuff like I made a 22 question math quiz and you can sign up for it to save and make it for anyone to see!
Here's our profiles:
Mine:
http://scratch.mit.edu/users/Mathkid1/
Jeremiah's:
http://scratch.mit.edu/users/Gearkid1/

The Square Root Trick

By Joshua

I thought this trick up all by myself. It's one about square roots (hence the name) and here's how it works:
If the sum of two square roots equals 10 or a multiple of 10 then the square of both numbers will have the same number in the ones place. For example:
*9 and 1. Added together the sum is 10. Square each number and you get 81 and 1. The number in the ones place of both answers is 1.
*4 and 6 together make 10. Their squares are 16 and 36. The number in the ones place is 6 for both.
*12 and 8 together make 20. Their squares are 144 and 64. The number in the ones place of both is 4.

Project Noah

by Joshua

Project Noah is also a website though it's not a learning website and it's also not about math or programming it's about nature. In Project Noah you share your photos with other people and if you can't identify an animal then you can post it as an "Unidentified Spotting" and other people can help you identification! Project Noah is also one of those websites that you have to sign up for but like every other one I've done it's free.

Here's my profile:
http://www.projectnoah.org/users/5picklefamily

How to Earn the Black Hole Badges on Khan Academy

by Joshua

A lot of people on Khan Academy wonder, "How do I get those tricky tricky black hole badges?" Only a handful of Khan Academy members have at least 1 black hole badge and the badges go in order of value like this: Meteorite, Moon, Earth, Sun and Black hole. The black hole badges are separated in 2 sections: Everyone and Only Sal.
Everyone black hole badges:
These are ones everyone can earn.

• Tesla: This one is for ten million (10,000,000) energy points witch is A LOT of energy points.
• Atlas: This one is for 500 skills mastered.
• Artemis: This one I really don't know but I think that it's for 600 skills mastered.

Only Sal black hole badges:
These are ones only Sal can earn.(and they're hilarious!)

• Galileo: This one is for creating 3000 videos.
• Be Sal: This one is for just what the name says: Be Sal*

*Pretty funny right?