Hugo Estrada's House of Wonder

Today we had a successful chess lesson with Alexander and Isabella. Alexander helped to put the pieces on the board, mirroring what Isabella was doing. We played a few games of pawn games. Next time, we are going to delve into lesson two!

This is the recipe of my mother, who comes from northern Jalisco, although the recipe may come from Southern Zacatecas. Use this for tostadas and sopes.

Boil tomatoes
put them in the mixer and add
garlic
5 corns of pepper
3 cloves
A pinch of dried oregano
chopped onion
vineger
salt

Salsa de los Sopes:
Cocer jitomate
ajo
5 pimientas
3 clavitos
pinch oregano del cerro
picada la cebolla
vinagre
sal

Mueles todo, y ya esta.

This is my finished, working Digi-Comp, the mechanical computer from the 60s. You can read about it here http://www.retrothing.com/2006/02/build_your_own_.html

Bella made this snowflake with knex. I like Knex a lot; sometimes, I like them more than legos.

This morning, at Crunchy Granola Academy, we finished out trebuchet models. Here you can see our young engineers working earnestly on their machines. Smile to the camera, Alexander! Now put back your hard hat. Safety First!

Isabella successfully launched a cherio from her model. Notice the pink sling. Isabella designed the stabilizing system; without it, the trebuchet flips over. The standard solution is to put the structure on wheels; she decided to stabilize it with extra anchors instead.

Here is detail shot of the sling and weight. The weight is a battery taped to the rod. The sling was made with a rag.

Our learning experience showed that the hardest part of making these models is to make an appropriate sling. The wrong sling shape will not throw the objects the right way. Our models were so small that making the slings were tricky. We believe that making a bigger model should make the sling making easier.

Here is my model:

Isabella, a student at Crunchy Granola Academy, started her first magazine. it is called, "Bird, The Field Guide Magazine". This is another project that she conceived and started all by herself.

Here is what an issue looks in the inside:

Bella today at Crunchy Granola Academy created her own jigsaw puzzle. She came up with the project herself, and she did it all alone.

Here is the puzzle undone:

Here it is done:

Create some poster board rockets to put at the bottom of our chairs at work.

Update 1. I finished my first rocket! This one will be joining Wile E. Coyote at the office.

Now I only have to make another 6 :)

Update: Since I did create one, and I haven't worked at the office in about 5 months, I can say that it is done.

This tutorial will teach you how to create module-like functionality adding a To Do list functionality using the default installation for Drupal 6.6. The whole process takes less than 15 minutes, and now new modules have to be installed.

1. Enable PHP Filter Go to Administer-> Site Building -> Modules. Check the box for PHP Filter, and click Save Configuration.

2. Create a "Project" vocabulary Go to Adminster -> Content Management -> Taxonomy. Click on Add Vocabulary, enter a name. Under Content type, click on Story. Click Save.

3. Add "To Do" and "Done" terms to the Project vocabulary Go Go to Adminster -> Content Management -> Taxonomy. Under the list of vocabularies, find Project, and clik on its "Add term" link. Enter under Term Name "To Do" and click Save. Repeat steps to add "Done".

4. Create a new To Do Block Go to Administer -> Site Building -> Blocks -> Add Block. Name it "To Do". Under Input Format, click on PHP code. Copy and paste the code below

<?
// comma separated lists of terms tid to display nodes
 
$term_name = "To Do";
$terms =  "SELECT tid from  {term_data} where name LIKE '" . $term_name  . "'";
 
// the number of nodes to show
$count = 10;
 
$sql = "SELECT n.title, n.nid FROM {node} n INNER JOIN {term_node} tn ON n.nid = tn.nid WHERE tn.tid in ($terms) AND n.status=1 ORDER BY n.created DESC";
$result = db_query_range(db_rewrite_sql($sql), 0, $count);
if ($result) {
  return node_title_list($result);
}
return t('No nodes available.');
?>

Click on Save Block.

5. Enable Block Go to Administer -> Site Building -> Blocks. Find the block. Then select a position from the drop down menu called "Region."

You are done.

Yesterday we got a curriculum to have a unit on electricity at Crunchy Granola Academy. Today we started it. it teaches about simple electrical circuits, and it contains a light bulb, a motor, an LED and a buzzer. It teaches also about insulators and serials and parallel circuits.

Well, we finished it in less than two hours. Alexander, my 3-year-old, got upset when we were done, and he said that he wanted more motor training. This means that the unit was a success. :)

http://www.electrowiz.com/