Crushing Cans

Ds#3 loves to watch videos from The Happy Scientist Robert Krampf and then goes about performing them.  This time around he got busy crushing cans using steam.  The videos below demonstrate how he did it.  Notice in the background of the second video, where Ds#2 is giving an explanation, that Ds#1 is having a little fun.

Burning Tears of St. Lawrence, or the Perseid Meteor Shower

Look towards the Perseus constellation in the northeast sky this weekend and from it will emanate the Perseid Meteor shower. If you have clear skies, this year promises to be excellent because the moon will be a mere crescent.

Today is the feast day of St. Lawrence of Rome, the archdeacon who tirelessly cared for the sick and poor and was grilled to death for his faith, coinciding with the annual meteor shower; thus the event is often referred to as the Burning Tears of St. Lawrence.

Get a blanket and make yourself comfortable.  You'll start seeing them every few minutes streaking across the sky after night fall, but if you like middle-of-the-night excursions the peak will be between 2 am and 3 am.  Saturday night will be better than Sunday, though around here Saturday is predicted to be cloudy.  We're planning a shooting star gazing event at a friend's yard atop a treeless hill on Sunday when the weather should be clear.

Discount Code for Live Online Summer Math Camps

Homeschool Connections is offering two live online summer math camps for geometry and algebra.  You can read about them here.

For the geometry prep camp I have a discount code that you are free to share:

$20 off Geometry Prep Camp discount code nx32tg.  Enjoy!

Home in a Cave review

Check out my review of Janet Halfmann's new book Home in a Cave over at Love2Learn.

Science Olympiad Competition

I never did blog about the Science Olympiad competition, until now that is.  Our competition was back in March.  In the end we had a team of five and we competed in the following events:

• Food Science
• Road Scholar
• Crime Busters
• Storm the Castle

While it's hard to see in the picture, our team is the small group without matching shirts just about in the center of the picture.  This year Massachusetts had a record number of both regular and alternate teams, and we were the first homeschool team ever.

There's no substitute for that first experience to understand how the competition works.  For as strict as the rules portray everything, the middle school level at least was not quite so rigid.  And I had expected that I had to be with them for every competition when in fact only the competitors were allowed in to most events.

We competed against many top schools, many of which have been competing for years with not only a primary team but also one or even two alternates.  We all gathered in the gym for the final award of medals (for regular teams) and ribbons (for alternates.)  I just can't describe the shock and joy of hearing our team's name announced as the third place alternate winner for Crime Busters.  Our two competitors are in the bottom picture.

We had a great experience.  Yes, there's a lot of work.  Yes, there's a lot of stress.  Yes, it's a big time commitment. It's worth it.