First Lego League

I participated in First Lego league this year. The theme was Body Forward, and our team team chose how to heal or improve a body part. We decided to focus our research on the spine.

In our grand search for a problem we searched dangerous jobs online.

We came up with an entire list but finally narrowed it down to spine surgery. It’s not really a dangerous job but it can be very hard.

We then interviewed a neurosurgeon who does spine surgery. He taught us all about spine surgery and what was required.

After that we went on other field trips.

I went to the MIT museum in Boston. We got to see the Black Falcon, an early surgical robot.

We also visited an operating room at St. Peter’s Hospital.  While we were there we got to see the Da Vinci robot which is a actual robot that is being used today.  Go to my mom’s blog, at Albany Kid, to read about this field trip.

Our team decided to solve the problem of surgery in urban bomb situations. This solution solves two kinds of problems: improving the body, and healing a body. Currently, surgeons are limited in what kind of surgery techniques they can do with their human body. In addition, a war situation can be very dangerous and it can be impossible for a surgeon to do shrapnel surgery in war conditions.

Dr. Scheid, the neurosurgeon that we interviewed, told us about soldiers who have to be flown in to hospitals in the US to get this kind of surgery. And, he told us that many times they are flown in for the surgery, and then flown right back afterwards.

We wanted to create a surgical robot that would allow this surgery to be done right on the field in such a way as to keep the surgeon safe, while providing a sterile medic conditions for the patient.

Our solution was DREGS: Disaster Robotic Emergency General Surgery. This robot cures shrapnel wounds in war situations while defending the patient.

Our Robot’s key features are:

• A bullet proof titanium body
• An auto turret
• It is remote controlled

I can see this kind of robot being manufactured someday, but with a lot of updates.

 

Video: First Lego League Poster

Here is a list of articles we used:

• Robotic surgeon finds, removes shrapnel alone
• Nanooze: The Nanomedicine Issue
• National Geographic: Merging Man and Machine

The Grand Canyon

July 4, 2009

Today, I went to the Grand Canyon!  At it, I survived a talk about the California Condor.  I also saw the sunset there.  It was pretty! 

I also survived a trip to a Native American Fair...I made a pot!

July 5, 2009

Today, I went on a fossil walk.  I saw a bunch of fossils.  I saw a shell, coral, and a sponge!  I also learned about the Grand Canyon and geology.

One Day In Arizona

July 3, 2009

Today, I saw a Petrified Forest in Arizona.  There were tons of mineral logs EVERYWHERE, and they looked like a rainbow!  It was fun.

I also went to the Hubbell Trading Post.  It was boring until, guess what, I saw Jack again!  At the Trading Post, I got a Hopi Squash Kachina doll.  He has a really weird head.

Later, I went to a Meteor Crater, and got a dinosaur egg that grows in water.

Discovery Of A Lifetime At The Sternberg Museum

I went to the Sternberg Museum in Hayes, Kansas.  I saw the fish-within- a-fish.  It’s really a fish, within a fish, within a fish.  The fish-within-a-fish was really big.  The biggest fish had big, sharp teeth and a top and bottom rib cage.

I like fossils so I thought it was really cool.  They had a mini movie theater where they showed how they excavated the fish-within-a-fish.  Later, that day, we went to Monument Rocks, Kansas where they excavated it.

Back at the Sternberg Museum, I had to run to avoid being eaten by the huge, life-like dinosaurs, especially the T-Rex in the walk-through diorama whose head turns and roars at you as you pass by.

In this picture, you can see me running from Stan, a Tyrannosaurus Rex.   I think this is a funny  picture.  Stan sure is nomadic.  He always moves from museum to museum.

This is a picture of a giant plastic fish.  This fish appears to be carnivorous.  I would most definitely not like to be in the water with one.  I’m not certain what his name is though.

I highly recommend the Sternberg Museum because it has so many great dinosaur related things. 

Review of the Dinosaur Resource Center

I visited an amazing dinosaur museum that had a whole bunch of really cool dinosaurs.  They had:

• a T-Rex
• a Pteradon
• a Plesiasaur
• and a whole lot more.

We had a really good tour guide, who is pretty much a real Paleontologist, named Stephen.  He is in college, studying to be a paleontologist, and he works for the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center.  He’s gone on 12 digs in only two years.  That’s a lot!

Stephen encouraged me to be a paleontologist.  He said it was really fun, and not to worry about making money.  As long as you enjoy what you you’re doing, you can find a way to make enough money.  He’s my role model!

In the gift shop, they had real ammonites, and casts of lots of other dinosaur bones.  The Dinosaur Resource Center makes casts of dinosaur bones for museums around the world.

They even made made casts for the movie Sea Monters!

No museum in the world could top this one, they had everything, or a whole lot.  If you’re in Colorado, that’s the place to go.

Have a funasouraus day!

Review of Leon And The Champion Chip

Leon and the Champion Chip by Allen Kurzweil is an awesome book about a kid named Leon who made a spitting image of a bully.  A spitting image is a doll look-like that looks like a person that you are trying to control.  The spitting image allows you to control the person. Leon enters a chip identifying tournament to get the money for the last part of the spitting image, and that is how he ends up earning the greatest chip award, the champion chip. 

Before he earned the potato chip award, Leon spent a whole year learning about potato chips in science class with his science teacher, Mr. Sparks.

The author's intent seems to be that you can find science anywhere, even in potatoes. The reason that I think that this is his intent, is that he said so in an interview with his son on a podcast posted on his website.  I also think that because in the book, Leon's science teacher asks the students what their passions are.  For every one of the kids' passions, he describes the science in it.  Like lever work and center of gravity stuff in a wrestling move.  That's basic simple machine stuff.

This is a really crunchy read, that makes you crave potato chips.  It has really nice pencil sketched illustrations.  This book also describes a whole bunch of science experiments, like the Extermitator, a high-powered blaster gun, and the potato clock.  The potato clock uses spit for its power.  Did you know that spit conducts energy?  That's the kind of useful science knowledge that you'll learn from this book.

If you want to learn more facts about this book, and other fun things about the author, then click on this tasty link to the author's website.

Here is a photo from Allen Kurzweil's website:

 

Leon and the Champion Chip: Allen Kurzweil, Bret Bertholf: Books

More Animal Science Books

If you're interested in how animals communicate, Animals Exposed! The Truth About Animal Communication is a good book for you.  Did you know that the baboon shows that it is ready to mate by growing a big, pink butt?  The rattlesnake warns enemies to stay away by rattling the rattle on its tail.  Also, the skunk sprays a smelly liquid on enemies to warn them to stay away.

Did you know that there are hundreds of different animal communications?  There are animals saying: hi, go away, leave me along, get out of my territory, help me kill prey so we can share it for dinner, and be my friend.

I learned that stuff and more from reading this book.  It has very good illustrations that almost look like photos because they are so realistic.  It even has sidebars with more details and examples of animal communication.

I recommend this book to anyone who want to learn more about animals.  It has interesting facts, and is a fun read.

Animals Exposed! The Truth About Animal Builders is a great book explaining how animals build their homes.  Did you know that one weaver bird builds its nest with spider webs?   Some mice build balls of straw with holes in them for a nest.  Beavers build dams in rivers to live in.  Animal homes can be found in very different places and habitats.

Amazingly, there are many different kinds of animal homes, just as many as there are different kinds of animals.  There are bejillions of different kinds of animals.  There are animal homes: in water, on tree branches and trunks, in underground burrows, in tiny slots, and even some in ice caves.  Animals have found ways to adapt to different habitats with different kinds of homes.

This book has sidebars describing specific animal homes.  For example, in one sidebar, you can find horned eggs where baby dogfish grow, and spiders wrapping bugs in silk hanging from a web.  Each of the animal builders mentioned in the sidebar also have an illustration.  The drawings are awesome, they are very well drawn and very colorful.

I recommend this book to kids who want to grow up to save animal habitats.

A Collection Of Animal Science Books

The Egg (First Discovery Books): Gallimard Jeunesse, Pascale De Bourgoing, Rene Mettler: Books ISBN: 0590452665 ISBN-13: 9780590452663

This is an informative book about eggs that has a whole bunch of pictures of really cute baby chickens.  It tells you about the different kinds of animals that lay eggs.  It shows you the inside of a chicken egg before it hatches at two different stages of development.  This is a good book for littler kids, who don't already know that chickens have to sit on their eggs to keep them warm.

All About Frogs (All About...): Jim Arnosky: Books ISBN: 0590481649 ISBN-13: 9780590481649

This book tells you all about frogs, like how they're born and how they change from tadpole to frog in a process called metamorphosis.  It also tells you the difference between a frog and a toad, frogs have longer legs.  It's a well written and illustrated book, but it's for younger kids.

Where Did The Butterfly Get Its Name?: Melvin Berger, Gilda Berger, Barbara Higgins Bond: Books ISBN: 0439266750 ISBN-13: 9780439266758

This book isn't the best, but it's very informative. It's just a fact book, but it has very gross and gruesome pictures of moths and butterflies. Have you ever seen moth larvae eating each other? Well, if you read this book, you'll see it. It has close-up pictures of butterfly eyes and proboscis. I would recommend this book for younger kids.

Saving Endangered Animals

Do you people know what's happening to this world?  There is the cutest little bird called the Kiwi that's endangered because people introduced non-native species in its home in New Zealand.

What are you doing about it?  Sitting there on the computer, reading a blog, instead of taking action?

One way that people are saving kiwis is through Operation Nest Egg, where they raise Kiwi eggs in captivity and release them to protected wild areas when they are old enough.

There are many endangered animals in the world, like the Manatee, Green Turtle, and the Black Footed Ferret.  I saw a slide show that said "Endangered means there is still time."  That means that if an animal is endangered, or low in numbers, there is still time to help them.

Click the link to watch: Endangered Means There Is Still Time.

What I Learned About Forensic Science

I am writing about what I learned, and what I already knew about forensic science. By the way, forensic scientists are people who look at clues to investigate and solve crimes.

First, I read D. B. Beres and Anna Prokos's Crime Scene: True-Life Forensic Files #1: Dusting and DNA.  Then, I read a Dig Magazine issue from October 2008 that was all about CSI: Archeology.  Finally, I did a whole a bunch of experiments with the Smithsonian Crime Lab Investigations kit to solve fake cases.

I already knew that everyone has different and unique fingerprints, and that everybody has their own unique genetic code called DNA in their blood.  And, I also knew that they send the fingerprints to someone to figure out who they belong to, but I didn't know who.

Now, I know that they send them to forensic scientists.  

I also learned that they also use a process called chromatography, a laboratory technique for separating chemical mixtures such as ink. 

With the Crime Lab Kit, my dad and I did an Ink Analysis Experiment where we cut little strips of paper, put ink-like stuff on it, and hanged them from a small plastic bar over a clear, plastic container that had a tinsy bit of water in it.  Then, we waited a bit and these colors worked their way up the strip and we matched them to the ones in the case, but they didn't match up.  So, we knew that the girl was lying in the case, and that she had printed up extra raffle tickets.

I learned one thing from the CSI: Archeology magazine, and that is that forensic scientists can match up pollen samples from the crime scene to the suspect's car, shoes, or weapons to see if he or she did the crime.

After reading the Crime Scene book, I discovered that I might be a good forensic scientist.  At the end of the book, there is a quiz called, "Do You Have What It Takes?"  To be the best forensic scientist you need to: be good at working on a team; be good with handling blood, be good at following directions; you need to be organized; and you need to be comfortable speaking in public. 

I found out that I would probably be a good forensic scientist even though I'm not good at following directions!

Lightening Rod Projector 2000

My newest invention is the Lightening Rod Projector 2000. When lighting hits the metal bag, it travels up a wire to a tin foil part on a spoon and blasts lighting away.

Q: Have you tested this?

A: No, I need a lightning storm.

Q: Why do you need a Lighting Rod Projector 2000, and where and how would you use it?

A: I would leave it in my front yard, in a high place such as the top of a tree.  When the lighting strikes the tree; instead of it striking the tree and setting it on fire, it would strike the Lightning Rod Projector and blast the lightning away.

The Scientifically Sounding Report

There are many mysteries of life, but I've taken the liberty to study one in particular - the key to survival.

Scientists wonder what is life and how to make it.  But, I've studied how to keep it.  Different species have different needs.  For example, humans need food, water, and shelter.  But, mealworms need food, moisture, and darkness.

Based on Mealworm and Earthworm Science Studies.

E.O. Wilson: The Ant Whisperer

E.O. Wilson is a naturalist who has greatly expanded our knowledge of ants. As a kid he was a geek who liked to look at nature’s creations. His first interest in nature sprouted when he was on a beach and found a Sea Nettle Jellyfish. He observed it for hours. Over time, as he matured, his interest turned to ants. He overcame several disabilities to make his award-winning discoveries about ants.

As a young man, E.O. Wilson, or as I like to call him, the Ant Whisperer, fought many obstacles. One of his disabilities was that he became partially deaf. Another disability is that he had dyslexia; this might make it hard to focus. The biggest obstacle to becoming a naturalist, someone who observes nature, is that he lost sight in one eye in a fishing accident. This destroyed his ability to see in 3D. After the fishing incident, he found out that he could see small things such as ants really well. It seems that he was destined to study ants.

In his studies, E. O. Wilson found out how ants communicate. They leave a trail of a chemical pheromone that the other ants follow. He also learned that the ants figure out if the other ants are alive or dead by detecting the Carbon Dioxide that the live ants respire. The dead ants emit Oleic Acid from their decomposing bodies instead of Carbon Dioxide. He also figured out that ants go crazy when invaders attack because they bring a mix of chemicals called propaganda pheromones. He shared all this information and more in the Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Ants.

E. O. Wilson overcame many obstacles, defeated many challenges to teach us about ants. He became world-famous for his discoveries that are important to understanding ants and the diversity of life. All in all, E. O. Wilson is an inspiring person and naturalist.

Source: E.O. Wilson - Ant Man.  Odyssey: Adventures In Science.  A Cobblestone Publication, April 2007.

All About Praying Mantises

There are many different kinds of Praying Mantises.  Some are big, some are small.  They live everywhere, but mostly in tropical areas.  They eat bugs that are harmful to gardens.  A Praying Mantis has spiny front legs that he uses to grasp and hold his prey.  Praying Mantises are my favorite type of bug.

Here are some You Tube Videos about Praying Mantises:

Egg Sack Opens

Baby Praying Mantis Being Born

Praying Mantis - Healthy Praying Mantis on hand.

Nature's Perfect Predator: Praying Mantis - Absolutely terrifying to watch, this Animal Planet video does a great job of describing how these bugs survive as a predator.

Female Praying Mantis Eats Male After Mating

Sick Praying Mantis - He's so cute!

Praying Mantis Artz - This video shows you how to draw a Praying Mantis, but I used the instructions in How to Draw Insects by Barbara Soloff Levy.

A Famous Philosopher: Aristotle

A philosopher is a person who asks a lot of questions and studies things.  They ask why a lot.

Aristotle was a philosopher who lived long ago, 384-322 BCE.  He lived in Ancient Greece.  His father was a doctor, and Aristotle ended up studying the physical world.  He dissected more than 50 different species and wrote up descriptions.  Aristotle wrote a book called Physics and he also said that the reason a feather falls slower than a rock is that it is lighter and it has more air resistance.  I can see why Aristotle became so famous because he studied so much!

 

From Philosopher Jokes:

A boy is about to go on his first date, and is nervous about what to talk about. He asks his father for advice. The father replies: "My son, there are three subjects that always work. These are food, family, and philosophy."

The boy picks up his date and they go to a soda fountain. Ice cream sodas in front of them, they stare at each other for a long time, as the boy's nervousness builds. He remembers his father's advice, and chooses the first topic. He asks the girl: "Do you like potato pancakes?" She says "No," and the silence returns.

After a few more uncomfortable minutes, the boy thinks of his father's suggestion and turns to the second item on the list. He asks, "Do you have a brother?" Again, the girl says "No" and there is silence once again.

The boy then plays his last card. He thinks of his father's advice and asks the girl the following question: "If you had a brother, would he like potato pancakes?"

The three above jokes were contributed by Owen Herring.
He attributes the third to Elliot Sober.

Book Resource:

Great Scientists (DK Eyewitness Books): Jacqueline Fortey: Books ISBN: 0756632978 ISBN-13: 9780756632977

An Ammonite and I

This is a picture of me next to an ammonite.  An ammonite is a creature that lived in the ocean long, long ago in the time of dinosaurs.  When it got fossilized, all the flesh and meat and tentacles rotted away, and the shell is all that's left.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek, The Scientist

Anton van Leewenhoek is a famous scientist.  He was born in 1632 in Holland.  He was the first person to look through a microscope because he invented the microscope.  His microscopes were basically really powerful magnifying glasses.  Still, he was able to see microorganisms.  And, he was the first person to see bacteria.  We have learned a lot from him.

 

We found this picture and pictures of his microscope on the Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) website.

 

Book Source:

What Your Second Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Second Grade Education Revised (The Core Knowledge Series): E.D. Jr Hirsch: Books ISBN: 038531843X ISBN-13: 9780385318433

My Pet

Starting today, I am growing a mosquito larva. Not my sister, who looks like one, but an actual larva.

My Mom was cleaning outside when she found a bowl with water in it, probably rainwater, that my Dad left out. There was a lot of other stuff in it like two beetles and a spider.

So, I got the bowl and when I was looking in it, I found that there were a bunch of tiny, wiggly things that I later found out were mosquito larvae.

I got one, and took it over to my microscope. But, after a while of looking, I noticed that a mosquito larva was wriggling around helplessly in a bubble of water. So, I thought it was dying, right?

And, it was.

Normal people wouldn't give it a second thought, and just leave it there to die. But, not me!

I got a plastic cup, filled it with water, and I used a tiny spoon to transport the mosquito larva to the cup. And, I named my new pet, Bobby.

First, I tried to feed him fish food. He took a nip at it, and then sank to the bottom. It turns out that the advice I had gotten was about Mollies, a kind of fish.

Then, I went back on the Internet and found out that mosquitoes eat algae on The Life Cycle of the Mosquito (this is where I got the picture you see here.) I got some from my Sea Monkey container. They died some time ago.

So far, all Bobby is doing is laying at the bottom of the cup, occasionally rising to the top for Oxygen. He seems to be OK in his new home.

So long!

About DNA

People clone sheep and rats. DNA is the building block of life. Atoms make molecules, molecules make cells, cells make DNA. DNA are like blueprints and look like a twisted ladder.




This cool machine extracts DNA from fruits and vegetables for just $80.00. This doesn't seem like a lot of money for such a cool machine. (Mommy thinks it's a lot of money!)

Discovery Kids Ultimate Labs DNA Explorer Discovery James Watsonwas only 24 when he discovered the helical structure of DNA, but this kit from Discovery Kids--the first to feature a bona fide centrifuge and electrophoresis chamber--will turn your kid on to the intricacies of genetics at an even younger age. Realistic lab equipment transforms the kitchen into a forensics lab, whereyour breakfast-bar biologist can extract clumps of real DNA from fruits and vegetables or solve "crimes" by revealing DNA "fingerprints"--telltale blue protein stripes in a gel mixture. $80

Here are some links on DNA:

• Kid's Genetics
• Kid's DNA Pod Game
• DNA at Wikipedia