Lindsey Z. Visits The Herald and Tells Us About the City's Society of Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy

What would you do with 100 dollars? One day Lindsey was having dinner with her friend Joslen, who suprised Lindsey by giving her 100 dollars. Her friend was very mysterious about the money and what Lindsey should do with it. Joslen asked her if she was free on March 6th, but couldn't tell Lindsey what they would do together on that day. Lindsey was skeptical, but she said that she was free.

Little did Lindsey know she would become part of San Francisco's Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. Lindsey had to find the best way to give away the 100 dollar bill. The way the secret society works is that when someone has been given 100 dollars, the person with the 100 dollars has to give the money to someone else very soon.

Lindsey had a lot of options. At a taqueria Lindsey saw a band of sisters from the ages of 8 to 16 called the Sosa Sisters. When Lindsey learned that they had been part of the foster system and had been separate but eventually adopted by one parent, Lindsey wanted to give them the 100 dollars. But instead, she decided to give them her own money, and that's partly how the secret society works. When you begin to think about all the ways you can give, you want to give more. You also realize that even a little amount can help others.

Some other people in the secret society decided to give money in very creative ways: some have given admissions to museums to people, others have hid one dollar bills inside books and added a note about the society in it, some people bought ads on Google and wrote little "be happy" notes and little things like that.

Below is a video, shot by Faryn, with Lindsey and her parents in it.

This second video is the Sosa Sisters, two sets of twins and another sisters, singing the National Anthem at the Giants stadium. You can read more about their story here.

Photo by Jake of The Hillwood Herald

Making the Kinetic Sculpture Move

Today, Faryn and I made a kinetic sculpture, which is one of the DESIGN SQUAD challenges. It took a lot of brain power, but we somehow managed to make a sculpture that only somewhat failed.

We started out not knowing how in the world we could make something that could spin by just blowing on it. At first, we had an idea with pipe cleaners until Faryn had one of her famous ideas and we decided to use paper cups. It didn't look so pretty, but it worked. Also, it took a lot of time and effort. Typically, challenges that look easy to make are not so easy!

At first I thought maybe we should cut out a swirly type pattern out of colored paper, but Faryn had an idea that we could maybe use the metal washers to hold up something that could spin with the power of wind. We tried to connect the paper cups to the metal washers, but it just wouldn't stick. Then we tried colored beads around two centimeters long to attach the washers to and, well let's just say they worked and our sculpture includes colorful beads.

Design Squad is made up of two engineers named Judy and Adam (see photo to the right) who help kids create their dreams through engineering. On their website at PBS Kids, Judy and Adam have lots of different challenges that you can try and plenty of videos for you to watch. You can read about The Hillwood Herald interview with Judy and Adam here.

You can watch the latest episode of DESIGN SQUAD on the website. Also, don't missing seeing Judy and Adam in person at the nearby Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of Berkeley.

• WHAT: Meet Design Squad Nation hosts Judy and Adam, watch sneak peeks of new episodes, and try engineering challenges inspired by the show!  
• WHEN: Saturday, February 26th  from 11:00 am-4:00 pm 
• WHERE: Lawrence Hall of Science 

For more information, visit www.lawrencehallofscience.org.

Photo credits: PBS Kids (top and bottom photos), The Hillwood Herald (middle photo)

Making a Motor Car!

 Today, we (Anya and Rubina) are making a motor car. So far we are still stripping the wires, and while most students write their blog posts for The Herald when they are done building their challenge, we are posting as we go. This may help readers make their own DESIGN SQUAD motorized car.

As It Happens
We just finished stripping the wires, and Anya is starting to attach a faucet washer to the motor. Using putty, Anya is sticking the faucet washer to the motor. No! It's not working -- the poster putty is not working! Woohoo! The putty worked! Anya is about to start the motor... It is working! Yay!

Now we are going  to attach the motor to the cardboard. Anya and I have to clear the platform of our work. We hope that the putty will not disconnect. Time for the attaching the wheels to the cardboard... It is working! Eureka! Anya has to restart because she put the poster putty around the motor so the motor could not move. We are restarting the project.

Anya is putting the putty on faucet washer again. It works, again! The motor is already attached to the cardboard. Anya has an idea! We shall put a skewer at the front of the vehicle to knock out all of the other cars racing. JK! JK! JK! No, we need the skewer to turn the motor on. The motor is working when the skewer pokes the wire into the battery. We need to tape the skewer to the cardboard. Actually, we already did! Eureka once again! Now we need to attach the last three wheels. We are beginning to attach the back wheels. Let's see if they work.

Duck Tapes Saves the Day
Anya decided to use sparkling wires to attach the other three wheels to the cardboard. Never mind, no sparkling wires -- just plain old duck tape. This is hard. We need two more CDs for wheels. We have just negotiated to get two more CDs from the other group, which is trying to build their motorized car faster and better than ours.  We are using duck tape to tape the two extra CDs on... uh oh! The CDs are not properly attached! One CD is spinning but the other one fell off.

Whew. Finally, everything is working.

Judy's Fashionable Dog Models
Below is a video from Judy, one of the engineers from DESIGN SQUAD. In the video is her dog, a pug -- like my dog. Adam, her engineering partner, had his mom make the pug a lot of different outfits to go along with their show on engineering fashion.

Written By: Rubina and Anya

Our Kinetic Sculpture Failed, But There's Still Next Week to Try

Today Zeke, Angela, and I made a Kinetic Sculpture from the DESIGN SQUAD television show, which is on PBS each week. We used marshmallows, pipe cleaners, paper cups, wooden skewers, cardboard, putty, duct tape, and green baskets. While our sculptures looked, they did not always work. The point of the challenge is to make your sculpture move with only air. This is harder than it sounds.

We also had a guest speaker named Lindsey. She is friends with our teacher and DESIGN SQUAD, who is made up of Judy and Adam. Judy and Adam are engineers who have designed all of the challenges we have been doing in class. Even though they are on national TV, they still came to talk to The Hillwood Herald. (You can read about our interview with them here.) Lindsey and her parents, who came to visit her from Kansas, helped up with our challenges. We had a lot of fun building our sculpture, even though we didn't accomplish anything with it working. Next week we will have a lot of fun building a motor powered car.

Images: PBS Kids DESIGN SQUAD

A Challenge to Blow in the Wind!

Today we made another sculpture, as part of the DESIGN SQUAD challenges that engineers Judy and Adam put together. The kinetic sculpture is a challenge where we try to make a sculpture move when we blow. But mine didn't work that way! To make mine work, you need to grab it and spin it with your hands.

To help us today, Lindsey (a friend of Mrs. Moorhead's) came in with her parents from Kansas and gave us a speech about what she does and how she is now part of San Francisco's Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. She works for a IDEO, which is where Judy and Adam work when they are not filming DESIGN SQUAD for PBS Kids.

The company is where people are employed to help other companies design products and services. Lindsey even knows about how the company, with its designers and engineers, helped create the mouse with a rolling ball inside it. Lindsey also talked about this society where you pass on an 100 dollar bill to people in need. Her friend gave the 100 dollar bill to her and told her to pass it on. This seem to be like the movie "Pay It Forward." The society most likely didn't even start here in San Francisco, and it has groups of people donating 100 bills in Greece and New York.

As kids, we could do something similar, but with much less money. Right now, we are doing a Hillwood bake sale to raise money. We also collect change for the Pennies for Patients program, which is also about making a little bit of money do more than you might think possible at first. Lindsey is giving her one hundred dollars to Ms. Woods for the Hillwood upper-grade class.

The Failing Buzzer Failed

Jay, Nikita, and I tried to make motorized car but we did not have enough putty. We used 1.5 voltage battery, a AA battery holder, 2 Cd's, a corrugated piece of cardboard, an electrical wire, 8 faucet washers, a motor, poster putty, 2 wooden skewers, scissors, and wire strippers. We used the putty to make the CD stay in place. I wanted to use 2 faucet washers for training wheels. We used directions from the PBS kids website.

The Failing Motor Failed

The failing motor failed. The motor worked but it couldn't drive like a car. The motor made a good fan. The instructions came from Design Squad at the PBS kids website.We used a motor, skewers, a battery holder, batteries, faucet washers, and wires.We will try to improve it next time

ROCKIN' CLAMSHELL — OH YA

At first I tried to put a small Dixie cup on top of a stick but it was to heavy so it didn't spin.

Then I tried aluminum foil. I shaped the aluminum foil like a clam shell and stuck a stick through the back so it weaved in and out the "Rockin' Clamshell" was moving side to side so I tied red string in bows next to it to stop it from moving. Then I duct taped two other sticks to the side as a skeleton for the..."Rockin' Clam shell". It moved, but it was very unstable so Hank, Lindsey's dad, had the idea to put plaster in the cup and duct tape on the stick really close to the cup. It was still leaning, so Hank had the idea to make a brace out of a stick and tape it to the cup. His idea worked! I now have an amazing "Rockin' Clam Shell" — with the great and very helpful ideas of Hank!

Now to decorate! First I tied pink pipe cleaners to the base sticks on both sides then I tied gold pipe cleaners to the top. Then I put stickers on he bottom.

Kinetic Sculpture Somewhat Failed

Today, Alysen and I made a Kinetic sculpture from the Design Squad challenges. The challenge was to make something that spins and stays up on a stick.

It was super tough to figure out how to make it stay up. We had to try at least four different ways to keep the "sails" up.

To make the "sails", we cut up a small paper cup into three parts and taped them onto about two centimeter beads with large holes in the middle.

To make the base we stuck three small scewers in to the bottom of a paper cut in different places.

The hardest thing was to was keep the the "sails" up so the LAST thing we tried was to get metal washers and put poster putty around the scewers. We put the washers onto the poster putty so the washers stuck then put the "sails" on.

It didn't work too well for us, but you can do whatever you want to make it work! Good luck!

Don't Forget: Mrs. Schmitt and Hillwood Students Perform the Randall Museum on Saturday — Join the Fun!

Tomorrow (2-19-2011), Mrs. Schmitt will perform with some students from Hillwood Academic Day School and the rest of her band at the Randall Museum at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. The shows are for little children and anyone else who would like to come and watch.

Hillwood students will help Mrs. Schmitt, our music teacher at the school, and her band sing some of Mrs. Schmitt's own songs, as well as some old country songs that were penned by others. To sample Mrs. Schmitt's music, visit her website or watch the video clip below. Mrs. Schmitt's last two CDs were Parents Choice winners. Tickets for Saturday's show will cost $9 for adults and $6 for children.

Visit the Randall Museum website for directions or more information the nonprofit. Aside from having an auditorium for performers like Mrs. Schmitt, the Randall offers all sorts of classes. Some (such as ceramics) are for families, while other classes are for young children and teenagers.

Written by: Rubina H. and Angela V.

Dance Pad Mania: The Revenge (and Challenge) of the Lightbulbs

Today, February 18th, Faryn and I made a dance pad for the DESIGN SQUAD Challenge. This challenge is one of many that The Hillwood Herald has done as part of the PBS Kids television show. As reporters, we interviewed Judy and Adam at Hillwood, the engineers and starts who lead the show and design all the different challenges. (Click here to read our coverage about the show and Judy and Adam.)

Our dance pad consisted of only a battery and a lightbulb, as some buzzers were missing and the rest were being used. Even though our challenge creation does not sound and look like a lot, it took a while to figure out how exactly we were going to connect the wires with the lightbulb and how we were going to trigger it to work.

As we were trying to figure out how we were going to trigger our devices, I thought back to how Judy and Adam triggered their initial challenge through cardboard. I also recalled how last week, Jake, Erion, and I used duct tape and cardboard. Faryn and I had trouble making a cardboard trigger at first, but we finally got the wire to stop moving out of place. From there, we were able to press the cardboard and trigger the lightbulb, so that it would glow. If you would like to try this challenge yourself, start by reading the directions on the DESIGN SQUAD website. All the needed materials are easily found, either at your home or Radio Shack or your neighborhood hardware store. While a lower-grade student might need help with this project, an upper-grader can do it on his or her own.

Other classmates made Rubber Band Cars, which is also a DESIGN SQUAD challenge from Judy and Adam. (At the end of Judy and Adam's "Apache Skateboard" show, you can watch them build a rubber band car -- it's actually more difficult than it looks!)

DESIGN SQUAD's purpose is to help regular kids make their dreams come true through engineering. On the DESIGN SQUAD Website there are plenty of videos that anyone can watch showing Judy and Adam helping kids and doing challenges together.

The latest DESIGN SQUAD show is a two-part series about Adam and Judy designing clothing in New York. When they spoke to The Hillwood Herald, both explained how this was one of the more stressful challenges. Of course, if you are more into learning all about worm juice and engineering a bike to transport fresh produce in London, watch the previous episode, titled "Garden to Go."

Also, don't missing seeing Judy and Adam at the nearby Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of Berkeley. 

WHAT: Meet Design Squad Nation hosts Judy and Adam, watch sneak peeks of new episodes, and try engineering challenges inspired by the show!

WHEN: Saturday, February 26th  from 11:00 am-4:00 pm 

WHERE: Lawrence Hall of Science 

Judy and Adam will be launching their giant catapult! Watch the stage shows at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm for some super-sized fun! There will also be an Ingenuity in Action exhibit and the Ingenuity Lab, where you can build and test rockets, ping pong ball launchers, bridges, and your own flying things.

You will have to pay to get into the museum, which costs $12 for adults and either $9 or $6 for children. But once inside, all the activities are free. For more information, visit www.lawrencehallofscience.org.

Here's a video clip that highlights their show:

The Awesome Rubber Band Car Wins!

Erion, Nikita, and I made a rubber band car. We made it differently from the directions told us to, because we wanted it to behave differently. We also had some ideas about how we might make it better. You can read the basic instructions on the PBS Kids website.

Deviating from the directions worked for us! We beat Jake and Zeke's rubber band powered car in a race. The car was fast and could last, or run, a long. We used putty, duct tape, skewers, faucet washers, CDs, and a rubber band to make the vehicle. The cardboard was 5 by 6 inches long. The rubber band car had a extra pair of wheels and customized wheels.

The following video clip shows a giant rubber band car made for humans to ride. It is from the Makers' Faire in Austin. The two DESIGN SQUAD engineers are not Adam or Judy. Rather, they are hosts from an earlier season of the show.

Rubber Band Car Pushed to the Limit

This week, The Hillwood Herald has a new reporter, Zeke, who has just started at the school. Together, we built a rubber band car.

Building a rubber band car is pretty easy (click for directions). Our car beat the other team once, but then our car fell apart. We had a lot of fun building it and also got some video and pictures of it, which will be posted on the site over the next few days. Now our car is all in pieces. Fortunately, it only took about fifteen minutes to build, and it was worth it.

We got the idea from Design Squad on PBS Kids. The project ended up being a lot of fun. If really was a challenge, but one we did quickly.

We built our car by first making a body out of a cut out of a piece of cardboard. Then we put a skewer through the piece of cardboard. From there, we put two CD's on the skewers and stuck them to the skewer with putty. Finally, we attached a rubber band to the body and skewer and it worked. We won twice and the other team lost both times.

By Jake and Zeke

Dance Pad for Mice

Today Jennifer and I, Anya, built a dance pad for mice. We built it on top of a box. Inside the box, is a restaurant for mice.

We started the dance pad by taping aluminum foil to the top of a box. Next we taped a battery onto the foil. Then we attached a buzzer to the battery. As soon as we attached the buzzer to the battery, it started buzzing. Next we tried to attach a lightbulb, it didn't work. Then we tried adding another battery, it still didn't. While Jennifer worked on the lightbulb, I puttied a disk to the inside of the box. The disk reflected light into the box lighting up the restaurant.

When we finally got the lightbulb to work we were super happy. If you want to make a dance pad go to Design Squad Nation.

The Awsome Rubber Band Car

Jay, Nikita, and I made a rubber band car and it rolls fast. We put training wheels on it to keep it balanced. We also used CDs, skewers, faucet washers, putty, duct tape, and a rubber band. We used a 5 to 6 inch piece of cardboard.

Our car is exactly 5 inches long, and we cut two inches off in the middle so there would be a little hole. We used faucet washers for training wheels, so that the car would not crash into the wall. The training wheels were very little, but very good at keeping it stable.

The Awsome Rubber Band Car

Today Jay, Erion, and I built a rubber band car out of skewers, rubber bands, cart board, duct tape, putty, CDs, and faucet washers.The car at first was slow but then we improved it. Zeke and Jake also made a rubber band car, we raced to find out which was faster. We won!

From Rubber Band Car Challenge to Dance Pad Mania -- Here's How

Today Alysen and I made a Dance Pad Mania from the Design Squad Challenges. Last week Alysen made a Dance Pad Mania, and I made a Rubber Band Car. But this week, since I had no idea how to do the Dance Pad, she decided to make another one to show me how to do it.

First you need the "ingredients":

• wire
• wire strippers
• duct tape
• light bulb
• light bulb holder
• batteries
• and cardboard
• the black wire goes on the positive side of the battery
• the red wire on the negative.
• put the little light bulb into the light bulb older
• duct tape the wires onto the battery

Connect the wires to the silver screws on the light bulb holder. The light bulb will barely light up, but it most likely will. Make sure everything is good and taped down, then get a little piece of cardboard. Put the cardboard over a wire connected to the light and press it down so the light goes on.

For more information, go to the Design Squad website

Dance Pad Mania

Angela and I are making a dance pad. So far, we are still figuring it out. Angela is taping the buzzer and the battery to a piece of cardboard. Angela has to restart the whole thing because she taped the buzzer the wrong side up so the microphone out of which the sound comes out of is blocked by the cardboard. Angela and I are planning to make a hole under the buzzer so that the hole out of which the sound come out of is on the side of the hole in the cardboard. Smart!

WE SUCCEEDED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOOO!!!!! Now if you press both sides of the battery the buzzer will start buzzing!

We did this challenge after Judy and Adam, engineers and the hosts of DESIGN SQUAD on www.pbskids.org.

Written by: Rubina H. and Angela V.

The Dance Pad for Ants

Today Alysen, Erion, and I made the dance pad from the dance pad mania challenge from Design Squad.

The problem was we created it so small that it was basically a dance pad for ants. We decided to make that our prototype and then make a new one next Friday.

The next one will be a bit bigger and a lot stronger. Alysen was a lot of help and so was Erion with help duct tape and keep track of all the wires. It was a bit challenging to create, but in the end we were happy with what we made. We made it by taking one battery and running four wires to each end of the batteries. We attached two of those wires to a light and two to a buzzer. The light barely turned on but the buzzer worked fine. We the duct tapped everything together and then duct taped it to a small piece of cardboard.

Skips in London with DESIGN SQUAD

In the new design squad video a British girl named Mariam and Bert talks about her new idea of where to plant flowers and vegetables.

This new idea is to plant the food and flowers in skips. Skips are basically "big rubbish cans".

This idea is really cool because its recycling and it saves money that people would use to buy pots.

Instead of using feralizer they use worm tea, a mixture made by worms.

Then she and Bert got a bicycle. They used the bicycle to take her fruits and veggies to restaurants. The restaurants then made there food out of the organic home grown veggies.

Since its really hard to bicycle heavy produce to restaurants Mariam and Bert wishes she could find a better way to bring the fruits and vegetables to restaurants.

This is where Judy and Adam come in -- they help to make a dream come true.

First the four them brainstorm and come up with a trailer idea with two bikes attached and protection from smog and pollution.(as shown below).

Then to build the trailer they go...DUMPSTER DIVING!

They find big peices of wood, giant tubes of rubber and much, much more.

They use bakery trays to hold the fruit in the trailer.

And the finished product is shown to the left:

The succeeding dance pad for ants

We have used a 5 volt AA battery and a buzzer. We also used a little light bulb and connected the buzzer to the battery. We put the battery in the battery holder and connected the battery holder's wires and connected it to the light bulb. We only made a prototype because it was really small and the light bulb light up a little bit. We figured out that the buzzer works if you connect it to the battery because I tried it out and it worked. We taped it to the cardboard with duct tape. If you want to see more inventions go to this website. Next week we will make it a little bigger and see if it works better if it doesn't we will make it a little more bigger and one more battery. We will need more voltage power to make the light bulb light up. 

 

Dance Pad Is Almost Done

Today Nikita, Clara, and Jay tried to make a dance pad. The dance pad is almost done. It just needed tin foil. The tin foil will conduct electricity from the battery to the buzzer. We are building this in school. We are making this so we can write a post and show people how to make dance pads. If you want to make one you can see the PBS Kids website.

Design Squad is a show that shows you how to design and build your own inventions. Design Squad also helps people make skate parks, play grounds and more.

Rubber Band Car Somewhat Failed

Today I made a Rubber Band car that was supposed to go really fast.

I couldn't make it go fast at all but it still goes a little bit. It's kind of lop-sided so it goes to one side. When I was making this, I cut my pinkie finger with scissors, I think, I wasn't sure what I cut it with but I got a band aid.

I did a rubber band car because it is one of the Design Squad Challenges. Here's how you can make your own:

Get a piece of cardboard, (5"6") then you get the thinnest wooden scewer, two compact discs (CDs), rubber bands, tape (Duct or masking tape), scissors, and 4 faucet washers. It calls for two faucet washers on the design squad website, but I used four because the discs were too wobbly and the faucet washers helped as a support for the discs. You can also use tape to help as a support.

1. First, make a 1" 1" square in the middle of the shorter side.
2. Then, stick the thinnest scewer through the short side where the square is. Picture the square as a trench and the scewer is a bridge to cross it.
3. Then, put a faucet washer onto each end of the scewer on each side of the "body"
4. Then put the discs on top of the faucet washers then put the other two faucet washers over the discs. Then put tape to hold them.
5. Tape the rubber band to the part of the scewer over the trench in the middle.
6. Make two slits about half an inch apart at the bottom of the piece of cardboard on the short side.
7. Pull the rubber band down and put the rubber band into the slits.

To make the car move, twist the rubber band around the "bridge" and let it go and the rubber band causes the scewer to turn therefore turning the discs.

Fail with the Rubber Band Car :(

Today Angela and I attempted to build a rubber band car. A rubber band car is made up of cardboard, rubber bands, mints, tacky tacky, C.D's, duct tape, and skewers. This is what we used in our project. The cardboard box's could be different. At first, we made an attempt to create a larger one but it didn't end up working. And then I, Jennifer tried to follow the instruction's and make a smaller one but that didn't work at all. I, Angela think the first one didn't succeed because we used to much tacky tacky and duct tape. If anyone wants to make one, many of these materials can be found at a hardware store.

By: Jennifer and Angela

The Ant Dance Pad

Today, Erion, Jake, and I created a prototype for "Dance Pad Mania" from DESIGN SQUAD.

The prototype turned out pretty good, although it looks like it was made for ants... Because we only had one light bulb and one buzzer we made it smaller than we had intended, turning it into a prototype. The next question is if we can take our dance pad for ants into a dance pad a that's more than a teeny bit bigger.

For me, I think the challenge was kind of easy, although I don't really do challenges with electrical thingy-ma-bobbers. The light bulb only made a dim light, and when we tried a super battery it didn't work any better than a 1.5 volt. The buzzer didn't work on some occasion, and Jake drew a button on it...

The process of the project was very fun.

DESIGN SQUAD makes plenty of other different projects like Dance Pad Mania on their website on PBSkids. DESIGN SQUAD is made up of two engineers named Judy and Adam.

Judy and Adam do plenty of different projects that are sometimes challenging but always fun to do.

PBS Kids Create a Soda Car Video

PBS Kids Create a Soda Car

This week for the Herald, I went to PBS Kids Design Squad, created an account and sketched a soda car. To create an account is free. You have to have a password and username to log in, and answer some questions like what you favorite food is.

My soda car sketch has somewhere to sit, and a steering wheel. If it was real, you would shake the soda, and twist the cap off to make it go.

I like this website because it is fun, and you have a chance to be creative. You can give stickers online to an idea you like, such as the soda car. I got on the website and started sketching, and had a blast.

To go to the website, click on this link, and have fun!

Construct A Cake on PBS Kids's DESIGN SQUAD

Today, I went on PBS Kids and had a chance to sketch a cake. On the website, you can log on and pick a wish that says, "I wish I could make a cake that moves." You can then sketch a cake that you think might be able to move. You can be as creative as you desire. Like I did, my cake was a cake that an alien had crash-landed in from mars. Other people took a more literal approach -- and like Judy and Adam of DESIGN SQUAD -- actually used some engineering know-how to make theirs.

DESIGN SQUAD is made up of Judy and Adam.

Judy and Adam were the two who helped engineer a cake that could move. Judy and Adam also have lots of other videos where they construct other things that are loads of fun.

Judy and Adam's main purpose is to help regular kids construct their dreams through engineering.

Here at The Hillwood Herald, we had the awesome opportunity of meeting Judy and Adam. We also got to talk to them about how they got the ideas to make all of their amazing creations. You can read my post about their in-classroom visit and the Herald interview here.

PBS Kids & DESIGN SQUAD Helps You Draw Cakes

On PBS Kids, you can draw moving cakes that are cool.

The cakes are drawn using your computer mouse. You can draw just about anything and add it to your cake -- all in the hopes of making it move.

If you want to design a cake, you have to set up an account with a password and a username on the website. If you forget your password, you can click three pictures you selected during signup. Making an account on PBS Kids is free.

If you like somebody's picture you can give them a sticker. You can also view the cakes by the number of stickers that the most popular designs have earned.

As reporters with The Hillwood Herald, we do PBS Kids projects and go on organization's websites for design challenges. But PBS kids is a website where you can play games and design pictures.

This picture on the left side was made by Jay and Erion on the the PBS kids website.

Design Squad Rocks!

Today Jake and I went to Design Squad and made a sketch of a walking cake.

Our cake, as you can see, has wheels and layers.

This cake sketch is one of many ideas that you can sketch. On Design Squad, there are a bunch of questions such as "I wish I could build a cake that moves." Then you pick one of the many questions and you can either draw a sketch or make a prototype.

On Design Squad you can make a username and password and play games and get points and stickers.

Judy and Adam are engineers for Design Squad. They use engineering and recycled materials to make playgrounds and skate parks for kids who don't have them and so on.

You can watch videos on design squad also. Design Squad is also a television show that airs nationally. You can watch the shows first three episodes in full on the website. 

The Design Squad Website Review

On the Design Squad Website you can register and make up a nickname and create a password. Then, you can make a sketch, make a wish, and make a prototype!

You can play games, such as "Figdit" and "String Thing," and when you're tired of those fun games, you can build things!

The Design Squad Website has a great application that teaches you fun crafts and building challenges, such as a "Rubber Band Car" and a "Hidden Buzzer." Keep a eye on The Hillwood Herald, and you will be able to watch and read about our efforts to do these challenges.

The Design Squad Website is safe and fun to play! Below is a screen grab, or image, from the latest episode about a girl in London growing and driving her own food around her Camden Town neighborhood.

Drawing Walking Cakes -- It's Easy!

Angela and I, Rubina, made two sketches on PBS Kids. We drew waking cakes!

Rubin drew a cake walking on horse hooves, and I, Angela, drew a cake on a skateboard.

The process is quite simple. What you do is make an account on PBS Kids and click on Sketches, which let you draw a sketch. You can post your sketch and give stickers to other sketches by other people. You can also get stickers if other people give you stickers. The more stickers, the more popular your design is.

Written By: Angela V. and Rubina H.