Create a Planet With NASA

Today Zeke and I went to Planet Quest, where we created a new planet for the extreme planet makeover and made one that looked a bit like Earth. We had a lot of fun and created a bunch of planets.

This is a picture of our planet. It is almost the same as Earth, but it's farther away from the sun and, thus, colder.

Meanwhile the scale that changes the age does nothing. The only thing that gets affected by the meters are the age meter, which makes the surface of the planet baked more. The distance from the sun makes the planet colder or warmer, and it affects the planet size, and the type of star that is near it. In a redesign, we would add more variables to the site to make it more interesting and informative. Still, it's fun and interesting to read the captions, which tells you a bit about your planet and the potential for life in outer space.

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.

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.