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.

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.

Our Magazine Buzzer — Success!

Today, October 15th, Clara and I did the Hidden Buzzer Challenge (designed by Judy and Adam for PBS Kids' DESIGN SQUAD). We decided to "hide" our buzzer in a magazine so when someone touched the magazine the buzzer would go off.

Of course we needed a little help with the circuits, and our buzzer had a mind of its own. But on the other hand, it was pretty fun creating our buzzer.

As some people know Judy and Adam are coming to talk with The Hillwood Herald next Friday, and of course we have questions for them!
When Judy and Adam come, the first five questions that I will ask them are going to be well thought out. Since I want to make sure I get them down, I'll write them here:

1. How long does it take for you guys to actually make the experiments?
2. What made you want to become engineers?
3. Do you two have fun making the experiments or is it really hard?
4. Do you two usually get it right the first time, or do you have to keep trying at it?
5. Do you sometimes want to give up on the experiments you're making?

I bet it's going to be a great time when Judy and Adam come to talk to us about all the experiments they have made and how they get the ideas and things like that. But until then everyone can go to their site on PBSkids and try all the expirements we've been doing the past few weeks.

An Update from Judy Lee

Students: Anya, Faryn, Angela

Inventors Digest recently interviewed Judy Lee about her life as an engineer in a world dominated by men. Read the article, and write a news story with highlights and information from the interview. Judy gives a lot  of great advice to young students, especially girls, who might be interested in engineering. Include all that information, as well as links to The Herald's previous posts about Judy Lee and her work on Design Squad.

Remember to include images, as well as a reminder about the upcoming Design Squad broadcast. Here is some information to pull from:

PBS Kids Go! will launch the new Design Squad Nation (10 episodes) series, a spin-off of the engineering-focused kids competition series Design Squad, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 (check local listings).  Targeted to tweens/teens/families, Design Squad Nation will follow engineer co-hosts Judy Lee and Adam Vollmer as they travel across the country and around the world working with kids to get active, take risks, collaborate with different people and use science, math, and technology to solve real problems and create things.  The Design Squad Nation website features activities corresponding to challenges on the show to figure out solutions.  The site also features a blog with a range of engineering and DIY content from across the web.  Viewers can also follow Design Squad Nation on Facebook and Twitter.