Our Last Story on Adam and Judy

Students: Faryn and Camryn

This will be our last article, at least for now, on Judy and Adam. This week, you will be announcing and previewing the upcoming show on national TV.

Use the press release below, as well as information from the PBS Kids' DESIGN SQUAD website for writing your story. Remember to include links, photos, and source material. If you have time, make an Animoto video about their visit to Hillwood.



Design Squad Hits the Road with
Design Squad Nation, Premiering January 26,
2011 on PBS KIDS GO!


New Series Addresses the Need for Engineering Education by
Encouraging Kids to Dream it. Build it. Live it.
(Boston, MA, Tuesday, November 16, 2010) – Premiering Wednesday,
January 26, 2011 (check local listings), the producers of the Peabody and Emmy
Award-winning engineering and reality competition series Design Squad take their
show on the road with a new spin-off series for ‘tweens, teens, and family-viewing—
Design Squad Nation. Over 10 episodes, engineer co-hosts Judy Lee and Adam
Vollmer travel across the country and around the world, working side by side with
kids to turn their dreams into reality. Whether it is a red-carpet worthy gown for
Project Runway’s Christian Siriano, or a playground for kids in a rural village high in
Nicaragua’s northern mountains, Design Squad Nation shows that engineering isn’t
about hiding away in some lab; it’s about being active in the world, taking risks,
collaborating with interesting people, and using science, math, and technology to
solve real problems.


Design Squad Nation takes a kid’s passion, combines it with engineering, and shows
how to create an array of engineering feats—a cake that is part delicious, part
electronic, and part mad scientist for the cast party of Young Frankenstein: The
Musical; a pedal-powered bike organ; a human-powered flying machine, and more.
Wish you could help the world conserve water? Have a dream of an
invention that can improve someone’s life? Design Squad Nation shows kids
that if they can dream it, they can build it.


In the series premiere, “Apache Skateboarders,” Judy and Adam team up with
Ronnie—a 17-year-old skateboarder from the White Mountain Apache Reservation in
Whiteriver, Arizona to build a skateboarding street course. Engineered to be modular,
durable, and weather-resistant, the skate park includes a pyramid deck, hubbas
(ledges to grind on), and “The Wave” (an angled grind box). With the help of Design
Squad Nation, Ronnie and his friends create a skate park of their dreams.


“More than a TV show, and more than a website, Design Squad Nation is a growing
community built around the belief that with creative problem-solving and engineering,
any kid can make a difference,” says Executive Producer Marisa Wolsky. “Through a
network of more than 5,000 engineering and education partners around the country,
we are working to make this community bigger and stronger, inspiring a new
generation of engineers to dream big and change the world.”


“Kids will see Design Squad Nation and be absolutely amazed at all of the different
ways that engineering can be a part of their world,” says co-host Adam Vollmer. Adds
co-host Judy Lee, “We hope the show and website will get kids thinking about what
sorts of problems and challenges they would like to solve, and to see engineering as
a way to have fun while innovating for the future.”


Design Squad Nation builds on Design Squad’s mission to increase student’s
knowledge of engineering and to improve the public image of engineering, especially
among girls and minorities. The project is a direct response to the critical societal
need to attract more students to engineering and technology studies and careers.
From Design Squad to Design Squad Nation


A reality competition show that was launched in 2007 by the producers of Zoom and
FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman, Design Squad had the goal of getting viewers excited
about engineering. It worked. After researching the impact of the TV series, website,
and educator’s guide, an independent evaluator found a significant jump in young
people’s learning and a uniformly positive, enthusiastic response from viewers,
educators, and kids. Design Squad aired for three seasons and was hosted by Nate
Ball.


Shifting away from the reality competition format of Design Squad, the Design Squad
Nation spin-off takes the engineering and building fun of the original series and
brings it directly to kids around the country and the globe. From conception to
finished product, Design Squad Nation combines engineering know-how with kids’
passions to create amazing things that improve people’s lives.
Design Squad Nation Online at pbskidsgo.org/designsquadnation
The Design Squad Nation website is a destination for creative ‘tweens and teens,
promoting the message: You are creative and can solve problems. You can make
things that help people. We want you to join the Design Squad Nation. Let's dream
big. Let's build something together.


On the site, kids can work alongside co-hosts Judy Lee and Adam Vollmer, posting
real-life solutions to real-life problems and responding to challenges from the show
by sketching and building their own prototypes. The Design Squad Nation Blog
features inspiring engineering and DIY content from across the Web. The blog will
engage with the Design Squad Nation community directly by including calls to action,
how-to challenges, aspirational examples of kid-made content on the site, and firstperson
video and messages from Judy and Adam—sharing both the fun and the
failures that are a part of the design process. Already, more than 12,000 kids are
engaged, actively creating and sharing content in our online community. Design
Squad Nation invites the next generation of great thinkers to get involved at
pbskidsgo.org/designsquadnation. Viewers also can follow Design Squad Nation on
Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DesignSquadNation and on Twitter at
twitter.com/designsquadnation.


About Co-Hosts Judy Lee and Adam Vollmer
Directing the action of Design Squad Nation are mechanical engineers Judy Lee and
Adam Vollmer.


As a child growing up in Cary, North Carolina, Judy loved taking things apart to see
how they work. With the support of her family (her dad is a civil engineer), that love
eventually led to a mechanical engineering degree at North Carolina State University.
After college, Judy harnessed her engineering skills on a wide range of projects—from
designing children’s toys to creating medical devices to providing clean water to
slums in Kenya to testing and destroying products to ensure their safety. Prior to her
work on Design Squad Nation, Judy was profiled on WGBH’s Engineer Your Life and
will appear in an upcoming segment of NOVA’s Secret Life of Scientists and
Engineers Web series. Judy now works at her dream job as a product designer at
IDEO, an international design and innovation firm in Palo Alto, CA. When she’s not onair
brainstorming and building, Judy can be found in San Francisco remodeling her
new home, growing fresh fruits and veggies in her garden, riding a big wheel down
the nation’s windiest street, or playing with her pug, Rosie.


Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Adam wanted to be an astronaut, a LEGO engineer
(before he knew what an engineer was), or…a dinosaur hunter. Thanks to a BS in
mechanical engineering at Stanford and a MS at MIT, Adam has been able to do
most of these things and more. “I played with LEGOs all the way up through grad
school. I worked with NASA during the filming of Design Squad Nation. But I’m still on
the lookout for dinosaurs. I hope to find one soon.” Adam is currently a mechanical
engineer at the international design and innovation firm IDEO in Palo Alto, CA. In
previous jobs, he’s worked in biotech, designed micro electro-mechanical devices,
programmed (and driven) semi-trucks, and built parts for the one of the world’s
biggest physics experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Outside of
work, you’re likely to find Adam on his own handmade bicycle, climbing up a
mountain (or skiing down one), or exploring new corners of the world.
Funding for Design Squad Nation


Design Squad Nation is produced by WGBH Boston. Major funding for Design Squad
Nation is provided by the National Science Foundation. Series funding is provided by
the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA), Northrop Grumman
Foundation, and The Lemelson Foundation. Additional funding is provided by Noyce
Foundation, United Engineering Foundation (ASCE, ASME, AIChE, IEEE, AIME),
Motorola Foundation, and IEEE.

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:

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.  

Watch The Herald Take Judy and Adam's "Design Squad" Challenge

Adam and Judy are two people who helped make episodes and challenges for PBS Kids' "Design Squad." Their work will appear on both TV and the web. They also made a video .

The video is about Adam and Judy making a table from newspapers, a piece of chip board, and masking tape. They make the legs of the table from rolling up the news paper and taping it and using it as legs, then puts the chip board on the top as the table top and then putting heaver objects on top to see if it will work.

The "Design Squad" is a T.V show and a website that tries "to give kids a stronger understanding of the connection between engineering and the things we all use in everyday life." The "Design Squad" helps them with math and science skills as well.

Sources: Design Squad

Judy Lee and Her Life of Engineering

Inventors Digest recently interviewed Judy Lee about her life as an engineer. You may recall that The Hillwood Herald also interviewed Judy and her engineering friend, Adam.

In this article, Judy talks about her early life and decision to become an engineer. Judy became interested in engineering because her father was a civil engineer. While she is certainly not the only female engineer, she talks about what it's like to be in a profession that has been dominated by men.

Judy liked to take objects apart and see how it worked, then she attempted to fix the object. She built forts in woods and played in creeks. Judy didn't know what engineering was when she was high school and college. She only knew that you have to have " a stong foundation in math and science"

Judy was good at math and science, so she tried engineering. She loves trying new things and "getting her hands dirty."

Judy and Adam are part of an upcoming PBS Kids show. The Hillwood Herald staff members did many of their engineering experiments, and we'll be sure to report on their upcoming experiments. The following information is from the PBS website:

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.  

If you like to read more coverage of Judy and Adam's work, click here.

Pop Fly Challenge

Today Alysen and I did something called the Pop Fly Challenge, from PBS Kids DESIGN SQUAD that features science and technology based projects that Judy and Adam put together.

The Pop Fly Challenge is a thing where you build a design to launch ping pong balls high enough to catch.We even caught the launched ping-pong ball in a cup.

Our launcher was a paint stirrer on top of a paper cup.The paint stirrer had a ping-pong ball on one end and nothing on the other so it looked sort of like a see-saw. At one end of the paint stirrer there was a little piece of paper. We would lean the ping pong ball on the paper then hit the other end of the paint stirrer and the ping pong ball would go flying.

At first the paint stirrer was laying on the cup when we launched it and Alysen caught it. Then we pushed the paint stirrer up a little more, it went even higher. When we finally pushed it to the highest point, the ping pong ball whacked the ceiling and I caught it.

You could try the pop fly challenge and tons of other cool experiments at the PBS Kids DESIGN SQUAD website.

On October 22nd, Adam and Judy from the Design Squad are coming in to Hillwood to talk to us and see our experiments! We will be interviewing them about their work and their experiments.

The picture above to the left is Adam and Judy's launcher. The picture to the right is mine and Alysen's launcher.

The above is a video of the Pop Fly Challenge.

More DESIGN SQUAD Challenges!

Today, we will have a special guest, Lindsey Z. She has been tapped for San Francisco's Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. She'll be here to tell us about this organization and what it might mean for the upper-grade class.

Feel free to visit the DESIGN SQUAD website to view briefly the latest episode. Then, begin your next DESIGN SQUAD Challenge. REMEMBER to photograph it with the digital camera, so it can be uploaded to the DESIGN SQUAD site later. 

Kinetic Sculpture
Click on the link to the video on the right-hand side of the page. Slide the video bar to the time stamp of 26:21, and then watch Judy and Adam make their Kinetic Sculpture. 

• Angela
• Faryn
• Clara
• Alysen 
• Jake
• Zeke
• Camryn (Yes, Camryn, we're still posting possible assignments for you! You can easily do this challenge.)

Motorized Car
Group 1:

• Anya (try to save time to write about Judy's pug's fashion show [scroll down the page])
• Rubina (try to save time to write about the Toodala Ramblers and Hillwood kids performance)
• Jennifer

Group 2:

• Nikita
• Jay
• Erion

If you have time, email the show feedback about what you like most about the show.

http://pbskids.org/designsquad/parentseducators/resources/motorized_car.html

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

Tell PBK Kids About Your Design Squad Antics

Students: Everyone

Go to the contact form on the PBS Kids website, and tell the DESIGN SQUAD team about your experiences at Hillwood with Adam and Judy. Include links to all of your Hillwood Herald articles from the DESIGN SQUAD experiments. (If you consistently included your name and "design squad" as a label you can simply search for those word for all of your related work.) Be sure to let the DESIGN SQUAD team know what worked best. Also, write about your favorite part of speaking with either Judy or Adam. Speak with Ms. Moorhead before you send in your comments.

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.

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.

Team Wind

Anya, Angela, and I are going to make a miniature city out of cardboard, plastic, bottles, yogurt cartons, and water. We are hoping to make a small windmill that can spin by making a fan to blow air and houses out of yogurt cartoons. We will also make little trees, bushes and other figures like humans out of cardboard. We also hope to make a stream with real water. We will add pizza tables as picnic tables in the cardboard made park.

We are doing this project because we have been doing the Design Squad Challenges for the past year and this is one of the challenges. This challenge is where you take one of the challenges from the before and make it over sized.

Our class got connected to the Design Squad by meeting Adam and Judy who work for the Design Squad. The have designed real cars and built electric dresses. Adam and Judy came to our school so we could interview them.

Anya is going to build the windmill, Angela will make the trees, bushes, and picnic tables, and I will create the houses.

By: Angela V. and Faryn D.

PBS Kids: Get Ready to Interview the DESIGN SQUAD's Adam and Judy

You will be doing the Moon Walker Challenge (remember to watch the video and follow the project instructions — and to link to these pages). You will also be writing a bio about either Judy or Adam. Review your interview questions, as well.

Adam and Judy have helped with several of the show's episodes, and together, they created several challenges for kids. Click to the PBS Kids site, and play around on the website. 

Read the ABOUT page, and write a story about what the DESIGN SQUAD website is trying to do. In your article, you should introduce who Adam and Judy are. Include the information that they will be coming to Hillwood either in person or by iChat to be interviewed. 

If you finish early:

• Make an Animota video highlighting your DESIGN SQUAD work.
• Or make a Halloween picture using Picnik. (See image of Clinton, the albino cat, above.)
• Use the website Flower Power to make an illustration, or image, for The Herald. 

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. 

Kick Stick Challenge with Judy and Adam

Judy and Adam, engineers working with PBS Kids DESIGN SQUAD, made a new challenge, called the kick stick. The items that make the kick stick possible are paint sticks, duct tape, a battery holder, a battery, aluminum foil, a washer,wire, a ping-pong ball, and popsicle stick.

The kick stick is like an automatic ping pong ball hitter. First, you stick the washer on the motor. Then put the battery in the battery holder, and connect the wires so the motor will work. Check to see if your washer spins. Tape some paint sticks together to make that the handle on your automatic ping-pong ball hitter. Then attach your motor to the sticks. Make a blade with duct tape or your popsicle stick, by attaching them to the washer connected to the motor. Now see if your blade(s) spin. Now test it out with a ping-pong ball.

You can see Judy and Adams video at the Design Squad website. Also, you can read older Hillwood Herald posts — both Adam and Judy were nice enough to come to Hillwood, so we could interview them for this blog.

On January 26,2011, Judy and Adam will have a new show coming out on PBS Kids T.V. The show will inspire kids to "Dream it,Build it, and Live it." The show is expected to attract families, tweens, and teenagers to watch the show. Over 10 episodes will be premiered with the help of the co-hosts Judy and Adam.

Also, The Hillwood Herald has been reporting on Judy and Adam for the last month. You can read our posts and watch how our challenges went here.

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

Student Assignments for February

First off, congrats to Anya re: her front-page Scholastic news story!

Next, feel free to start the morning, practice typing using this website.

• Anya: Work on your next Scholastic story or consider how well you know your pet. Or comment on the news. Any interest in answering this question?
• Asiana, Natasha: What happened on January 31 in the past? Pick what interests you most and write about it. 
• Mia: What happened today in history?
• Oliver: Write a review about the Ben Folds Five show.
• Kennedy: Continue with your maser plan....
• Rubina: Continue on your other writing, but please also highlight Ms. Schmitt's upcoming show for the Hillwood community. You may also want to look at The Times' "Teenagers of the Times"; anything worth sharing with the Hillwood community?

• Happy New Year! The Ramblers and I are excited to start off 2013 with our favorite place to play in SF – at the Randall Museum theater - Hope you can make this fun, all ages, family music show! All the best, Gayle The 2013 SF Bluegrass & Old Time Festival Presents: Gayle Schmitt & the Toodala Ramblers On guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin and stand up bass! Saturday, February 9, 2013 Randall Museum 199 Museum Way, SF - www.randallmuseum.org Two Shows @ 1 & 3 PM $6 Kids / $9 Adults (limited seating at each for plenty of dancing room!) These shows are part of the San Francisco Bluegrass and Old Time Festival which takes place at venues all over the Bay area from February 8 - 17th. Advance tickets and more information visit: www.sfbluegrass.org Email gaylesongs@earthlink.net with questions or any trouble getting tickets Foot stomping fun for the whole family! www.gaylesongs.com

• Angela:  Look at The Times' "Teenagers of the Times"; anything worth sharing with the Hillwood community?
• Claire: Please pick one or more of the items below to write about:
• *Snack Sale!*  Don't forget that the snack/bake sales to benefit the "Pennies For Patients" program will begin next Thursday.  Healthy snacks are encouraged.  If you cut or portion them out, try to make them all about the same size (makes it easier for us to price them)if you use any ingredients that are known allergens please list them so no one has a reactionsweets are OK, but we would like encourage healthy eating so healthy snacks would be great!appearance counts!  When you wrap them up make them pretty and appealing so they sell out fast!if you send them in a container that you need back, please make sure your name is on itAnd don't forget to send your kids with a little extra spending money to buy a tasty snack so we can raise lots of Money for "Pennies for Patients"There is a flyer at the counter about the program and it is also attached to this email.
• *Fashion Design Class*  Lidia's after-school Fashion Design Class will start on Monday and will be 10 sessions long. Lidia will help the kids make wonderful and cool outfits out of things you aren't even using now! There is a hand out the counter about this after-school class and it is also attached to this email.  Checks should be made out to Lidia Cortina
• *School Uniform* As you all know, we do have a required uniform at school. Lately we have noticed that it has been not adhered to as well as we would like.For Boys:  Blue pants, solid white shirt or white Hillwood t-shirt, green sweater or Hillwood Sweatshirt.For Girls:  Blue pants, blue/green "Blackwatch Plaid" skirt or skort, white shirt or white Hillwood t-shirt, green sweater or Hillwood Sweatshirt.Tights or leggings should be navy, black, white or green.  For All Students:  Shoes should be appropriate for school yard.  Jackets can be any color but are only to be worn outside.  If kids are cold inside please send an extra hoodie to school. It is best for everyone if all students follow these guidelines. Do not hesitate to ask if you or your children have any question about whether a particular item is appropriate for school.  

When you are done:

• Listen today's StoryCorps. 
• Begin playing around with Google Docs as a tool for organizing your ideas and various drafts of your news stories.
• Play around with the website PlaceSpotting and write a post about it.
• Watch projects on the Design Squad website. 
• Add songs to Radio Hillwood.
• Explore the math games on this website.

Bat on flower from Carl Zimmer on Vimeo.
http://www.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/m/mlb_poster.pdf

Judy and Adam's Visit with The Herald

Today, on the celebration of Halloween, Judy and Adam, who have been creating design challenges for PBS Kids' DESIGN SQUAD,  took time out of their day to come and talk to us! Judy and Adam are both mechanical engineers who also have a show for kids where they make experiments and film them to show kids everywhere how to build all of the projects they made on the video. As I've written before on The Herald, these projects have been pretty fun. As reporters for The Herald, we asked  Judy and Adam about their inventions, and we showed them the inventions we made. We also interviewed them to figure out some of their favorite times on the show. (Their actual show on PBS airs in January, with a confetti launcher, but many of their challenges are already online at the DESIGN SQUAD website.)

It was very interesting to hear about all of the projects they made and all the places they got to visit to make the projects. Both Judy and Adam went to New York, where they got to make dresses for a fashion show. The dresses were made with mechanics inside of the dress to make the dress shorter.

They also got to go to Nicaragua to help build a playground for a school that had a jungle in front of it instead of a play structure. They even went to Boston to made a cake that got up and actually walked around! It was seriously mind-blowing.

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.