Friday Fun: Bristle Bots

Got your geek on? (If not, see note at the end of the post.)

This is a fun little something sure to delight kids (and adults) and I just had to share it. All you need is a toothbrush, battery, and pager motor (the vibrating part–get that out of a dead cell phone) and a few other odds and ends. Put those together and what do you have? A bristle bot! It moves. It really, really moves! Check it out:

This is the one made by Evil Mad Scientist Labratories. You can see the how-to video (and see how it moves–around 2:30 min into the video) and read the full instructions here, as well as read the tweaks and tips in the comment section. I soooo want to try this!

NOTE: If you don’t have your geek on, you can buy kits through Klutz. I bought this for my nephew for Christmas and my niece was wondering why she didn’t get one. Sorry, girl!

Have you seen any great geek crafts lately?

Thank You For Reading

I was looking at my blog stats to update my nonfiction proposal for Kid’s Play and I was stunned. Literally. Sitting on the couch, rubbing my eyes, rechecking my stats several times over as well as using different programs on the server to make sure what I was seeing was indeed correct. Wow! Thank you to all my visitors! I am both honoured and blown away by how many visitors my blog has been receiving in past months. (According to my server, we’re already over 1500 visitors for January!!! Holy smokes! Read on, folks!)

Because it would be hard for me to send you all flowers as a thank you, please accept a field of cheerful flowers:

Thank you!

Quintuple Layered Reading

Yesterday, I was sprawled on the couch, cat nuzzled under my chin, reading a book (layer 1) about a guy who read Encyclopedia Britannica (layer 2 and a review coming on that book tomorrow–the book, not the encyclopedia) when my husband interrupted me. He interrupted me to tell me about a cartoon he read on the internet (layer 3) about a writer (layer 4). However, he was interrupted by the door (no layers there). The man at the door, came by to try and (get this) sell him a book on health (that folks, would be freaky layer 5). Of course, the book was simply a gateway to talking about the protestant reformation making me relieved that I was burdened by cat and book and therefore, unable to attend to the door.

Here’s the cartoon:

Keep it Simple!

Feeling a bit grumpy. Haven’t been geocaching in awhile and so put some in the GPS the other day when going into the city. But then I had a call that barely allowed us to get to our appointment on time, so no cache on the way in. And then ran out of time and motivation to find one on the way out of town. So, no geocaching.

So today, went to the fabulous Farmer’s Market. It was great. I got eight games (board games like Trouble!) for five dollars! Plus lots of veggies, of course. Anyway, on the way out we figured, hey let’s get a geocache. There was a puzzle one that I had loaded into the GPS, so I figured hey, it doesn’t make sense on the website, but I’ve done this person’s geocaches before, so I’m sure it will make sense when we get there and get all the clues. Well, we got the clues okay. But some people just don’t make their instructions clear. I suppose it is clear if I am YOU and understand the way YOU think…

So anyway, there were three different ways to interpret the instructions on what to do with the clue. And do you really want me to do algebra, or am I over thinking this? So, figured it out both ways and no, none of the scenarios were helpful. So, no cache. That just made me grumpy!