Gingerbread Houses



Beautiful Gingerbread Poinsettias

  Edible architecture! Gingerbread has been baked for centuries, although not in the form we best know it in. Gingerbread was made in the shape of loaves or biscuits, but nowadays most people think of gingerbread as men or houses. I recently visited the "Discovery Science Center", and took pictures of some beautiful creations made of gingerbread. Although some of them don't fit under the category of "men" or "house". Here are my favorite ones! Enjoy!:



Peppermint House






Very Large Gingerbread House

 



Taj Mahal




2011 Countdown




Christmas Tree



Gingerbread Rock Formations





Gingerbread Nativity Scene
(my personal favorite)

  



Gingerbread Western Digital
USB Flash Drive

 


Taco Bell

 

What is the Archimedean Screw?

Archimedean Screw

Archimedes is one of my favorite scientists. He is known for many things, including...

• An explanation of how a lever works, from which induced his famous quote: "Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth."
• The invention the block-and-tackle pulley system
• An improvement on the catapult
• and quite a few other things that I might a post about later

Archimedes was an amazing thinker, and it is very fascinating to read about him (I recommend the book Archimedes and the Door of Science. It was a very long time ago that I read it- it is meant for kids aged 9-12- but it is still very informative and makes a good quick read (try picking it up at your local library). One of my favorite of the inventions by Archimedes is his "Archimedian Screw", which I will be posting about here...

Invented in or around the 3rd century BC, the Archimedean Screw is still used today in quite a few ways. Let's go back in time to when the Archimedean Screw was invented. Imagine you're a farmer. Every year you depend on the Nile as your water source to grow your crops. However, you don't live close enough to the Nile for it to reach your crops when it overflows each year. What do you do? Well, way back then you would have to carry all the water to your farm in buckets, or set up some complex irrigation system (which could take a very, very long time).  Archimedes, when visiting a farm, watched as people carried bucket after bucket after bucket of water from the Nile to the farmland. He didn't think that was good enough. Rather than digging an irrigation system, he tried to think of a way to bring the water up to land level. That was when he came up with the Archimedean Screw. He devised a device that, when you turned a crank, would bring water to the height needed. This is how it worked: there was a curving piece that went around a pole (similar to a thread in a screw) and was placed inside a hollow tube (see picture). When the poll was turned, water was scooped up at the bottom and moved up the screw (Wikipedia has a beautiful animation of how this works. Go here and look to the top right area of the page).

New LED Throwies



LED Throwie Lights

 Christmas is just around the corner. I was keeping an eye out for something related to the holidays to post about, and that was when I found Throwies. They are very awesome and have been called "LED art" and "temporary graffiti". Basically, throwies are short strands of LED lights with magnets. They "stick" to metallic objects. Below is a youtube video of what throwies are and how they are used.  They are easy to make, or you can buy them online. I haven't seen any at stores so far.

Ellipses

Picture of how Circles and Ellipses are formed

I was fascinated when I learned this in Geometry.

Everyone knows what a circle is- it is a series of points that are the same distance from a center point. Now, what is an ellipse? The definition is a little more complicated: a closed plane curve resulting from the intersection of a circular cone and a plane cutting completely through it; the sums of the distances from the foci to any point on an ellipse is constant.

Drawing an Ellipse

The picture on the right demonstrates the first part of the definition. Here's an example of what the second part means: Suppose you want to draw an ellipse. You take two tacks, push them into a piece of paper, and you tie each end of a string that is longer than the distance between the two points to the tacks (each end of the string is tied to a thumbtack). Finally, you push a pencil against the string so the latter is tight (see picture on left). Now if you move the pencil around the tacks, keeping the string tight, you will end with an ellipse. It is a very neat method of drawing an ellipse, but what does this have to do with "the sums of the distance from the foci to any point on an ellipse is constant"? Well, unlike a circle, an ellipse has two foci (plural for focus). If you draw an ellipse using the method stated above, the place where you had your tacks will always be the foci. Now notice how the lines in the picture have names- F1 and F2. In the end, then, statement "the sums of the distance from the foci to any point on an ellipse is constant" simply means that F1 + F2 will always be the same number.

Roller Coasters, Part 1

Traditional Chain-Lift Method

Roller coasters definitely deserve to be on the list of epic inventions. They're huge pieces of art that date back to the early 1800s. Roller coasters satisfied man's need for speed, and they quickly became bigger, better, and faster. In this post, I will list some lift methods of roller coasters...

The first and traditional method is the lift method. This can mean either of two things: (a) a long loop chain that is powered by motors and moves in the uphill direction continuously. Hooking onto the train when it arrives (you're most likely to see this method), and (b) a series of tires that rotate in the same direction up the hill (this is more commonly found on small coasters).

The second method is the launch method. This is a great method because riders don't have to wait while they're slowly pulled to the top. A few types of launch roller coaster are (and a very brief description):

• Electromagnetic (uses electricity to set off magnets that, in turn, pull the car across the track until it has enough momentum to get up the hill)
• Hydraulic (uses compressed hydraulic fluid to turn a turbine which spins and pulls a cord attached to the train)
• Pneumatic (similar to the hydraulic except using compressed air instead of fluid)
• Electric motor with spring tension (motor pushes spring until it is tense, then releases the train)

A few other types of lifts are...

• Elevator lift (what the name implies; a piece of track detaches and moves vertically to connect with the other end of track at a higher altitude. For example, the Matterhorn Blitz at Europa-Park).
• Ferris Wheel lift (it is amazing. You must watch a video to understand it. An example is Round About at Freestyle Music Park).

Solving a Rubik's Cube

Who hasn't heard of a "Rubik's Cube"? Whether it is unsolved and hidden away, or solved and proudly displayed, almost everyone in the world owns one. It is 3-D puzzle that has a very simple concept, yet has over 43 quintillion possible configurations, it seems that it would be very hard to solve. However, a large number of people have solved it. How? Well, here are some solutions...

1. Take off all the stickers and replace them in the correct way (I'm pretty sure this is classified as cheating ;)).
2. Memorize a bunch of algorithms (this is how I did it).
3. Build a robot that does it for you (this is my personal favorite, although it would be way harder than simply memorizing the algorithms). Below is a video a robot solving a Rubik's cube. The robot was created by Mike Dobson, and was made with LEGO Mindstorm elements. LEGO Mindstorms is an awesome set, and I own one myself. You'll probably see more posts including Mindstorms in the future. For now, enjoy the video. :)

Yeah, that video was awesome. In fact, it was the main reason why I wanted to make a post about Rubik's Cubes. Another reason is because they're fun to solve, easy to take with you wherever you go, and they also make a great gift!

Do you want to learn how to solve a Rubik's Cube? Here* is a great website that'll get you going! If you have any questions, please ask!

*the website is not owned by me. Use at your own caution ;)