Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Building a Giant Furry Electric Dog Car
When eleven-year-old Alex designed her Giant Furry Electric Dog Car, the team at Kids Invent Stuff rose to the challenge of making it real. In this how-it’s-made video, makers Ruth Amos and Shawn Brown team up to weld, wire, staple, tape, glue, and screw together the canine-themed vehicle, complete with a huge wagging tail.
Here’s the result of their month of work. See it in action when they take it out for a spin in the video below:

Interested in submitting your ideas? Check out their form here. From their site:
Kids Invent Stuff is the YouTube channel where 4-11 year olds have the chance to get their invention ideas built by real engineers. We do this to give more primary school kids the chance to engage with real engineering projects.
Their efforts are in support of the United Kingdom’s “Engineering: Take a closer look” campaign to inspire the next generation of innovators, inventors and problem solvers.

Sunday, May 31, 2020
Saturday, May 30, 2020
"The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music (1965)
In this classic scene from Rodgers and Hammerstein‘s 1965 film adaptation of The Sound of Music, Maria and the von Trapp children sing ‘The Lonely Goatherd’ during their marionette show, a performance for their father and his friends.
Maria is played by the great Julie Andrews. Baron von Trapp is played by Christopher Plummer. Richard Haydn and Eleanor Parker are briefly in the scene. The children are played by Charmian Carr, Nicholas Hammond, Heather Menzies, Duane Chase, Angela Cartwright, Debbie Turner, and Kym Karath.



Tuesday, May 26, 2020
Thursday, May 21, 2020
Mr. Darcy - Victoria Chang
Mr. Darcy
by Victoria Chang
and a horse not much more what
if he didn't own the house or worse
not even a horse how do we
separate the things from a man the man from
the things is a man still the same
without his reins here it rains every fifteen
minutes it would be foolish to
marry a man without an umbrella did
Cinderella really love the prince or
just the prints on the curtains in the
ballroom once I went window-
shopping but I didn't want a window when
do you know it's time to get a new
man one who can win more things at the
fair I already have four stuffed
pandas from the fair I won fair and square
is it time to be less square to wear
something more revealing in North and
South she does the dealing gives him
the money in the end but she falls in love
with him when he has the money when
he is still running away if the water is
running in the other room is it wrong
for me to not want to chase it because it owns
nothing else when I wave to a man I
love what happens when another man with
a lot more bags waves back
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
by Robert Duncan
as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,
that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
an eternal pasture folded in all thought
so that there is a hall therein
that is a made place, created by light
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.
Wherefrom fall all architectures I am
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved
whole flowers are flames lit to the Lady.
She it is Queen Under The Hill
whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words
that is a field folded.
It is only a dream of the grass blowing
east against the source of the sun
in an hour before the sun's gone down
whose secret we see in a children's game
of ring a round of roses told.
Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,
that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
"Rainbow Connection" (2020) (1979) - Kermit the Frog
In a special performance from a riverbank in the woods, Kermit the Frog sings Rainbow Connection, his Oscar-nominated hit.
The song was originally written for the frog and his banjo by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher for 1979’s The Muppet Movie.
Watch the original here:
Watch the original here:
Swamp-dweller Kermit plucks a banjo, contemplating rainbows and “what’s on the other side”—much like Judy Garland’s Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. But “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was not the song’s main inspiration.“The model we used was ‘When You Wish Upon a Star,’ which opened Disney’s Pinocchio,” Williams said. “This is Kermit’s ‘I am’ song. This song will show that Kermit has an inner life, a spiritual life…”“The thing that is so human about the song, and spiritual at the same time, is that it honors the questions, not the answers,” Williams explained. “That moment made Kermit not the mentor, not the teacher, not the preacher. He became a seeker with the audience.”

Sunday, May 10, 2020
Symmetry Eames Animated Short
What is symmetry in math? And how do you test for degrees of symmetry? Learn about “the mathematical ordering of form and the symmetrical properties of objects” with Symmetry by Charles and Ray Eames. Animation by Glen Fleck, with music composed and performed by Elmer Bernstein.
Symmetry was one of five shorts featured in a 1961 collection of educational films created for an interactive exhibition called Mathematica: A World of Numbers… and Beyond at Los Angeles’ California Museum of Science and Industry, now called the California Science Center.

A quick introduction of symmetry from Wikipedia:
Symmetry (from Greek συμμετρία symmetria “agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement”) in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, “symmetry” has a more precise definition, and is usually used to refer to an object that is invariant under some transformations; including translation, reflection, rotation or scaling. Although these two meanings of “symmetry” can sometimes be told apart, they are intricately related…


Saturday, May 9, 2020
2(n) - The Power of Exponential Numbers Eames Animation
In 1961, an interactive exhibition called Mathematica: A World of Numbers… and Beyond inaugurated the new science wing at Los Angeles’ California Museum of Science and Industry. Sponsored by IBM, it was an innovative exhibit designed by husband and wife team Charles and Ray Eames, and lucky for us, it included five short animations that explored a handful of math concepts.
This favorite is an old tale set in a palace in India. What happens when you double the grains of wheat on each square of a chessboard? Watch 2ⁿ – “a story about the exponential growth of numbers raised to powers.”



Relate reading: Mathematica at EamesOffice.com.















