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My Little Personal Trainer

NaNi often makes sure that I stick to my diet, “No cheating, Dad,” and helps encourage me when exercising. (Nichelle sets the diet and the overall schedule; you should consider using her if you need a very reasonably priced personal fitness trainer.)

Last night NaNi rode her bike with me while I ran two miles, as she often does.

NaNi - My Little Personal Trainer
NaNi - My Little Personal Trainer

Everyone really enjoyed seeing her out riding, with me running along right behind her. I got comments like, “She’ll make sure you keep your speed up,” and everyone we passed greeted us with big grins.

On the final block of the two miles, I sprinted ahead of her. As I passed her, she called out, “Now, that’s what I like to see!”

What a kid.

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ASD Students to Kick ’Bot with Robot Sumo

On Tuesday, June 16, from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m., students in the Robotics course at the Academy for Science and Design Public Charter School in Merrimack, New Hampshire, will go head to head against their peers and with engineers from Kronos Incorporated of Chelmsford, Ma., in a Robot Sumo competition. Anyone with an interest is welcome to watch.

The students will be using robots they have designed, built, and programmed over the last 6 months using Lego MindStorms kits, having learned mechanical and software engineering along the way, and often discovering their final design differs radically from what they first envisioned.

Robot Sumo begins with two autonomous robots in a round douyou ring, a white circular area measuring 36″ in diameter. The first robot pushed out of the ring loses. The students have been working in teams of 2 or 3 to create and improve their robot designs. A number of students have also created second robots of their own to compete. Robot Sumo has provided students with a unique design and programming challenge, requiring extensive hands-on work from each student.

Few things, however, have given the students more pleasure than seeing their robots beat the one designed and programmed by their instructor, Kronos engineer Doug Wilcox of Nashua.

The Academy for Science and Design is a tuition free open enrollment chartered public school for grades 7-12, specializing in science and math with algebra, biology, chemistry, and physics taught beginning in 7th grade.

Academy for Science and Design
316 Daniel Webster Highway
Merrimack, NH 03054
603 262-9162

Update:

The Robot Sumo event was a huge success, and we even got some great press from it.

“Young designers learn it’s about more than building best ‘bot’,” by Mark Oullette, Union Leader.

Mr. Oullette prepared a great video, available on YouTube.

“Academy of Science and Design class makes machines worthy of battle,” by Dana Smith, Merrimack Journal.

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Ouch: New Hampshire Charter School Cap Proposed

I just received this from the Academy of Science and Design, where I teach robotics, and where Isaac attends:

As almost all of you probably know, New Hampshire is facing major budget issues. The New Hampshire State Senate is currently trying to grapple with the deteriorating situation as state incoming revenue declines. This week, an amendment was proposed and approved in the Senate Finance Committee that would cap total charter school enrollment in the state for the coming 2009-2010 year at a level of 850, which is below current enrollment levels.

If this limitation stands as the bill moves through a full NH State Senate floor vote (likely this coming Wednesday June 3) and the following conference committee, this would be a MAJOR issue for the school. Depending on the exact level allocated to the school, this could mean ALL accepted incoming students would have to have their acceptance reversed, and it could even mean that there would have to be a “reverse lottery” to eliminate existing ASD students.

We strongly encourage you to take action on this issue, as it will affect your child’s educational choices and ASD’s quality.

One action you can take is to send mail to your elected representatives. The following link can be used to do this:
http://tinyurl.com/lmku2l

Some parents may also want to call their representatives. While this can potentially be helpful, it is also very important that you express support constructively, perhaps with personal stories, but DO NOT ARGUE with them! Remember that the legislators are dealing with a very major set of issues around funding, and are facing many difficult decisions at this time. Being hostile and/or combative can easily create irate representatives, which would hurt much more than help and can be very hard to reverse. Please only call if you are sure you can keep the conversation positive.

The ASD and other charter schools have been through this before, but it has always required work to get the legislature to see our side. Right now, we are all working through the NH Chartered Public School Association at all levels of government to make sure that this amendment does not get passed into law. While we are working hard with all the charter schools, we will not know the final outcome until the end of June. We will do our best to keep you informed as we move forward.

Kent Glossop
Board Chairman, Academy for Science and Design

Chris Franklin
Director, Academy for Science and Design

Here’s what I added to the petition I submitted:

Please help public education continue to improve in New Hampshire by rejecting the proposed cap on charter school enrollment.

Our son is attending the Academy for Science and Design Public Charter School in Merrimack. We have seen firsthand just how much he has learned at such a place, which is far more challenging than the private school he attended previously.

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Star Trek XI

I’ll describe Star Trek Zero in one word, the same word I uttered repeatedly throughout the film: Wow!

enterprise_console_n_and_i
Lieutenant Wilcox, USS Reliant, with an unidentified Orion Slave Girl.

Last night at 9:50 we went to Hooksett Cinemagic to see the film in digital iMax (yes, that’s iMax with digital video … quite an experience, as we’d seen with Monsters vs. Aliens a few weeks ago). A bunch of people from church were also there (including, of course, the Dunn family all in costume). However, the iMax was having projector problems. So, we got to see Trek in digital, and have free passes to return to the iMax whenever we like.

Without offering any spoilers, I’ll just say that J.J. Abrams lived up to the storytelling and adventure I expected. There are elements of things we’ve seen before in Star Trek storytelling (indeed, it would be hard to find something that hadn’t been tried over the years), but rarely are they executed with such fine attention to drama, detail, and humor.

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NaNi the Droll

A couple of days ago, Naomi said, “Dad, I made this for you!”

Naomi's whimsical airplane drawing.
Naomi’s “Whimsical” Drawing—Click to see full detail.

Inspired by Hook, Naomi drew people parachuting from a burning airplane. Guess who doesn’t have a parachute? (I love the little frown face she put on me.)

That’s one sarcastic kid we’re raising.

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School Fashion: Look What Kids Are Wearing These Days

This is “spirit week” at the Academy for Science and Design, where Isaac attends. Today’s theme was, “Famous People.” He relished the opportunity to develop, with Nichelle’s help, this slightly disturbing costume.

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Can you believe what kids are wearing to school these days?

A magic trick? Well, let me show you, I’ll make this pencil disappear!

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Isaac as “The Joker,” complete with prosthetic makeup.

Turns out Isaac’s costume was voted best for the day!

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Why Do You Seek the Living Among the Dead?

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

The Garden Tomb, now empty.
The Garden Tomb, now empty.

While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”

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Outsourcing the Wilcox Family: Next Stop, China

The economy can certainly make life interesting. At times, this leads to momentary tension, such as today when my boss called me in to his office to discuss some internal reorganization.

Little did I know, when I started studying Mandarin last fall that it would be so useful!


View Larger Map

I don’t have all the details yet, but for the next five years, we will be relocated to Shenyang, the capitol of the Liaoning province, China, where I’ll be helping to lead a software development project integrating YUI components into our existing suite. The company will pay for our relocation and intensive language school.

Wow!

[Editor’s Note, April 20, 2009: There is an important follow-up to this post here. Please be sure to read it.]

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中文 Homework (Showing Off)

Okay, I’m going to show off a bit.

My Mandarin homework at the Chelmsford Chinese Language School this week was to write a paragraph about Naomi. Most of this we have covered in class, but I got some help from my friend Shenghan to make sure the grammar was correct, and still managed to make one mistake in with the suì character, which I have since corrected.

我

有

一

个

女

å„¿

。

她

叫

娜

奥

ç±³

。

她

五

岁

了

。

她

é•¿

着

黑

黑

çš„

头

发

。

她

喜

欢

è·³

舞

。

娜

奥

ç±³

是

一

个

亮

é—ª

é—ª

çš„

女

å­©

。

Here is the same text with the pinyin inserted:

wÇ’

yÇ’u

yī

gè

nÇš

ér

tā

jiào

我

有

一

个

女

å„¿

。

她

叫

Nà

ào

mǐ

tā

wÇ”

suì

le

娜

奥

ç±³

。

她

五

岁

了

。

tā

zhÇŽng

zhe

hēi

hēi

de

tóu

fà

她

é•¿

着

黑

黑

çš„

头

发

。

tā

xǐ

huàn

tiào

wÇ”

Nà

ào

mǐ

她

喜

欢

è·³

舞

。

娜

奥

ç±³

shì

yī

gè

liàng 

shÇŽn 

shÇŽn 

de

nÇš

hái

是

一

个

亮

é—ª

é—ª

çš„

女

å­©

。

Mandarin makes learning Spanish seem very easy by comparison. There are no Chinese-English cognates, and just learning the different tones is daunting. The “pinyin” phonetic aids help, but I still struggle with pronunciation, and, ultimately, need to memorize all the charcters. (Growing up in China, my teacher learned each character by being required to write it 1,000 times.) Of course, I occasionally have my rudimentary Chinese good-naturedly laughed at, such as a few weeks ago when I said, 我的太太不好。 My wife is no good, rather than 我的太太不舒服。My wife is not feeling well!

I’ll post a translation in the comments in a few days. In the meantime, you might have fun figuring it out. (Hint www.chinese-tools.com offers some excellent tools for working with Chinese, including a dictionary and input method editor.)

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Naomi’s Improv Ballet

NaNi (now age 5), loves to dance. After her ballet class, while another group was rehearsing for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” she improvised this.

Toward the end you can see her looking into the studio room to see what the older students are doing in their rehearsal.

Naomi studies Ballet at Gate City Ballet, in Nashua, N.H.