Blinky Bug and Traffic lights

I made a Blinky Bug with Dad. It is a silver spider with red LED eyes. When you tap the antennae the Blinky Bug blinks.

We made it with a battery, two LEDs, some guitar strings, pipe cleaners and fuzzy balls for the body. We taped the battery, the LEDs and the guitar strings together and glued on the body and legs.

We also made traffic lights. It took a lot of planning and rebuilding. In the end we brought a rotary switch because it turns on one light at a time. We used specific colors for the wires that match the LEDs. A lot of soldering was involved and I burnt Dads finger with soldering iron. Dad drilled holds in a box for my traffic lights and rotary switch.

Try, try and try the Tryathlon

Hello there everybody!

Today I did the Weet-Bix Tryathlon and I am extremely tired.

At the Tryathlon I put my bike and gear in the transition area and waited for my age group to be called out. When it was I lined up in the boys line and then ran into the swim it was quite shallow you could walk the whole way. When we all got out we jogged to the transition area and got our shoes, shirt and helmet on and hopped on our bikes and rode off. I overtook lots of people because of my fast road bike. We stopped at the transition, dropped our bikes and helmets and went for two laps around the running area it was tough. At the end I was right behind my friend Josh.

Zak

Memories of a holiday

I was off work from 24 December until 10 January. It seemed like a long time at the time but it seems like an even longer time ago now. It was a really good break and I didn't get any work calls at all! Going back to work was more than a bit of a shock to the system...

Christmas day was very busy. The general tone of the day was set by a breakfast of waffles with ice-cream and chocolate sauce... It was great to see everyone.

We didn't do a lot during the break. A couple of days at the beach and a couple of rides.

Work was completely nuts from the first day. We are very busy at the moment and I have some interesting projects going.

Last week Cathy took the kids camping while I was working. I was supposed to catch up with them after work on Friday. The weather man had been saying that Friday night was going to be ugly. We'd just had a really bad storm the weekend before with lots of flooding and slips and they were predicting this one to be similar. So, Cathy and the kids came home on Friday and we went back out for Saturday and Sunday nights. The campground was pretty soggy but we still had a couple of great beach days.

Em and Zak are back at school now so everything is back to normal. Normal is different though as Zak is now at intermediate school (years 7 and 8 are at a separate school for some reason). His new school is miles away from here and none of his mates are in his class. He isn't happy about that but he has no trouble making friends so I don't see it being a problem for long. Emma is with most of the same kids as last year.

So, that's the exciting bits for this part of the year. There is more planned for later...

BB.

School

Hello, I have started my next two years at intermediate school.

About half of my friends are going to Ponsonby with me and the other half are going to Kowhai.

The canteen food is disgusting though most of my friends like it (lucky for them the hot chocolates are only $1) and there is nothing much to do at lunch so we usually play tag.

Classes started on Monday and I take the bus to school most days. I have the art teacher as my form teacher so that means lots of paper supplies to draw on. She is quite nice but I probably won't get to use the paper.

My favorite subject is social sciences we are learning about Rome.

From Zak

Mountain Biking - Bruce

I've done two rides this week. The first with Cathy, Zak and Emma at Woodhill and the second with my brothers David, Peter and Mark at Rotorua.

Both were notable for different reasons. The Woodhill ride I rode with Emma while Cathy and Zak took off ahead to do some extra bits. Em crashed... See her blog entry... I saw it coming about a split second before it happened but too late to do anything about it. She was good about it though and continued on with a good attitude after dusting off.

The Rotorua ride's most prominent memory is of how exhausted I was. I was kinda expecting that because I've ridden so little lately. Before I completely ran out of go, it was a great ride though. I haven't ridden there for ages and forgot what sort of trails they have. Unlike the sandy surface at Woodhill, Rotorua's trails are hard and fast and very twisty. There is also a lot more climb than at Woodhill which means a lot more good downhill too. No one crashed and everyone was very happy to get back into town for a big feed.

Mountain Biking - Emma

At Woodhill Forest, we were mountain biking down Spaghetti (a trail). I saw a three X sign. Dad had told me that it meant the structure was difficult and it was best to avoid them. It was a ramp so I said "Is that a ramp?". And before I knew it I crashed into it. I was covered in dirt. I felt like I was eating dirt. Then I thought "Is that dirt on my tongue?" and I was right. Dad squirted me with the water bottle and I had a couple of drinks to rinse out the dirt.

Around the end of the trail we saw Mum and Zak. There was a see-saw and three small ramps. At first I wasn't sure about the see-saw but then I thought it would be fun to try. So I rode it and it went a bit wonky at the end but it was fun.


When we left Woodhill we went to a bakery. I had a little mince pie and an apple turnover. I squirted lots of tomato sauce on the little mince pie and it was very nice. The apple turnover was delicious but I wondered why the pastry was yellow inside. Zak couldn't eat all of his cream bun so I tried some but the bun wasn't very nice or fresh.

- Posted using BlogPress from Mum's iPad

Location:Woodhill Forest

Christmas

Hi everybody, we had a great christmas and have been having lots of fun playing with the presents we got. We have done the usual routine with breakfast at our house, lunch at grandmas then dinner at nana 2's but because she is in hospital she only stayed for a while. Some of favourite my things I got were lego harry potter the game 1-4 years, a nerf gun long strike and a new bike the 2011 model of my old bike, the GT stomper. Soon after we went to woodhill forest and went mountain biking. The bike worked well and it's much easier to ride.

Best wishes for 2011!

from Zak