The Annual Science Festival was on again last week and we went as a small group of homeschoolers on the Friday. Some people went on Wednesday and Thursday as well but we only committed ourselves to the one day.
Oma very graciously had Mark again for us so I could just take the older three along. Our first session was "Things that Go Bang in the Night". It was about killer asteroids, blackholes, aging stars/suns and other information about how vast our universe is in comparison to the small section we inhabit. Some of the pictures were stunning, break-taking actually, and yet, this backyard astronomer painted a bleak future for the world. He basically saw earth being blown up by one of these astronomical phenomena in the future. I’m not discounting the possibility but as Christians, we have more hope as the universe is one that is completely within God’s control. He chooses to protect us with an atmosphere that makes smaller asteroids burn up before they reach us and He alone will determine the end of the earth and the means by which it will happen.
After that first session, the boys were walking into the main exhibit hall and who should they meet???
DALEKS!!!!!!
Our second class was called "Dancing Robots" and we almost had the class to ourselves. The kids had to use a computer to program the robots to go forwards, backwards, spin around, sense a line, sing a song and other challenges made up by the instructor.
Here’s some of the group listening to the instructions.
Zac and Adam program their robot.
Two Kirkys with theirs…
The robots in action….
Will they do the right thing??
After this, we had lunch together as a group in the main foyer. Some of us enjoyed ourselves a little more than others…
but all had a good time.
We then wandered through the displays before going to a class in the afternoon. The boys posed for the picture below:
They all tried to pedal up to 1000 watts of electricity on the exercise bike, making some a little flushed in the face…
Stephen actually had his photo taken while he was on the bike and made it into the local newspaper.
Our last session was called "Cool as Liquid Nitrogen". The lady running this class showed us what this liquid could do and explained just how cold it is….( -196 degrees C!)
I would say that just as Professor Bunsen with his explosive show last year was a hit, this one on a cold substance was their favourite this year. A banana was super-cooled and smashed to smithereens, even a "my little pony" suffered this cruel fate.
It was interesting, fun and they did learn something about science…
I could put in even more photos and talk about a couple of other things but this will do. Thanks to those who made a "day of it" with us.
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