Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - Camp Eureka Robotics for Kids

Our son Kaipo would have been experiencing excruciating boredom if we did not have plans for him during the upcoming Fall Break at school, October 6-10. Hilo High School will be running a Lego Mindstorms NXT robotics workshop called Camp Eureka. You can get more information by visiting the website, but register early to ensure your child's enrollment. My wife and I were glad that he took such an interest in the VEX practice competition as part of the weekend's HELCO Energy Fair at Prince Kuhio Plaza. We are just looking for ways to introduce various interests to him and don't really want to push him into anything. So far he has gotten into Cub Scouts, Judo and soccer. So far he has been sticking with the soccer, so his mom and I have become soccer parents (to a reasonable degree). Camp Eureka is a way for Kaipo to see if robotics is something he can get interested in (outside of his dad's involvement with RoboFest Hawaii and Hawaii Youth Robotics). Daddy's not going to be around so Kaipo can relax and be Kaipo. Daddy can relax a bit too and let nature take its course. If Kaipo digs it - cool, if not, that's cool too. But at least he tried it and he never would have found that out if he didn't participate in the camp.

Monday, September 29, 2008 - VEX Robotics at Energy Fair

Over the weekend on Saturday, before my son Kaipo's soccer game, our family visited Prince Kuhio Plaza shopping mall to check out the Hawaii Electric Light Company (HELCO) Energy Fair. We go every year and enjoy the many interactive learning stations for kids of all ages. Kaipo always returns home with a big bag of swag, and this year was no different with the exception that his mom and dad were more focused on trying to learn how to conserve energy (so we had some takeaways too). As part of the Energy Fair, a VEX robotics practice competition was showcased in front of Macy's. An official VEX playing field and implements were set up and several teams from intermediate and high schools around the island were participating. I got a chance to meet some friends, teachers and students there, but unfortunately was not able to get a chance to meet some of them - they were really busy running the competition with enough to think about. So I promise to stop by their respective schools to touch bases and talk story a bit. It's been a while, as I've been out of circulation.

Thursday, September 3, 2008 - Maikalani Open House

Things have been a bit chaotic the past few weeks, and only now am I finding some time to update this site. Like most people, I have a ton of things I want to do, but only have enough time to do a few. I don't know how I was able to manage the workload of IfA, AstroDay Institute and at home - perhaps schizophrenia has an upside. I suppose if I were loquacious in speech and verbose in vocabulary, I suppose I could easily maintain this blog with daily excerpts from life. At any rate, here I am back on my computer when I get a call from JD Armstrong from our Institute for Astronomy Maui facility. He forwarded me a flyer he created and asked if we could promote the Open House they are having later this month - you can see a thumbnail of it to the right (click on it for a full view). Our Maui IfA facility had opened last year in Pukalani, Maui, and the inaugural Open House was a great success. Many visitors both young and old attended the event, which included astronomy and space science mini-presentations, laboratory tours, science demonstrations, and telescope viewing. This year, the Maikalani Open House will include the same attractions with some added twists, and will be held on Friday, September 12 from 6-8 pm.