READ MY DOUG LIPS

Discovery Days Robot Challenge!

The name for my Lego Robotics team was the "Robot Rookies". We decided on that name because none of us had ever done this program before. Our robot's name was U.S.S. Buster X. There were 5 others on my team. We met 2X's a month for 3 hours. At each meeting we had a different challenge to do with the robot from building it to programing it with different kinds of sensors.

This past Saturday we had Discovery Days. The theme was Colonial times. For our Robotic challenge we had to move our robot through the table sized village. We had a welcome basket for the settles of Acornia. They were mud skippers because they lived on land and water. Our 1st challenge was to have the robot had to put a welcome basket on land and water. In our basket we had gummy worms (mud skippers eat bug), wet wipes (mud skipper have to stay wet), and a small bottle of water. We had to program the robot to carry the basket to the water's end and place it down. Then the robot had to come back to base.

For the second challenge we had to have the robot start at base then go into our cabin (which we designed) and light it up for the settlers using a lamp that was on him. He then had to turn off the light and return to base. We added a fun thing by having U.S.S. Buster X say 'good bye' (using a sound sensor) before he left the cabin .

The judge liked our creativity and we did a good job! We also got pins that will be added to each year we participate in the Lego Robotics Program designed by MIT.

It was fun to show all our hard work off!

ROBOTS

We are off the the Community College so Paul can show us his skills wth his robot.

More later...

This email has been sent to me twice and I get such a laugh; so I'd thought I'd share!

Lipstick in School

According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls werebeginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lip stick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night the maintenance man would remove them, and the next day thegirls would put them back. Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man..She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can justimagine the yawns from the little princesses).To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required..He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.
There are teachers ... and then there are educators.

THE BIRTHDAY GIRL!

I can not believe my girlie is 11!

HE HAS RISEN!

HE HAS RISEN INDEED!!!

Paul and his 1st fish!

Since Paul eats so much I've often said he'd have to get his own food--This is a good start!

Just sit and be embraced

My youngest ran up to me last night and hugged me. The kind of hug that about knocks you over and then he clung to me. I asked what's wrong. "Nothing" but his grip didn't loosen. I asked, "Is everything OK?". "Yea", he replied, "can't I just hug you!" OK, so I started talking with him and asking him about things. He got annoyed and answered me back rather rudely. I corrected his tone to which he asked, "CAN'T I JUST HUG YOU?-don't talk to me!" I hugged that child tightly for awhile then he pulled away and was off.

This got me thinking-Timothy just needed a huge embrace and was content to come to me and receive it. That's what he needed/wanted at the time; for me to quiet myself and just hold him tightly. I'm so glad the Lord knows our needs and we can go to Him and be embraced. We can enter His presence and just be HUGGED. We don't have to know what to say or really even need a reason-we just need to be willing!

May you feel a hug from your Heavenly Father today no matter why you need it!