What would I give to Jonas? By Gus

Well, starting off, I wouldn’t really want to be the Giver. I would want to be Jonas. I hope you see why. Anyways, other than giving Jonas some awfully, mind scarring memory of the giver’s, I think what Jonas desperately needs is color. You see, people in ‘The Giver’ can not see color physically, although apparently Jonas has sometimes seen flashes of color, although he doesn’t know it. If that is unavailable, for any reason, I would give him something a little more simple, such as rain, or, as I said in the beginning, something not so pleasant (not deadly), like a scrape or slipping. I like the author’s choice of snow, and was very surprised to find that there wasn’t snow in the community. Sunburn and sunshine were also great. I wish I could read more of the book and figure out other memories that the giver is going to give Jonas.

The Giver: My Assignment by Gus

Thanks to my addiction of building and designing, mostly at a great speed, an Engineer would be my best job, although a leader would also suite me. Another reason for my hope of being an Engineer (if I was living in the place where Jonas lives), is probably that the style of building I have seen so far is my type of construction: Organized buildings for specific reasons, and places for different types of work of all types.

Tech Project By Gus, Sam, and Josh

Our tech project was about Google Docs, and we taught you how to share and create a document. Making the presentation was filled with difficulties, and as soon as one was solved, another would pop up. Our first problem was figuring out how to film it. I thought that Quicktime Player wouldn’t be the full version, but fortunately I was wrong. The next was making the script. This quickly got finished, but then we realized it wasn’t complete. There wasn’t a beginning or ending. Having three people working on one idea was very hard. I would think of one sentence, while someone else would think of something else to put in at the same time. Right as we finished it, the bell rang ending the period. Josh wouldn’t be to record because he had made it into the state championships for the geographic bee (he did well with 5/8 questions right). I am surprised that Sam actually could read it when we recorded without mentioning his hero, a time traveling snail, in fact, he did very well. With the time ticking away, we went into the two computer labs, only to find them full with French students in study hall. The fifth grade pod was full.  Our last resort was the classroom, which was very loud with the other students screaming as the teacher played their finished projects. We finally finished the project only seconds before the bell rang. We were a little off, but it was still good.

Apollo 13 Summary By Gus

Apollo 13. The unluckiest space flight not on a space shuttle. Three astronauts who are on a spaceship (Aquarius), have a major malfunction on their original, simple, moon flight. About ten minutes after liftoff, an engine bursts, doing nothing, but that will later endanger the astronauts. When Houston (command center) tells one of the astronauts to stir the oxygen tanks, a side panel bursts and all of a sudden the astronauts are losing all their life support. Not only are their life supports gone, but they have hardly any energy and can’t see the Earth. To make matters even worse, one of the astronauts gets very sick, and is too weak to do much. It looked like to me that 13 is truly an unlucky number.

While the astronauts are not only out of energy, the carbon dioxide levels are increasing majorly. Just seconds before blackout, the astronauts create a replacement filter for the one that was destroyed. One thing that I find amazing is that the sick astronaut ripped the bag, so the others had to use a SOCK to fix it. Houston finds a way to get back to Earth by using the moon’s gravity to hurl them back towards Earth. While this works, they encounter ANOTHER challenge. Since the engines were very powerful, the spaceship was hurtling in all different directions. Finally, with three seconds till energy ran out, the pilot managed to get in the exact position.

But this wasn’t easy. Imagine the Earth as a basketball and the Moon as a softball. The spaceship would have to hit a section of the earth no wider than a piece of paper just to get in the atmosphere, and they would have to hit a place on the Earth less than the size of a pinhead (not the real Earth, but the basketball). The final incredible thing is that the spaceship didn’t hit the water until after 2 minutes than the average time. Nobody has reentered that slow ever.

 

 

IGLProductionz by Gus

IGLProductionz is a youtube account that I share with IanL. We have been working on it for two months, and have uploaded an incredible 34 videos, with 4 different recording systems. We have uploaded a wide variety of things, each taking an extremely long time to prepare or make. I hope that you enjoy our account if you search it, and that you might be entertained.

Rubik’s Cubes by Gus

Although it is an awkward hobby, speed cubing is my favorite of all of them. I first learned about it after randomly searching Rubik’s Cube World Record in youtube. After that, I got a 2×2 (look at pictures) cube, and after a week, I had created my own way of solving it. A few weeks later, I figured out how to solve most of the regular Cube, and just searched the steps online to finish the solve. I got a 4×4 around Christmas, and unfortunately went straight to a video on solving it. Just two days before I posted this, I got my 5×5 cube. Although huge, it is the same as the 4×4 (how to solve it), so I got that one down fast.

The day I got my 5×5, I learned the Jessica Fridrich Method (fast method) for the 3×3 and 2×2. I’m still slow at it, but my times are improving by ten seconds.

Here are my main records:

2×2 Record: 2.34 Seconds (8 moves)

2×2 World Record: 0.69 Seconds (6 moves)

3×3 Record: 27.98 Sec

3×3 World Record: 5.66 Seconds

4×4 Record: 2:43.21

4×4 World Record: 30.17 Sec.

5×5 Record: 12:52.12

5×5 World Record: 56.23 Seconds

2x2 Rubik's cube

2x2 Rubik's Cube

Breaking A World Record By Gus

You may not believe it, but yesterday I broke a record in Guinness 2012. It wasn’t that hard for me, and I broke it on my third attempt. The record I broke? Fastest time to type the alphabet (Guiness record 3.52sec). I beat the former record of 3.52sec and got 2.98sec! If you want proof, I’ll make a video sometime. Hopefully I can submit it to Guinness, and I’ll hold it!

My *Cosmic* Future By Gus

If I woke up and I was an adult, I mean like tomorrow or something, then I would probably wish I was a kid again. But, then if that didn’t work, I would be confused, as I am now. There is some good stuff about being an adult, such as being able to vote, but I don’t want to clean the house or do the taxes. First, let’s say I was rich. If I was, then I might buy some expensive cameras, as my profession, if I had to choose right now, would either be a stop-motion artist, or an architect. Then I would get something good for moving, such as legos or clay etc. Then, I would have to worry about getting married. I don’t know what to think about writing that right now so I’ll get to that some other time. If youtube was still around, I would upload my movies to it. I might get into some sports, such as soccer and golf, whereas I might get better at the rubik’s cube and speed stacking (the stacking cups).

Rubik's Cubes

Photo from flickrcc

2011 and 2012 By Gus

Emerald+tunnelFlickrCC- Tsunami

A tsunami, I'm not sure if it is Japan.

           2011. Many things happened during this both exciting and disastrous year. The death of Steve Jobs was a major change. He created the Mac company and helped create Pixar. The tsunami and earthquake in Japan caused a nuclear power plant to be destroyed, and thousands of people had to evacuate. None have come back since. The ten year anniversary of 9-11 caused sadness and worry, since from recent years attacks have happened on anniversaries. 2011 was filled with events, and new technology and medications are being made. 2012 will be filled with new stuff, and I hope that it will be a better year than 2011. I am looking forward to 2012, and I hope you are too. It will be a year of new, a year of good, and let’s hope the real calendar doesn’t end on the Mayan. Let’s hope that the population doesn’t go much higher than the 7,000,000,000 that it is right now.

Sketchup by Gus

Sketchup is an architectural application that you can download for free from the internet. If you would like, you can spend the $500 on the sketchup pro, which I only suggest if you are an architect. In the plain sketchup, as of Sketchup 8, you can create just about any building you would like. You can use a circle, square, rectangle, or create your own shape. You can use a height tool to make a block.

At the start, you choose a template, and then you begin. You can choose from a plain architecture with feet and inches, or do another with meters. Once you begin, there will be a person, so that you can scale your creations. If you delete that person, you can just use the ruler tool to find out the dimensions. I won’t show you one of my creations, but below is a picture from flickrcc about a creation.

Modern+Suburbs+-+Model+One

A house made with Google Sketchup