3 Rs

Ready

Reliable

Reasonable

Sunday, December 13, 2015

BookaPalooza


This was the second year that the Writers Community of Durham Region (WCDR) hosted BookaPalooza. The event was held at Durham College-Whitby Campus, running from 10:00am to 4:00 pm on November 21st. The event was attended by the general public. With the variety of genres available coupled with readings and book signings, it promised to be a wonderful opportunity for shoppers looking for a gift to give during the Holiday Season.

I bought a book for my daughter by a gifted author and I sold one of my two books. 

For those of us displaying our books, the day was about networking and if you sold a book or two, that was a bonus.

I had a great time and conversed with many authors.


AstroNut Kids Space Club Mission #60

Each Mission that Ray organizes is 3 hours of packed science fun for the AstroNuts. The children range in age from 9 to 14 years. Mission #60 was held on October 25, 2015.

Scientist Stan's baskets prepared for his workshop
At 2:00 pm, Ray welcomes the group and makes a few announcements. Sometimes his son Brett makes the announcements.

At 2:15 pm Tim Harris updates the kids in the latest technological developments in his “What’s Up in Space” news reel that he creates himself.

At 2:30 pm, Astronomer Paul Delaney gave a brief talk about ”What’s Up With Being Down With Gravity” indoors.
The group goes outside to the back, grassy area of a school yard. Paul has designed two scale version activities using rope laid down almost the length of the field. He places one student at the start of the rope which is the Big Bang Theory, and assigns positions on a cosmological scale to modern humans. Students are placed at each point with a picture and a title of the period. The children get to visually see how short a period of time that humans have been present on this scale.
Assembling the control surfaces that will control roll, pitch and yaw
Paul’s second activity is to place the planets in order from that closest to the Sun to the eighth planet Neptune being the farthest.  This visual is very impressive.

At 3:30 pm we have the world famous, 15 minute Pizza Pizza break.

At 3:45pm, it is time to do my activity. I taught the children how to make a simple delta wing balsawood glider with control surfaces. Once built, the children took their planes outside and under Ray’s direction, flew them.

At 4:15 pm, Scott Sutherland showed pictures of various nebulae for his theme “Halloween in the Cosmos” also termed, ”Scary Stuff in Space.”

The children were delighted with all the activities as the program concluded promptly at 5:00 pm.


What a great way to spend a Sunday.