Circle Squared

Hello Everyone!

Have you ever participated in a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)? Well I have and I'm going to tell you all about it! 

It all started when my mom signed up to be a student at Stanford University. She signed up to be on a class about creativity called Crash Course on Creativity with professor Tina Seelig. I actually brainstormed with her on a few assignments. My favourite assignment was the one where we had to take 2 random household items and invent a new sport.

 I started thinking about a summer biathlon like riding a skate board and shooting targets with a bow and arrow, but that was kind of dangerous. Instead we created a sport called Circle Squared! Circle Squared is a game where there are Hula Catchers and Record Players, the recored players have to throw a vinyl record into the hula catcher's hula hoop. The hula catchers earns points by catching the record in different ways. When a hula catcher catches the record he gets one point. When he doesn't, he looses one. A crouch catch earns him 2 points. An overhead catch earns him 5 points. A catch on one leg earn him 10 points! When someone performs a successful catch on one leg, another hula catcher joins the game! Then the hula catchers compete for points. Whoever gets 63 points wins the game! Fun

Fact: We decided to make it 63 points because the hula hoop was invented in 1963.

Hope you liked this presentation on Circle Squared, and if you have the materials, play the game! Or... create your own! 

Bye!

Interior Surfing, Like a Boss

Hey Guys!

WOOOSHHHHHH!!

That's the sound of the flowing water in an interior surfing area.

As you probably guessed by the title, I'm going to talk about the time I went to my first interior surfing activity.

One day, I was just outside when suddenly, I started thinking about interior surfing. So I researched places where you could go interior surfing, and I found this place called Maeva Surf in Laval.

I asked my mom if we could go and she said yes! So we drove to Laval and stopped at a nearby restaurant to eat. To be honest with you guys, I felt really excited to be there. So excited I thought my head would explode! Okay, back to the main subject. I arrived there 15 minutes early. Then when it was finally 2:30 (the time we were supposed to be there) I changed into my bathing suit and went up to the platform. The instructor showed us a couple of tips to get started and some cool tricks we could do. 

Here's a picture of me the first time I tried to do the Flow board. The Flow board is essentially a surf board, but a bit harder since you're not riding the wave, you're fighting the wave.

This is another picture of me again, but this time, I'm on the body board. The body board is a board on which you lay less than half your body and the rest of your body is just in the air. Each time I think of it it makes me laugh;  its a "Body Board", but your body barely touches the board.

Here are some videos of my falling fails! 

This one shows the Flow Board fails.

And this one the Body Board fails

My heart was pumping so hard because it was really exciting to try this extreme sport for the first time. 

I hope you liked this little presentation of my first time interior surfing. Bye!

Huron Wendat Village

Hey Guys!

Today I thought about writing about my badges, but unfortunately I can't find my Cub shirt. Instead I'm going to talk about my Huron Wendat Village!

It all started about a year ago when I was learning about aboriginal people (Huron Wendat especially) when suddenly, I decided to make my own indigenous village. I started looking for ways I could make a totem for my village. Then, I learned about their buildings called teepees and long houses.

After all my research, I gathered materials to make the village. To begin, I carved and painted the totems to add some life to the village. 

Next, I made a teepee. It was really fun to draw animals on the cloth.

I learned a lot form this experience. For example, the turtle is a sacred animal to the Hurons. 

If you think that was cool check out this next part! I also made campfires and racks to store animal fur. Once I was done, I channeled a nearby pond into the middle of the village and it became a miniature river. I also created an area for them near the water so that they can grow their crops. 

I Hope You Liked This Little Presentation Of My Huron Wendat Village.

Bye!
 By the way if you want to learn more about the Huron Wendat check out this link: Huron Wendat

Minecraft Guide

Have you ever made a Guide about something? If not, I'm going to show you this cool one I wrote a couple of months ago. I'm going to talk about my Minecraft Guide! It all started when my mom told me I was talking too much about Minecraft, so I decided to write a guide with some of my knowledge of the game. I started writing about the basics like: how to make a house, harvest wood, make tools, and some important things to be aware of. It was hard to start this guide, but when I reached the end of making this, I felt accomplished. You know what? I'm not going to tease you any longer. Here is a link to my Minecraft Guide so you guys can read it.

Hope you enjoyed it and that you learned something new, so post in the comment section down bellow what do you think I should add or if it inspired you to make one. Bye!

Camping with the Cubs

Hello Everyone! Yesterday, I came back from a camping trip with the Cubs. It all started Friday when my dad and I packed our stuff and got ready for our first camping trip of the year. Then Saturday morning we drove down to the campsite.

 We arrived there at about 10:00 AM. Since my dad is a Cub leader we started the campfire and rebuilt the broken kitchen area. At about 11:00 AM we collected firewood and played games.

At lunch we all gathered around the campfire and cooked our hot dogs. Then at 1:00 we made a fire competition to see who was best at making fires. My teammate and I won 2nd place. It was like taking candy from a baby.

Next, at around 2:30 my dad surprised us with bannock, an aboriginal bread, and we cooked it on sticks over the fire. It tasted great. The outside tasted like normal bread, but the inside tasted like cheese.

The next thing that happend was really awesome. The leaders gave us compasses and challenged us to find pieces of papers hidden throughout the forest. On each piece of paper there were coordinates to the next one. I was in the Yellow team so we had to find the yellow paper. We won the race because the other team forgot to pick up their pieces of paper so they had to go back collect them. We also found golf ball (WIN)!!!  From my point of view I think this was to test our orientation skills.

After all that, we started to make dinner (chili and caesar salad). Next we hade some hot chocolate for dessert. It was really outstanding. Then Akela and Baloo told us stories about the monsters who live in the woods. They called them the "Wa-Ha-Hoo-Ees". Some kids got freaked out, but I knew it was only a story.

By that time, it was dark out, so my friends and I went into our tent and started doing everything we needed to do in order to go to sleep. Since it was raining it was a bit hard to fall asleep but eventually everyone was snoring.

Sunday morning, it was freezing outside so we made a fire to keep everyone warm. Afterwards my dad decided to prepare a snack. We actually cooked our own raisin and cinnamon toast! Then we ate the real breakfast meaning; bacon, pancakes, watermelons and even some more hot chocolate. Then, we all packed up to go back home. It felt thrilling to be camping again.

Hope you liked this short story of my Weekend. Next time, I'll talk/show all the badges I got Bye!

Behind The Scenes

Have you ever experienced the feeling of being on TV? Well I have and I'm going to tell you all about it. Last year my mom surprised me with the tickets to go to my favorite TV show, Génial! It was filmed in June but broadcasted in September. Honestly, it was an amazing experience.

Génial is a show where people do scientific experiments so that we (the audience) learn something.

First, let's talk about what happend before I went to the studio. It was a sunny day the birds were chirping and it was just a nice day... When suddenly, my mom comes up to me and says :"Come on, let's go!"

Intrigued, I asked:"Where are we going"?

"Its a surprise!"she exclaimed. She told me to dress nicely because we were going on an adventure.

We drove all the way to Montreal but I still didn't know where we were going. We stopped at the TéléQuebec studios and at that point I knew what was going on. Only at that moment did I realize that we were going to watch Génial LIVE. I was so excited that I thought my head would explode!

Here are some pictures that are both funny and cool.



This is when I arrived at the studio.

This is a funny picture of Stéphane Bellavance, the host.

This is Martin Carli, the scientist.

These guys are engineer from ETS and they help with the experiments.

 Here's something interesting, this is the set behind the scenes. Notice the cameras. There were 5 in total.

This is their awesome logo.

This is a picture of me and Stéphane after the show.

This is another picture of me but with Martin. He gave me part of his notes from on of the experiments.

My dad and I got to hold this tarantula.


















I felt great to first of all be on TV but also to meet a lot of cool people.
It was an amazing experience!

Next time I'm going infront of the camera :)

My New Bike!

Saturday Morning, we went to go check out some garage sales to find some treasures. First we went to go look for a new bike, because my old one was too small. We started near the center of the village, but since we didn't find anything interesting, we decided to go to the next village.

Only then did we find my new bike! It had 24 speed and 16 inches on the wheels, at 40 bucks! It was the best bargain I could ask for. Since then I have ridden on my bike everyday.

Sunday Morning, we hade our own garage sale and I decided to sell my old bike. I sold it for 25 dolars. I was kind of sad to let go of that bike for 25 bucks, but I was so happy with my new bike that I barely noticed that it was sold.

Yesterday (Tuesday) My dad showed me how to both prepare and fix my bike. It was fun to learn this skill and it also helped me to earn my cyclist badge at Scouts.

Today, we went on a bike ride to test it out. On our way back home we spotted 2 hares, I researched what it meant as a totem animal and found out that people with the hare totem have a "pure spirit".

These last days were pretty fun. I hope you guys have a good day. Bye!

My Halloween Costume

Hello everyone! 

Today I'm going to talk about last year's Halloween costume. This costume is inspired by a video game called Minecraft. Minecraft is a game where you have to survive and thrive in a blocky world. I chose to be Steve, the human character from the game. 

Since it was a complicated costume to make, we decided to make it a family project. First, my dad went to gather the cardboard boxes we needed to create the body, the head, the pickaxe, and the creeper bag. Then my job was to measure the original drawing and to make it to scale,I had to calculate the area and then draw it to scale on the larger box. Then, my mom painted it with gouache. Finally I added Mod Podge to seal it and to protect it from the rain.

By the way, you can visit my mother's site at Avoxtar.com; she's a great artist.

It took us about one and a half hours to make, but honestly it was worth it! I was very excited to wear this costume because Minecraft is my favorite game.

We decided to go trick-or-treating in Montreal this year because my aunt said lots of people give out candy in her area. Unfortunately, we didn't find any haunted houses, but it was still a blast being there.  I think this year I'm going to enter my first haunted house. Two years ago, I came across one at Halloween, but I was so freaked out I didn't even want to be close to it!

Many people recognized my costume, but most of them thought it was a robot :( I felt disappointed, but putting that stuff aside it was a great night.  

Anyway guys I hope you have a nice day. Bye!