Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Homemade Stylus that works on tablets and touch screen phones!!!

         I love to play on my ipod touch during free time. I love drawing. But I hate drawing on my ipod toutch. There is this fun application for Apple devices called draw something which I love to play with my friend. We both are supposed to pick out of three things to draw and send it to one another so that we can guess. But the problem is, you don't have much control when drawing with your fingers so the pictures turn out messy. One thing that you can use to help drawing easier would be a stylus. But styluses that are manufactured are expensive.
         
         So I decided to look up online some instructions to make a simple stylus. I finally came a across one website (link at bottom of post) that showed me how to make my own stylus. All you need is a cotton swab, a cup of water, and tin foil. Heres how to make it:
  
       1.) Cut out a strip of tin foil (enough to wrap around the cotton 
                         swab, but not on top of the cotton)

       2.) Wrap the foil around the cotton swab (make sure the foil         
                         touches  the cotton but doesn't cover up the cotton)

       3.) Dip the cotton completely in water.

       4.) Enjoy your stylus!!! :) ^.^


                 Here is the link: http://www.labnol.org/gadgets/make-stylus-pen/19872/ 

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

2nd Star Party on Vista Hill





               On Saturday June 23rd I attended my first star party. On Saturday July 21st I attended my second star party. This one went a lot differently then I expected it to be. For one thing, two of my friends also came along so I had more company. But the drive to Foothill Park on Vista Hill had not gone as we expected. We left home at 7:30p.m. The Star Party would start at 8 o clock and the park entrance would close at 8:30. We took the same 280 North highway. But the GPS made us take a different exit from the one we took last time. So we came to a hill the we had to drive up. We soon ended up at a three way fork in the road at 7:45. We took one of the forks that went high up the hill. The GPS kept  telling us to go up the hill till it finally found our destination at 8:00. However, there was no entrance into the park. So we decided to keep going up. We finally reached the top at 8:25 finding no entrance into the park. We were thinking that perhaps we missed it. So we went down for a bit till we reached the place where the GPS said the destination was. But we still didn't find the entrance. So we decided to call up my friend (at 8:30) who had already reached the park. They were about to give us the the address to the place when the phone got cut of. So we decided to keep going down till we reach the highway and take the exit we took last time. When we came back to the fork we realized that we took the wrong fork.   So we took one heading a bit downwards. We finally reached the park entrance at 8:45. We were able to enter the park from a different entrance.


               Soon we found a parking space and had diner with my friends. Then my friends and I went up to see the telescopes. We first went to two telescopes that showed us Saturn. Then we went to some others in the back. There were two young cousins that had memorized the star chart and knew where many stars, planets, and constellations were.  They showed us Vega, M28, Saturn, and some other cool stars. Then we met another man that showed us nebulas, more m things, the sky cross which is a constellation shaped like a cross, and some other constellations.He also showed us the stars of the great dipper. When he was explaining how stars were born we saw a shooting star. It was my first one cause I allways miss them. This one was very bright and made a sound. Then we went back to the cars and started naming some constillations. Some included two story apartment, cheese, shopping cart, and toyota Prius. We finally went back home with happy memories and were glad that we found our way to the Star Party. 
A Sunset from Vista Hill.