Rock Study 1

Recently I came across these pen and ink sketches on deviantart: http://outsidelogic.deviantart.com/   (Warning: not all the people in some of the pictures are fully clothed!) I think his style is fantastic - very controlled lines - so I figured I'd try copying one to improve my own abilities. Here's my first try:

Rocky Landscape

Just messing around with the digital version of a pen and ink landscape sketch. I'll probably add more to this in the future.

A+

Today I watched a live streaming webcast of an interesting NASA test project. It's called the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (or LDSD). It's basically testing a new way of slowing down really large payloads to land on Mars. To simulate this, they launched the device (which looks like a large doughnut with a rocket engine sticking out of the middle) to 100,000 feet using a really big balloon. Once it reached altitude after a couple of hours, the device was supposed to drop off the balloon, light the engine, accelerate to Mach 4, inflate to make a bigger heat shield and deploy an immense 110-foot diameter parachute. Everything went pretty much according to plan except the parachute didn't unfurl completely.

What I found most interesting about the test, though, was something one of the commentators said afterwards. He said that in a test like this, a complete success is considered an "A", but a problem like the one they had with the parachute was an "A+", because it gave them a chance to learn something new. I'll definitely be using this example with my future classes.

Last Day of Camp

2014 Summer Camp, Week 1, is over! I would celebrate more, but this is kind of how I'm feeling right now (plus I have 3 more weeks to go)...

Soccer Fever, part 2

So the US lost zero to one

You would think that our hopes would be done

But because of the scoring

This game that’s so boring

Will provide us with hours more “fun”

Catfishin'

Tonight I'm busy working on a presentation for camp tomorrow all about DNA, which means once again I only have time for a quick doodle. Checkiday says that today is National Catfish Day, so that's what you're getting:

Koala Rocket

Another busy day at camp. Today the students built rockets, so here's a quick picture of a rocket. We didn't do anything remotely related to koalas, but they're cute so I put one on there anyway!

RoboBridge

Tonight I'm tired after our first day of summer camp. 32 5th-7th graders can sure keep a guy busy! We engineered paper bridges and designed robots on the computers, so here's a quick sketch of a giant robot crossing a bridge.

Soccer Fever

Soccer fever is thick in the air

In our game against Portugal there

Were two goals on each side

So it ended up tied

It’s a good thing I don’t really care

Personal Transformation

Another 3-panel picture for the deviantart transformation contest. For this one I dug up a series of pictures drawn at different times through my life to illustrate some of the changes I've gone through so far.

1982 - Age 10 - Artistic ability: minimal - Dreams: unlimited
2005 - Age 33 - Artistic ability: improving - Dreams: reality setting in, probably never going to be an astronaut
2014 - Age 42 - Artistic ability: still working on it - Dreams: looking forward to new challenges, family by my side