Jean’s Sponsered Walk (by sarah)

Jean is doing a sponsered walk on Monday and as I am going to see very few people before then I thought I'd put the call out this way!

It's in support of World Vision's work in Ethiopia and is specifically a children's walk.

She's quiet excited about this but unfortunatly we got the form on Monday just after I'd seen loads of people over the weekend :/ and the last week - doh!

Anyway if you would like to sponser her - let us know and we'll put you on the list 🙂

A Planet in Paris (by sarah)

Jean came home from school announcing that we live on a Planet in Paris! She was most emphatic about this and when we asked her if she was sure and what did that mean she said, 'It means the worlds in danger'.

The school have learning themes - it turns out the current one is 'A Planet in Peril' - we couldn't stop laughing and Jean was most indignant you know in that way only 4 year olds can be!

Van calamity (by alaric)

Last Sunday, we attempted to go to Cheltenham in the van, as Sarah had a WoPoWriMo launch meetup to attend.

We're used to having to deal with ice on the hills leading out of our valley, as water from the farm fields tends to run off into the road; so if it gets cold, it turns into sheets of ice. There were a few patches of ice on the way up, but nothing like what I've managed in the past, so imagine my surprise when I turned a sharp bend onto a sheet of ice that spanned the entire road. The van promptly lost traction, so I stopped and attempted to gently reverse back around the corner to try a different route.

Sadly, the steering had no effect, quickly followed by the brakes; the van began a slow, graceful, unstoppable pirouette until it ended up like this, with the nose wedged into the bank:

That's looking down the hill from above. As you can see, I'd already done a bit of salt-spreading by the time that photo was taken; before I spread the salt, the ice was so slick that I couldn't actually stay standing if I got out the driver's side, I had to climb across Jean and get out the other side.

Sarah had a deadline, so headed off on foot to try and catch a bus, leaving me with Jean to try and free the van. I could reverse it as the rear wheels just span, despite me shoving some road salt underneath. I tried letting the rear tyres down, in the hope that a larger surface area in contact with the ground would help me get traction, but no luck.

So I proceeded to salt the ice sheet; if I could find somebody with a tractor of a 4x4, perhaps they could pull the van from above and get it free of the bank, then I could complete the turn and head off down hill. The salt began to melt the ice, and then salty water started to flow underneath the ice sheet, creating pretty patterns; and allowing me to wack it with my folding shovel to break it, at which point I found out it was a good half inch thick, even after being partly dissolved from beneath:

But the one tractor-owner I knew the number of wasn't answering, and another that a passer-by knew couldn't help, so I continued to try and get it free myself. I gave up on being able to drive backwards, so I took the folding shovel (it's actually a military surplus trenching tool. Good job I carry a military surplus trenching tool in the van, isn't it?) and dug the bank away to release it.

After making sure the ice was well gritted. I didn't want to be downhill of a tonne of van, working away at the one thing holding it in place, while it was on a slick icy surface.

After much digging (indeed, it was now two hours after getting stuck in the first place), with the steering wheel on full lock to the left and the rear wheels spinning, I managed to get the van out forwards, and set off down the hill. Surprisingly, the front of the van wasn't ruined, as I'd thought it might be:

Jean was surprisingly patient for a four year old strapped into a stranded vehicle while I worked away; I figured she'd be safer strapped in than running around on the ice with me, even if another car came and hit the van.

Home Schooling (by sarah)

With the school still shut due to the snow I thought I'd best take matters into my own hands and so have spent the last few days home schooling Jean.

I do an hour on each of the subjects I have chosen but tend to split that hour up into three with the focus on subjects. The time table stands at:

Writing and Word Structure

Number, shape and measurements

Art, craft, cooking and technology - or - Music and Drama

Reading and story time - or - World Studies

We also have P.E. each day which is when ever the time is right and has mainly consisted off going out in the snow and sledging or building snow castles and lasts as long as Jean wants to be outside!

Of course there is also break time and lunch involved in there somewhere.

Jean's told Alaric I make a good teacher except that a real teacher wouldn't shout :/

We have also been putting her in school uniform for this as she is more likely to site still as we are 'playing' school! Al is the headmaster she decided too 🙂

I sort of hope I'm covering everything to be honest - my main concern now is that she hasn't seen any other children to play with since my friend Buko visited just before this lot of on going snow!

High power LEDs (by alaric)

I've got a few 3W RGB LEDs that I've been meaning to play with, so over the Christmas break, I decided to hook 'em up to the bench PSU and have a play.

As I have but one variable bench PSU with current limiting, I could only easily light one LED at a time. I didn't have big enough resistors to build individual LED current regulation circuits - I just set the current limit on my PSU to 0.35A and cranked the voltage up until it maxed out, hooked up to one LED in turn.

They are certainly dazzlingly bright:

Since the green and blue LEDs both have the same forward voltage, I figured I might be able to drive them together by using a pair of resistors as a current splitter, and setting the PSU for 700mA, thus ensuring that 350mA went to each LED.

However, my 0.25W resistors started to smoke when I got to about 400mA, so I shut it off - if one of the resistors burnt out then the entire 400mA would go into the surviving LED, overloading it (until its resistor also burnt out), and possibly making the thing explode. I ended up with a nice pair of burnt-out resistors:

Which is a shame, because I'd love to see how bright the thing is at maximum, with all three LEDs going!

My lab partner was most impressed, and asked me lots of questions about current and voltage; I had to resist her demands to keep making things, so I could go inside and write this blog post: