Bromeliad

Bromeliads
Aaron Shepard

Outline:
A. Introduction
1. Why I like bromeliad
2. How bromeliads are important to ecosystem
B. What do bromeliads eat?

1. Microbes from air

2. Water from rain

C. Where do they live?

1. Warm, wet climates

2. Tropical climates

D. What do they look like?

1. Large flower or fruit in center when fully grown

2. Roots snaking out

a. Wiry grasping roots

b. Water and nutrient collecting

E. Reproduction

1. Bees

a. Pollinate flower using legs

2. Ants

a. Eat fruit and spread seeds around

3. Humans

a. put plant at 25º degree angle, let roots grow into soil

F. Uses

1. Food

2. Protection

3. Decoration

4. Meat tenderizer

5. Money

G. Conclusion
1. experience of bromeliads
2. Opinion on bromeliads
3. Try it!

Protozoa

Objectives: To make careful observations of protozoa moving and to practice using a microscope.

Predictions:

If I look through a microscope at some pond water I think I will see lit up green pond water with bits of green and gray speckling it. I also think the gray bits will be protozoans that will move in random directions.

Observations:

It took a long time to find some protozoa. Mom, Sarah, and I tried taking a sample of water from the pond in our backyard, but we couldn’t see any protozoa. The same thing happened with a sample of fish-tank water and also with a sample of rain water soaked in leaves. Finally, Dad, Sarah and I scoured the pond for a water sample that had protozoa in it. We finally found it by our cat tail reeds. Here is what they looked like:

The top protozoa is a Euglena because it has a tail and it swims. The second one is a Amoeba because it changes shape to move. The third one is a Paramecium because it is covered in small hairs that move when it moves.

Results:

Compared to my initial predictions, the water was a different color. Instead of lime green, the water was clear.

The first thing I noticed about the water sample was that there were fast moving black dots running across the view screen.

Compared to my predictions, I saw a lot more life than I expected. The most surprising thing I saw was protozoa that looked like it was splitting in two, but was not.

I found at least ten protozoa, but only about four kinds of them.

I found several different methods of moving that were common among the protozoa. Some of the protozoa changed shape to move, some were covered in little hairs, and some didn't seem to have any way of moving, but still zipped around like little bees.

My favorite protozoa was a see-through green color and seemed to be in the process of splitting in two. I liked that it spun in circles like a fan, and appeared to be eating a black string of plant.

Conclusion:

Protozoa are one celled organisms, but that does not stop them from moving in all directions. Protozoa swim, crawl, or change shape to move in what appears to be an intricate ballet.

My First Mystery Story

Chapter 1
A Mystery Car

Tim was in the middle of lunch, looking out the window at the landscape of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, when he heard the boom. He jumped up, and ran outside into the snow, just in time to see a red, cadillac-like flying car crashing through his living room where he was eating just seconds ago. Shocked, he collapsed to the snowy ground, unconscious.

About a week later, at the Center for Disease Control in Ohio, scientists had tracked a mysterious virus back to a recently destroyed cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The virus made all animals it infected go insane and act like they had rabies for several days, before they turned black and started drinking blood. Whenever they met others of their kind, they melded together into one, larger model of one of them. An example of this is a that a turtle and an octopus with the disease were kept together in a cage and they mixed together, creating a black turtle with tentacles. Nobody knew where the virus came from. Some people believed it came from the past, but this was quickly dismissed by skeptics.

A few months later, a scientist called the CDC. He said, “I’ve got one of those creatures in my basement... -(static deleted)- ...come look before I’m infected... -(static deleted)- ... Bye!”

The scientists took several samples of the creature’s virus, and looked at records of virus’s and announced, to the astonishment of everyone, that the virus was from about 75 million years ago. Now, to figure out how it got here...

Chapter 2
The Detective

A detective named David worked for the CDC, and because he worked part time, was considered expendable. Because of this, he was chosen to go investigate the cabin with minimal disease protection equipment. When he got there, he discovered human footprints leading away from the house and a circular swirling vortex of purple floating above a pine tree in front of the ruins. He discovered it completely by accident, while climbing a tree to get a good look at the house. David was nearly at the top of the tree when a clawed hand grabbed him and pulled him up to the top of the tree. The last thing, he saw before he descended into blackness was the swirling vortex rushing up to meet him.

Look at Book 2 (Or post 2) to see more of this adventure!

Telescopes

Objective: To make a simple telescope and explore how it makes far away objects larger.

Predictions:

The two lenses are round and see through.

There are eight tubes.

I think the tubes are used to build the telescope.

I think I will be able to see three times farther with the telescope.

Observations:

To start our observations, we went to the EMU’s campus and compared looking at things with our eyes and looking at them with the telescope we had made.

First up, a sign. As you can see, the telescope allowed me to see the sign much better.

Next, one of those plastic windmills impaled on the bank of the pond.

Third, a patch of flowers.

Next, a canadian goose.

Fifth, a reed.

To see the night sky, unpolluted, we went to the University of Michigan’s Peach Mountain Observatory. We made a few comparisons between looking at the sky with our eyes and looking at it with telescopes.

With my eyes, I could nearly make out a square of stars in the sky.

With our little telescope, I could see this.

With my eyes, I could see this. (Jupiter above the red line, trees below)

Looking through a commercial telescope, I could see this. (Jupiter's moons are circled in red)

With my eyes, I could see this. (cloud circled in red)

Looking through a 24 inch telescope, I saw this. (24 inches is the diameter of the telescope)

Results:

Building the little telescope was very easy. I think that the commercial and large telescope that we used were much harder to put together than our little one.

My telescope starts out fuzzy when viewing things and gets fuzzier as you zoom in on anything. The commercial telescope had no such problems and was very easy to use. The large telescope was very hard to line your eye up with the view port and if you moved, you would lose the picture.

I was able to discern more detail with the telescope than without them.

Using the telescopes, I saw that Jupiter had multiple moons and that what looked like a cloud was actually a group of stars.

Conclusion:

Three things changed from when I looked at the objects with my eyes and when I looked at the objects with a telescope: light, colors, and space. 

The telescopes all had something in common, they all resolved what the stars look like.

Circles of Corners

Here is another work from the (rather messy) Lego workshop. Today it is a ring made out of Lego corner wall pieces.

The ring, as you can see, has an interesting star shape in the center of it.

It is a very strong connection. In the process of making it, I dropped it several times on the floor, but it did not break. Try it!

Circles and 3.14159

Today I made a Lego circle, the fueled by one my mom's comments on Desi, our dog, while he was spinning in circles. 

Here are pictures of the segments used to make the circle. Both pictures feature slightly different models for a highly functional bendable circle segment. The first picture shows the upper facing segment, and the second shows the lower facing segment.

P.S. Today our dog was spinning in circles, so my mom said, "If I ever get another dog, I'll name him 'About 22/7'.".

My Blog Future

For about the next year, my blog will become less and less Lego oriented and more and more computer oriented. At this stage, I plan to make my blog nearly all computer oriented. Instead of seeing Lego things every day, you will see "Programming Tips".

When I do Lego models, they will be built with either Lego Digital Designer or LDraw. I will probably reprogram my blog to be easier to use. I hope this sounds good to you. It sounds great to me!

Cicadas and Wraiths

Today I used two new techniques to make some space Lego models.

This is the top of my space fighter I call "The Wraith"

Here is my new technique. I attach a lego piece with a hole straight through it and then attach lego pieces on both side of it.

Here is what I call a Wraith Cicada. It uses an lego orc flag as a shell.

Here is how I attached it to the body.

Phoenix

Here is my phoenix lego model.

My lego phoenix model has three parts. Here is the details part.

This is the base. It sculpts the pit of fire the phoenix comes out of in this picture.

This is the layout. It shows where things will go.

Generals, Archers, and Builders

Here are three more custom minifigures for today.

This is my general minifigure. His rubber band belt wraps around a stud in his legs.

Here is my painter. He has the painter body, but with one leg replaced by a peg leg.

I'm not sure who this is. She could be an elf or a forester. She has custom hair made with a backwards beard piece.

Who Needs Light?

Objectives:

To observe the effect of the absence of sunlight on a plant by comparing a plant with sunlight on it to one without. The control plant is the one in the sunlight and the unknown is the lack of sunlight. 

Predictions:

A plant needs these three things to survive: sunlight, soil, and water in the right amounts.

I think that if a plant didn’t get any sunlight it would be unable to get food and would die in three days. After one day its leaves would change color, the day after that they would turn brittle, and the day after that, they would turn brown and fall off the plant.

Observations:

We have two pansy plants, one labeled “A” the other “B”. 

One has yellow flowers and the other one has purple flowers. The flowers have three or four smaller petals and one bigger petal.

The plants have green stems with thicker stems in the center of the pot with thinner stems coming out from them. The stems have buds on them, and curly leaves.
The plants have approximately 30 leaves on a stem with approximately 15 stems each, so the plants have approximately 500 leaves each.

Monday, September, 10th: Each plant is getting a half cup of water. Plant “A” is staying on the table in the sunlight and plant B is downstairs in the very dark closet.

After one day, nothing changed.

After a week, nothing changed on plant “A” but on plant “B” the stalks looked a little ghostly. Each plant is getting a half cup of water. Plant “A” is staying on the table in the sunlight and plant B is downstairs in the very dark closet again.

Two weeks after starting, plant “B”s leaves are turning clear then brown and then falling off, while plant “A”s leaves are turning yellow then brown and falling off. The stems of plant “B” are in the process of being bleached clear while the stems on plant “A” are staying green. Plant “A” is staying on the table in the sunlight and plant B is downstairs in the very dark closet again.

Three weeks after starting, plant “B” has turned mostly brown with brownish-green stems and leaves and dark-blue and white flowers, while plant “A” has green and light green stalks and leaves and has several yellow wilted flowers on it. Plant “A” feels soft and does not make sound when touched, and plant “B” faintly crackles and feels rough when touched. Plant “B” is dead.

Results:

At the start of the project, plant “A” and plant “B” looked the same except that plant “A” had yellow flowers and plant “B” had purple ones. After a week, the stalks on plant “B” started to turn ghostly looking and plant “A” stayed the same. After two weeks, plant “B” looked more ghostly and the leaves were turning clear then brown and falling off. Plant “A”s leaves were doing the same thing, except they were turning yellow instead of clear. The stalks on plant “A” stayed green. After three weeks, plant “B” died and plant “A” stayed the same as it had a week ago.

Conclusion:

Compared to what I saw, my overall prediction was correct. The plant died without sunlight. 
I predicted that the leaves on the plant would change colors, turn brittle, then turn brown and fall off and I was correct. I didn’t predict anything other than that, but the leaves turned clear before they turned brown, and the stems on the plant turned clear.
I predicted that this change would happen over a series of days, but in truth it happened over a series of weeks.
From my experiment, I can conclude that a plant needs sunlight to survive.

Custom Knights

Here are three custom Lego minifigures for today.

Here is my first knight. He uses a strap pushed over his armor to carry a second sword.

Here is my first archer. He has a quiver on his back over his armor.

Here is another knight. He carries a custom sword.

The sword is made of three parts. A flat, circular plate, a lightsaber handle, and a large, gray spike. 

Beans

Objectives: To predict and carefully observe how a seed grows and compare my observations to my predictions.

Predictions:

I think that if you put a bean in a glass with a damp paper towel on the bottom, the bean will lay on the bottom and after a few days, the skin will wrinkle up, the bean will turn gray, and the bean will die. I do not think the plant will sprout. Here is a picture of what I think will happen.

Observations:

The outside of the bean is brown, and has a ring around it lengthwise, where two halves of the bean meet. There is a white patch in a little indentation where the two halves meet. The bean has one flatter side to it. Here is a picture of my bean.

The cross section of the bean has a milky white interior and where the white patch is, there is a little packet of brown. The skin looks very thin on the cross section.

Monday, September 17: The beans are in a glass bottle upstairs. The beans are on their sides. Here is picture of the beans in the bottle.

Wednesday, September 19: One of the beans sprouted a root. Here is a picture of it.

Thursday, September 20: The two other beans sprouted roots. Here is a picture:

Friday, September 21: The roots on the beans got bigger. Here is a picture:

Saturday, September 22: The roots on the beans grew roots. The plant is growing upward.

Sunday, September 23: The bean appears to be climbing out of its skin!

Monday: The beans grew stilts!

Tuesday: The beans have grown leaves and eaten up their shells.

Saturday: The beans grew so tall that we had to take off the lid. The brown bean cover fell off the bean and fell to the bottom of the jar. The roots of the bean wrapped themselves around the inside of the jar. Four leaves grew on the stem of the bean and stem of the bean grew thicker.

Results:

After two days in the jar, the beans started to grow roots out of the side of it. After two more days, the bean grew a stalk upwards and white roots began to edge their way downward into the paper towel. After another day, the bean’s protective cover began to come off. Next, the beans stalk grew and pushed the brown protective shell up toward the top of the jar. Finally, the leaves came out of the protective shell and the shell fell to the bottom of the jar. The leaves grew out the sides of the stalk and up. The bean was now a seedling.

Conclusion:

The bean did not do what I predicted. Instead, the bean grew into a seedling. 

I learned that the white stuff in the bean is called an embryo that houses the food that is needed to grow the stem, the roots, and the leaves. The reason the the stem grew upwards towards the sun and roots grew downwards is because there are different types of molecules in each part of the plant that tell the roots to grow downwards and the stem to grow upwards.