Lego Art - Nathan Sawaya

Went to a really cool exhibition at the Amsterdam Expo last week, by American artist Nathan Sawaya who chose Lego bricks as his art medium. The work is really neat, as he does everything from recreating/reimagining classic paintings and sculptures, through to his own original work. With Lego, he uses a mix of both 2D and 3D depending on what he wants to impart. He has also recreated many famous sculptures including "David" and also "Venus de Milo."

An example of how Sawaya uses 2D and 3D to bring focus to different sculptures. On the left is Klimt's "The Kiss" and on the right "American Gothic." There were also ones like "The Scream" with the central character in 3D with the rest of the painting in 2D behind, and "The Wave" with layers of waves.

Sawaya will also use smaller or larger Lego bricks depending on the desired effect. On the left is a highly pixelated Mona Lisa with pretty large bricks. On the right Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is mostly 2D, with a large 3D pearl earring to put it clearly into central focus.

Bet you've never seen or imagined creating a Lego stained glass. Super cool.

A life-sized replica of Yo-Yo Ma's cello, and a very cute polar bear cub.

Some really cool work here. I really love both this swimmer and the "Disintegration" piece on the right.

Sawaya started in corporate law but saw the light and became an artist instead. Many of his personal pieces focus on breaking out a shell or conformity into a new world of your own passion and dreams. He also does most of his own sculptures in primary or monochrome colours, which has the effect of making them stand out in stark relief. The piece on the left also follows the "let your dreams be free" motif, but I kept coming back to "Man with Boy" on the right, with its use of a "toy" to sculpt such a serious scene.

And then there's this 6 m long T-rex!

ROBO MADNESS

Pelham Lego Robotics Team Takes First at Regional Competition

At this weekend’s Niagara Regional FLL (First Lego League) robotics competition, Pelham was well represented having 3 teams out of the 13 competing.  The Lego Da Vincis took the 1^st Place Champion award, in addition to the Robot Performance award, while their mentor team, Legolas, won the Rising Star award.
The competition consisted of 4 categories: the robot game obstacle course, robot design, project research and solution and core values, which includes problem solving skills, team work and ethics.  This year’s topic was “Nature’s Fury” so the teams had to research natural disasters, identify a problem and develop innovative solutions. The Lego Da Vincis have developed a solution to connect neighbours in the event of an emergency, so they don’t have to call 911 as often, and efficiently care for others in their community in times of crisis.  This initiative consists of a website to raise awareness on local emergency situations, how to plan a “block party” and how to construct an emergency preparedness kit.  They have presented this idea to the Mayor of Pelham and Fire Prevention Officer Saskia Holditch and have been invited to present it to Pelham Town Council on the 16^th of December.  Teams are also judged on their robot design, with one judge commenting that the Da Vincis “set the standard for programming efficiency.”  The robots compete against each other to complete autonomous tasks on the obstacle field.

3 teams advance to the East Provincials Competition on January the 18^th in Oshawa at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.  The Lego Da Vincis (a team from the home schooling community), the Fonthill Fury (composed primarily of St. Alexander’s students) and the Princess Margret Panther Bots from Niagara Falls. The 3^rd team from Pelham, the St Ann’s Stallions, made Pelham proud and took home the Robot Design award and put in a stellar performance in all other areas.

Congratulations to all students on the fruits of hard work and ingenuity!  Your community is cheering for you on January 18^th!

R2 D2

When we went to visit our Grandparents out in BC, our Uncle also came to visit them. When he came he brought the Lego R2 D2 for us to build together, so here are some pictures while we go along.

 This is when we are starting to set up, on the left you can see I am holding the THREE instruction books! This set has 2127 pieces. It has several moving parts including a retractable third leg, and a buzz saw. 

Here is us starting on the first few steps, in the first part it does is his body.

 This is at the end of the first booklet, in that we only do the body.

 on the left we have finished the retractable leg, and on the right we finished book 2 which was just the legs.

Here is a picture from when we are all finished.

1st Lego League

On Saturday we went to our First Lego league regional tournament, this was our first year of being a team, and we came first!! We had lots of fun, we had 4 robot matches and 3 judging sessions (Project, Robot design, and Core Values).  our robot started the day by being very crazy, but we figured it out by the 3rd round,in the third round we got 373 points, which put us in first place until we got bumped to 2nd. we had lots of fun, after all of the real matches were played, there was a little playoff which was just for fun we got to the finals and then lost to the team that beat us in the robot game. There were 15 teams at the competition, and every team got a medal. Since we came first we got the big gold trophy. We were one of five teams to qualify for provincials from this region; the five teams are The Lego da Vincis (us), The Fatima Falcons (the winners of the robot game), St. Alexander Senior Sleuths (also from Fonthill), St. Anns istallions (also from Pelham), and St. Philomena Bulldogs.

This is me doing the skit, with Connor beside me. I was playing the part of Dr. Adkin from Brock University.  I am in the big flat screen TV!! (which was made out of cardboard)

We all wore Christmas hats, and here is Jacob wearing his cute little elf hat.

Here is me, and Scott, doing the robot game, you can see part of the table in front of us. The rest of the team is where you would be standing in this picture to cheer us on.

Here we are at the Core Values judging session, There was one person who was behind a board, who had something built out of Lego, and the rest of the team was at the table, with one person building what the person who was behind the board said, and the rest were handing the "builder" pieces.

Here is me wearing a Santa Claus hat with my Flamingo sunglasses.

We came second in the robot game, so here we are at the playoffs which were just for fun.

Here is a picture of us at the robot judging session.

Here are me and Scott making some modifications to our programs.

This picture is of me and Jacob looking at the scoreboard.

On the left is Scott with the trophy, and on the right was me, The trophy was very breakable, because it wasn't glued together. 

On the left here is a picture of all 3 teams from Pelham, on the left is St. Alexander, in the middle is us and on  the right is the team from St. Anns. In the picture on the right is our team with the trophies.

Here is a picture of our 2 trophies.

This is at our after competition party.

here is a picture of our debriefing meeting.

More Robo Madness

Here are some more videos of our lego Mindstorm Robot doing the FLL Seniors Solutions missions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MId-yuS72A&feature=plcpthis mission does similarity, planting, dog push and chair return.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbszsk9_Rz8this one does blue quilts and chair grab

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gmUW-bpH4kthis one does orange quilts and retrieves the dog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOOMNcAaBBA this one does 5 things, it does cardio flexibility, bowling, weightlifting and stove.

FLL practice tournament

Last Saturday, we went to a practice tournament for our First Lego League team, which was in Hamilton. There were 3 teams, us the Lego da Vincis, Garf 12, and the BCA bots. There were also 3 trophies, so every team got one, (we got the teamwork one.) we have a video on YouTube, and we are also on Facebook. Check out the youtube video here!!. We had a great time, and the judges made some good suggestions.

The team consists of Me, Scott, Jacob, Jeb, Connor, Natasha, Alexander, Rowena, Emily, and Tim. we meet every monday, and every friday in the afternoons.

The Trebuchet

Here is our trebuchet, which we made from the Lego Mindstorms. it uses the NXT brick as the counterweight, and flings little pieces. It has a very simple design, and uses only 1 Servo motor, and the sound sensor. although I have added the 2 extra servo motors to the wheels, and also changed the wheels to treads, I got the design from a website called NXTprojects.com, It is actually called a catapult, but I think it is more like a trebuchet. It is sound activated, so when you make a loud enough noise, it will launch the projectile. So you can yell FIRE!! and it will launch without you even touching it.

Mannheim

Since our main focus in Mannheim was going to the Lego competition, we spent a lot of time at the Rosengarten convention centre but  we did find some time to wander around the city. The University is housed in very beautiful buildings, part of which was once the castle.  The nearby Jesuit church was being prepared for a wedding when we stopped in for a look and indeed it was an excellent June day for a wedding. The flowers in the parks were lovely.

We found the Angel of Peace sculpture "Friedensengel" by Gerhard Marcks which was removed from it's more prominent spot beside the Jesuit Church and hidden away in a non-tourist area (Mannheim, E6). It was created in 1952 to commemorate all those people who died violent deaths during the Nazi regime.  There is another memorial beside the Angel but it is only a dark block of rock and we didn't even realize we missed it until we were reading later.

We also found the Holocaust Memorial that is located in an equally strange place. It is right on the sidewalk of the ParadePlatz but it consists of a clear glass cube with names that are written so you would have to be on the inside to read. There is no identifying plaque and no one walking along this busy street even stops to consider it. There was supposed to be a plaque in the sidewalk, but we couldn't find it; maybe it was covered up by the construction boarding that was also placed along the sidewalk.

Mozart spent time in  Mannheim and that is being commemorated by a summer music festival advertised by these hot pink deer statues. Not sure about the design of these, but you can't miss noticing them.

Near the conference centre is a horseshoe shaped park dominated by the massive "water tower" (der Wasserturm).  The fountains, waterfalls,  and green arbours made this a very restful place in the centre of the city and it was a popular spot for wedding shots on Saturday afternoon.