New Chess

These are the things I have learned in Chess:

• Skewering

• Castling Queen-side & King-side

• Forking (check and regular)

• The four-move checkmate

• En Passant

• Discovered Attacks

• Pinning

• The values of the pieces

A chess game is divided into 3 parts: the opening, the middlegame, and the endgame.

In the opening, it's important to castle quickly and to develop your pieces. Castling defends the king and allows the rooks to work together later on. Knights are important in the opening because they can hop over pieces on a crowded board. The most important thing is to control the middle of the board.

In the middlegame the bishops become more important.

In the endgame the rooks are very important and even a pawn if it's passed.

Queens are always important, BUT if she comes out too early your opponent can harass her all over the board while developing their pieces.

Frogs and Turtles

Yesterday I went to a science class on frogs and turtles with homeschooled kids.

It was 40 miles away it was really fun and interesting.

Here's a fact about turtles - a turtle's shell is like the brain of a turtle, so if the shell is cracked the turtle will die.

Here's a fact about frogs - frogs will cover themselves with all sorts of stuff(slime, pollutants,etc) to protect themselves from predators.

I saw a dead snapping turtle and a live turtle.

I heard 1 frog: a Spring Peeper.

Snap Circuts

As I said in the video, it is made of Snap Circuits.

I made it from the Snap Circuits Jr. and the green upgrade kit.

Some of the other fun projects you can make with the sets are:

Pressure Alarm

Laser Gun

Motion Detector

Funny GIFs

If you don't think these are funny, I was laughing out loud!

Lacrosse Lessons

On Saturdays I go lacrosse.

I need to wear: a helmet, a mouthpiece, gloves, elbow pads, shoulder pads, and cleats.

We do drills, practice catching, scooping, running, and throwing.

To throw accurately, you point the end of your stick at the target then push the top of the stick up straight up and over.

It's great exercise because I'm always tired and dirty at the end.

Exponents

Today I was doing exponents.

These are their properties:

x^a · x^b = x^a+b - Multiplying Powers

(x^a)^b = x^ab - Raising a Power to a Power

x^-n =1/xⁿ - Negative Exponents

Examples:

x³ · x⁷ = x³⁺⁷ = x¹⁰

(x⁵²)² = (x⁵²)² = x¹⁰⁴

x^-4 = 1/x⁴

3² · 3³ = 3⁵ = 243

(2³)² = 2⁶ = 64

4^-2 = 1/4² = 1/16

Imaginary Numbers

Yesterday I learned about i. We use it to describe imaginary numbers.

This is the definition of i:

i = √ -1 


Now if that is true, then the following is true:

i² =i· i = -1

i³ = i² · i = -i

i⁴ = i³ · i = 1

i⁵ = i⁴ · i = i

i⁶ = i⁴ · i² = -1

i⁷ = i⁴ · i³ = i³ = -i

i⁸ = i⁴ · i⁴ = 1

i⁹ = i⁸ · i = i

i¹⁰ = i⁸ · i² = -1

As you can see, every 4th power of i = 1.

So you can just divide i's exponent by 4 and the remainder will tell you the answer {1,i,-1,or -i}.

These are the questions I did yesterday.

A complex number has two parts - a real part and an imaginary part.

For example:

3 + 6i

I'll write another post on them later.

Stream Eroison

Last week I went to a class on Stream Erosion.

What they used is called a stream table. It was a slanted table full of sand with a faucet on the top.

There was 2 types of streams: the young stream and an older stream. The difference is the older one has been carved out a little by water.

Stream erosion is when water overflows a stream, the faster parts carry the boulders and the cobbles and the slower water carries the pebbles, sand, silt, and clay.

And this how a stream in the real world takes shape.

Look how small clay is, I bet you didn't know that!

Museum of Modern Art

Last Saturday I went to the MoMA with my friend in New York City.

I went on a kid's tour where we looked at paintings and they asked us what tools the artist would use.

It was fun but I didn't learn that much.

At the end there was a little playroom we played in.

At the very end we went to get lunch in a Burger Joint.

When we got home I visited my friend's house.

More Algebra

Now I am studying Polynomials.

Here is an example:

6x² - 7x + 1

Here is another example:

10x⁵ + 4x⁴ - 13x³ + .5² - 102

Each part of a Polynomial is called a Monomial. My dad calls them "terms".

The number in front of each term is called a coefficient.

The little numbers above the x's are called exponents.

When x-terms have the same exponent they can be easily combined by adding their coefficients.

For example:

3x⁴ - 17x⁴ = -14x⁴

(-1/3)x⁵ + (1/2)x⁵ = (1/6)x⁵

Two terms or two monomials, make a "binomial". (Bi - means two).

You can also multiply, divide, and factor Polynomials

Car Racing

Last week was my first Pinewood derby.

The Pinewood derby is where you make a wooden car then race it on a ramp.

I won 1st place in my den but I won 3rd against all the Tiger Scouts.

This is my video of my first Pinewood derby ↑.

Linear Equations

In algebra now I'm solving some equations with 2 variables.

For example:

x + y = 10

Here are some of the solutions to this equation:

(1,9)
(-3,13)
(9,1)
(1.5,8.5)
(13,-3)
(1000,-990)
(0,10)
(-33.2,43.2)
.
.
.

As you can see there are infinite solutions (x,y) to this equation. In fact, there are infinite solutions to any equation with an x and y.

The best way to describe these solutions is with a graph.

This graph is always a straight line that extends in both directions to infinity.

The easiest way to draw these lines is by computing the x and y intercepts.

All you have to do is set x equal to 0 and solve for y. Then set y equal to 0 and solve for x.

Then you have two points that you can connect to draw the infinite line!

For example, the intercepts of x + y = 10 are (0,10) and (10,0).

The other common way to graph a line is with slope-intercept form: y = mx + b where m is the slope of the line and b is the y-intercept.

Universal Theme Park

I went to Universal Studios 2 weeks ago in Orlando with my Dad and my sister.

There are 2 parks - Universal's Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida.

I was there for 8 hours!

I had a lot fun.

These were my favorite rides:

• E.T. ride

• Woody Woodpecker ride

• The Simpsons ride

• Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast

• Flight of the Hippogriff

• Pteranodon Flyers

This picture was taken in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I went to Mini Golf last week in Flordia.

I went with my dad, my sister, my grandpa, and my dad's godfather.

Watch the video above and see me get a hole in one after my sister got one.

It was fun.

At the end we fed the Alligators. But they didn't eat.

My Boat Ride

Yesterday I went on a boat ride.

It was 90 minutes long.

The boat ride was in Naples FL.

The weather was windy.

I saw big mansions.

We had lunch on it.

My Dad and my sister saw Dolphins but I missed them.

The boat was 2 years old and cost $4,000,000.

Yesterday I went to the Miami Seaquarium with Dad and my sister.

It is in Florida on Key Biscayne.

I saw 4 shows : the top deck Dolphin show, the Flipper show, the Sea Lion show, the Killer Whale show.

I liked the the Sea Lion show the best because it was very funny.

They even had Crocodiles that slept with their mouths open!

They had a little playground.

There were also sharks and stingrays.

My Dad and my sister fed the stingrays with shrimp out of their hands.

My Future

My future is:

• I'm going to search for buried treasure and gold.

• I'm going to be an archaeologist.

• I'm going to be a science teacher.

• I'm going to be a scientist.

• I'm going to be a builder.

• I'm going to have kids.

By the way, that picture 3.5 years old.

My Snow Fortress

New York has 2 feet of snow.

I built a fort out of snow at my house.

The fort was was really hard!!

First we made the wall.

Then we made the snowballs.

Then our fort was done!!

We stood behind the fort for protection and threw the snowballs from there.

It's going to last until it melts.

Christmas

My Christmas was good!! I was the first one to get up. Santa Claus left lots of gifts. I went to my Nana's house. I saw my cousins.
This is what I got for Christmas:

• Snap Circuit Rover

• LEGO Von Nebula

• LEGO Meltdown

• LEGO Typhoon Turbo Sub

• Nerf Gun

Legos

I made these two ships. The one here - LEGO Space Police Undercover Cruiser - I made from a box. The one below I made on my own and I used different kinds of Legos.

The one below I worked very hard on. It is fragile!!

This is not the final version.

The final version had much more features!!!

I just finished the second Charlie Bone book - Charlie Bone an the Time Twister.

This book is about time traveling, started by a marble in a game.

Somebody named Henry came from 1916 to Charlie's time.

This is now the biggest book I ever read - 402 pages. It is one more page than the first one.

The time twister is a marble filled with colors and is big and shiny.

My Biggest Book Ever!

This is the longest book I ever read - Midnight for Charlie Bone.

It has 401 pages. I read it in two and a half days.

It was about a 10 year-old boy named Charlie Bone who went to Bloor's Academy for gifted children.

His special power was that he could hear things from people in photographs.

Bloor's Academy is like Hogwarts from Harry Potter!

Thanks!

I want to thank everybody who has been ordering through the Amazon ads on my site and my Dad's site.

So far my commission for this month is already around $50.

Since I earn 6% of all orders, that means $50 is 6% of the total.

X = total

.06 · X = 50

Divide both sides by .06

X = 50 / (.06)

X = 833.33

So the total spent through my ads this month is about $833.

Thanks so much!

Pencil Ed

Me and my Dad are working on a story.

It is called Pencil Ed.

It is a probably going to be a graphic novel.

We thought about the Birth of Pencil Ed and a few other episodes.

There are other characters too:

Pencil Ed

Eraser Burt

Eraser Bette

Permanent Mark

Scissor Sisters

Crayon Man

Paint Boy

Lou Glue

Hope Soap

I don't want to tell you anymore because it might ruin the story.

Two American Biographies

I just read these books:

Daniel Boone lived from 1734-1820.

He was an American Pioneer who was most famous for exploring Kentucky.

He was also a soldier, politician, surveyor, and a merchant.

Benjamin Franklin was a paper printer.

He discovered electricity.

He played music.

He helped write the U.S. Constitution.