Those of you who have been following for a while know that we have a project we occasionally like to do where we make tiny hovercraft out of foam board, hot glue, plastic bags and mini quad copters. Friend of Pine Lake Mr. Tyler came up with an even better design using Lego quad copter parts. This version goes much faster and lasts much longer and we had a blast piloting the one that worked up and down the 1st floor hallways

This is what happens when I fail to impress how important it is that the skirt be airtight on the bottom. Down below is what happens when you make sure it is airtight.

The kids actually drove this one so much that the skirt wore through and we had to replace it. 

Hey hey people, I know it's after the break but I had neglected to tell you all about the cool stuff we did the week before break! 

My Good friend and fellow Assistant Site Coordinator, Nikki Bjorkland and IMS shared with me a great activity she had done over at her site. We went out into the woods and carved ourselves some walking sticks. Some of the kids who take wood shop with MR. Cress taught me a thing or two about the proper usage of sandpaper. We all had a good time covering the front porch in tree bark. Hopefully we can follow up by wood burning some cool designs into those sticks later on.

You all know we LOVE video games here at pine lake. Especially couch multiplayer games. Well we've got a new on for you. It's called "Bomb Bomb, my friends". It is a cute little game about animals throwing bombs and trying to stay on the level longer than their friends. Check out the Trailer https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/256725924/movie480.webm?t=1534469745

Thursday we delved into the world of Creepypasta with the SCP foundation. This is a collaborative community creative writing project where users can submit and workshop creepy paranormal objects, creatures and spaces with an enormous archive short stories and reports. I used to love these kinds of stories when I was in MS and it went over well with some of the kids. A few complained about the nonstandard storytelling format though. They asked me to bring more "normal" scary stories next time.

Finally on Friday we watched one of the greatest movies of all time, and a true inter-generational favorite (for real we had multiple parents walk in quoting along with the movie): The Princess Bride!

I hope everyone had a great break. I for one am happy to be back at PL doing cool stuff with the kids! 

Go Nuts With Donuts!

iYesterday we went up to the computer lab and played an interesting web app game about androids trying to fool investigators into thinking they are human. The Web app is located here:
interrogation.ftwinston.com/ 
It is based on the Kickstarter Card game "Inhuman Conditions":
https://robots.management/
Don't worry I didn't let any of the kids select the "swear" penalty

The game is quite fun even though some people cheated a bit when we first started. I try to tell them that just because you can do something doesn't always mean that you should. Anyways here is a video of us all playing yesterday.

Cooking Projects at !mpact

Woah 2020 sure snuck up on us. What a sneaky year it is. Hopefully we can get one over on it. We recently discovered that we had the ability to vacuum seal our staff inside trash bags. We told the kids they could do this only if they beat them at a board game. 

This was universally hailed as a great idea and well liked by all. It doesn't hurt that it is copying a TikTok video.
The kids also made clay shrunken heads, which I did not get pictures of, but then they drew heads all over the white board. I did get some video of that

I meant to take a picture but technology is hard sometimes; you get it.

Pine Lake Secret Snowman!

Winter is upon us and madness may have set in. 

Veterans of the Impact program will remember that every year each site produces, writes, directs and acts in a short film. Totally kid driven, but with the guiding hand of adult feasibility checking. It is one of our proudest moments all year when we get to screen those films together in a real movie theater and then present awards for all sorts of categories. Our own Oscars ceremony, complete with tiny golden men! 

Here is an extremely old video of what it was like BEFORE we started renting out a theater. You might be surprised to hear it, but we here at Pine lake are AHEAD of the curve on this years festival. We've just completed casting on our spy movie thriller and our script looks mighty fine. I can't really reveal too much more (the walls have ears you know) but rest assured I will keep you posted on any further developments. I HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL AT THE OSCARS.

Last Time I talked about this on blog we were playing the star wars edge of the empire RPG. These days it's a little different. We're playing two separate RPGs every monday, one of which is entirely student led!

The first rpg we play is Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. Led by me! Each kid has their own custom made adventurer character which weird abilities and powers. They do their level best to emulate their favorite Anime characters. The kids tell me that it is their favorite time at impact all week. One of them told me yesterday: "I would rather do this than free time". 

The second, which is entirely created by students, is of course a Harry Potter RPG. They made everything up themselves and apparently one of them is a werewolf. I keep half an ear on what their doing but also try and give them space to do it in. There is an awful lot of shouting coming from their table each week.

I told them they had a small budget for their game. They asked me to buy them the above spell book and this ridiculous die above. I don't know what they use it for but it sure is huge and unwieldy.