Prize Night at Mosman

It was Awards Night at Mosman High last night. Callum won three prizes - for History, Technology and Maths.

More Christmas

We had Christmas 11 days early today, with stockings in the morning, and Christmas lunch with grandparents and uncles. Grandma and Grandpa came early so that Grandma could make a gingerbread tardis with the boys. Which was extraordinarily successful.

Continuing the Dr Who theme, Declan is also pictured with his Dr Who scarf in front of his cardboard cutout tardis.

A good time was had by all.

Callum's report

Callum brought home an excellent report: As the Principal's comment put it "Callum has achieved a simply stunning report". He came first in Geography and in Technology and was in the top 10 for almost everything else. He came second in Year 10 Maths, missing out on being equal first by 1 mark.

Even better than the marks were the appreciative comments from the teachers about his attitude, his friendliness and his participation in classes. 

Science prize

For the second year running Declan received a special award for science at his school's annual prize ceremony.

White Christmas in November

Our group of friends has an annual Christmas lunch. Social commitments (mostly child related) meant that this year we couldn't get closer to Christmas than the end of November, and even then Claire couldn't come.

But the remaining 15 of us had lovely afternoon at the Lees' place. It even hailed for half an hour so we had a white Christmas!

Callum's timetable program

Callum was searching around for another project after he finished his map program. So he and Evan came up with the idea of building on that and making a timetable program.

Here is the link.

You put your timetable into the program, and the program keeps track of where you should be and which day and week you are in.

Extra innovations that Callum has now added are a todo list for students, and a homework list for teachers (with due dates) which all show you how long you have to finish each task.

And of course, it links to the original map program, so that you can see just where your classroom is that you have to go to next.

The Principal was so impressed she is giving Callum a slot at the Year 7 Orientation day next year to present it to students.

Presentation to the Premier

After the boys wowed the Pearcey awards, NICTA ,one of the sponsoring organisations, has been very keen to show case more of the Young ICT award winners.

So when the NSW Premier was visiting NICTA this week, they asked the BIN IT! team to come and present to the Premier. He was hugely impressed, and responded to Nick's request for help (which was part of the speech adapted for the occasion) by asking NICTA how he could help them.

They've suggested that the Premier write to every school in NSW saying that they should be doing programming, and they can use the BIN IT! site for ideas of what they can do.

Young ICT Video

When the boys went to the Young ICT awards in August, they were part of a video about the event. That video is finally up on the website. It features Declan's Binit team going up for their prize about half way through, and Nick (from the Binit team) speaking about the whole thing with accompanying video of the three of them.

Callum didn't make it to the video. Next year he needs to be in a team!

New Boots

It seems as if every time we go for a walk, Callum and/or Declan have grown out of their boots. So last weekend, as we were buying last minute warm things for our Christmas trip, we also had to buy both Callum and Declan a new pair of boots.

This morning, we went  for a walk to walk them in; they went pretty well (and it was also a beautiful morning!).

Declan's feet are now officially as big as mine, according to shoe size. Callum's are slightly smaller because they are narrower.

Nice article about the boys

https://au.oneshiftjobs.com/blog/514/the-next-generation-of-entrepreneurs/

Bonus Julia and Declan post

I've just been sorting out our photos a bit, and came across this series of Julia and Declan swordfighting.

More maths

Evan and I banned my parents from rote teaching a particular maths formula (the integral of one upon xdx is log x plus a constant if you are interested) to Callum and Declan, on the grounds that it was bad enough that they taught it to me and Andrew and Robert.

So, undeterred, they decided to teach them a different one - that e to the power of iΠ = -1. Callum and Declan can both give you the correct answer if you ask them what it equals.

Callum's mind was just blown away the other day when I pointed out to him that he now knows each of those individual terms. He couldn't believe it was true. Sadly, the maths to prove it is beyond me (which I assume means you have to at least get to second year university maths) so it could be a while before he can actually understand it.

Maths homework

Declan has suddenly started getting homework again (I think his new teachers forgot, but someone told them they still have to do it, despite being term 4 of year 6).

So Declan had five tricky maths problems to do this morning. One of them involved placing lines carefully to split 11 crosses into individual spots. After trying quite a few different methods, including googling, he had pretty much given up. I tried googling too, and didn't find the actual answer, but a clue involving circles.

So we enlisted Callum, who converted the clue into a potential answer, which Declan then tested by using a ruler. Turned out it was right! Team work plus Dr Google supplied the answer.

We made a Christmas tree

Because we're going to be away at Christmas we've brought the whole event forward by a couple of weeks. That includes some early decoration.

So for the last couple of weeks we've been making a tree that fits our house. We took some electrical conduit and made two circles. We then joined them together with some picture-hanging wire. Lots of little bits of ribbon provided spots to hang decorations. The whole thing was then decorated and hauled up to the ceiling.

Total cost was less than $10. Fun in doing it was, as they say, priceless.

It is also worth noting that we got a glitter-covered parrot to sit atop the whole thing. Not because any of us really liked it or thought it was Christmas-y but because it meant a pleasant few minutes could pass with the kids doing the dead-parrot sketch. Callum does a pretty good John Cleese accent now.

A visit to Google

After the Pearcey Awards, Declan was chatting to Genevieve George who is the winner of an impressive array of entrepreneurial awards and serious financial backing for her business. He mentioned that Google had not responded to a letter that he'd written asking to visit - she said she'd fix it. The next day we had an invite to visit the Google offices.

So last Friday Cal, Dec, Nick and Nikita (with me riding herd) went and visited the Google offices. They were exactly as advertised, just bursting with cool features from arcade game rooms, through to hidden passageways behind bookcases, through to scooters and Dr Who art.

Declan came away reinforced in his belief that he either want to work for Google or start up his own company that makes enough money to do all the cool stuff too.

Sailing

Declan has taken to sailing with Nick Palmer on Saturday afternoons. Nick has been doing it for a while, and has persuaded Declan to join him as crew. This week, they had a very enjoyable, but disastrous, race. They failed to cross the start line (as they got the line wrong) capsized multiple times, and also failed to finish.

Declan came home tired but very happy, as he hadn't capsized before, so he'd made up for it this time! 

Tidy room

Now that Callum's various academic commitments are mostly done for the term (last one was a
"masterclass" on complex sentence structures to his English class on Friday) he decided he needed a tidy room.

So on Saturday, he spent a fair bit of time cleaning up the detritus in his room, even getting out the vacuum cleaner once he managed to clear the carpet enough to see it. I was impressed with his initiative!

Callum and Declan wow the Pearcey Awards

After winning their categories for the Young ICT Awards in August, Callum (with his car share monitor) and Declan's BIN I.T team (including Nick and Nikita) were selected to present their inventions to the Pearcey Awards presentation (for IT Entrepreneur of the Year) at NSW Parliament House this week.

They wowed the crowd with their great presentations, and in turn had a great time watching the university student's pitching competition, and being excited when the managing director of 3P learning (creator of Mathletics) was a tie for Entrepreneur of the year.

Afterwards, Declan was chatting with one of the Entrepreneur finalists, and she offered to organise a tour of Google for him, given he wants to work for Google when he grows up.

It was a fabulous evening, and all of them were very excited to be there.

Declan was inspired to go home and create his own T-shirt shop for the BIN I.T invention - you can buy your own T shirt here.

Callum's exams

Callum finished his exam season this week. Now that he is in Year 8, they take it a bit more seriously. He had a week of year 8 exams, and then the following week (this week) had to do his Year 10 Maths exam.

He has been disappearing into his room to study quite a lot, and his floor is covered in study notes, so hopefully it will all pay off when he gets his results.

Callum's geography assignment

Callum got a geography assignment from school this year, in which he had to choose a poor country, and compare and contrast it with Australia. He and his friend randomly picked Sierra Leone from the map, and was exclaiming to us about how bad the infant mortality was.

As we were having our weekly skype call with Bob and Ana and Julia, Bob reminded us that Ana had spent a year as a Medico del Mundo in Sierra Leone. So Callum did a special email interview with Ana to get some more understanding of what it was really like there.

He just got his assignment back and he got 100%! Which pleased both Callum and Ana mightily.

Declan and maths

Declan decided a few months ago that he would really like to be accelerated in maths, because he was finding maths really boring at school. (He had just learned pythagoras' theorem for the third time. So we bought some year 8 text books to test him out on, and he's been filling in the gaps we found (mostly about showing your working, but also about studying for himself without us telling him to) ever since.

So yesterday Declan sat the end of Year 8 Maths exam at Mosman this afternoon and did very well.

So he will start Maths in Year 9 next year. Probably in the same class as some of Callum's friends.

Classcraft

Declan is loving Classcraft which is the gamification his new teacher has introduced. He has now levelled up to level 5, and levelling up was the thing he was most looking forward to about Friday. Here is the latest picture of his character.

He says that it has improved the behaviour of some of the naughtier people in the class, so I guess it works!

New teacher and gamification

Declan's teacher, Mr Adams, has gone to a new school (a private one, closer to where he lives, which was willing to give him a permanent job, but demanded he start early enough to plan the new year).

So he has a new teacher for the rest of this term, who started today. Her name is Miss Divine, and we are all wondering how hard it is going to be to manage a group of year 6s who know that this is their last term in primary school. Fortunately she has one of the Deputy Principals, some of the time, who may be able to keep them in line.

And her secret weapon seems to be a "gamification" app. They get to choose a character. She will give them experience and health points which they can use for privileges, or to dress their character, or buy it pets. And if they run out of health points they have to do special tasks.

Declan's avatar looks exactly like all of his other ones (very similar to the elves in Lord of the Rings) except he doesn't have a bow yet, rather he seems to be a water mage.

Fundamentally exactly like an old fashioned star system, but with technology, which is making Declan, at least, hugely excited.

Spanish visitors

Bob, Ana and Julia have arrived to stay for the week with us. Declan is rather enjoying being Julia's slave, as she mostly reacts with smiles and laughter when he tries to entertain her.

Today he decided to teach her sword fighting, with his realistic looking elf sword, which is taller than she is. She was very taken with it, trying and (mostly) succeeding to climb the two stairs to the dining room while still holding it.

He has also taught her how the jack-in-the box works  - not the one that he used to play with as a baby, but the one that Bob and I used to play with... mum is better at saving toys than we are...

Spring Cycle

On Sunday we did what has become an annual event - Sydney's Spring cycle, from St Leonard's park (handily just around the corner) to Sydney Olympic Park. Declan's bike computer said 57km, my iphone said 59km, and the official website said 55km. Regardless of who was right, it was a fair distance, and we all did well, with the both the boys definitely a lot fitter (scorning for example, the adults walking up the occasional short sharp hill which I have vague recollections of one or both of them walking up in previous years).

Sydney put on a glorious day for us, with a beautiful still sunny morning, and the really hot sun waiting until we were back home.

Knee update

So I have made a right royal mess of my knee, rupturing the ACL and tearing many other bits and pieces. After meeting with the specialist it's clear I need an operation to graft in a new ACL. I could have done it next week or after our Christmas holiday; I've decided to put it the operation off until January. There's not too much pain but there's a fair degree of limping at the moment.

Parliament House presentation

Both Callum and Declan have been invited to present their Young ICT projects at the Pearcey Awards at Parlaiment House in November.

We are pleased to inform you that your students Declan Predavec, Nicolas Palmer and Nikita Pussell have been invited to present their project (BIN I.T.) at the prestigious Pearcey Awards on the 6th of November at the NSW Parliament House.

We are pleased to inform you that your student Callum Predavec has been invited to present their project (Car Share Space Monitor) at the prestigious Pearcey Awards on the 6th of November at the NSW Parliament House.

One amusing issue: Declan will wear school uniform, but we're going to have to get Callum a proper shirt. 

My knee - for posterity

Ten days ago while doing a, quite spectacular, double-jumping-turning-kick at Tae Kwon Do I mis-stepped and fell in a messy groaning heap as my knee gave way under me.

It was bad enough that I actually went to a doctor with only mild urging from all who saw me. The doctor didn't say much, and after another ten days of limping about I went to a physiotherapist yesterday. He is of the view that I've torn my ACL, but I need an MRI to confirm that.

It's not particularly painful, but I am limping badly and can't do a lot lest the knee gives way beneath me in a rather sickening fashion (which it did on the weekend when I stupidly got over-confident and try to throw Jennifer in the sea).

I'm really recording this as it explains my lack of participation in water-fights, galloping on horses, and anything else that sounds remotely active over the last ten days.

Three instances of good uncle-ing and cousin-ing

One: Declan, it turns out, was a star with Julia during our beach holiday. He patiently held her up during her walks, jumped around making her laugh and generally entertained her. She returned the favour by squealing in delight and waving her arms about whenever he entered a room.

Two: Bob fulfilled the boys' long-held plans by allowing himself to be an active target for their water battles. They battled in the backyard, on kayaks, and several spots in between and everyone came away very happy. And very wet.

Three: Martin commissioned Callum to do some programming for his work. Callum had a ball doing something that was so real and persevered through a string of early frustrations. It's becoming clear that Cal is much happier programming applications than games and can really bury himself in the problem-solving. He managed to program what Martin needed entirely without any other help or intervention which was just great to see.

Cal's press

Callum's ICT challenge triumph has hit the press here.

Cooking

Evan did some damage to his knee on Saturday (1), and was still limping enough on Sunday that the boys and I decided that we not let him stand up to make dinner.

So we started together, but both Callum and Declan decided after a short while that I wasn't competent enough for them, and told me to stop helping and go and set the table.

It was very tasty (pasta with bolognese sauce if you are interested), even if Declan is a bit inclined to apologise when everything isn't perfect (in this case because it wasn't quite well mixed enough, in his view).

(1) Evan is much better today, and although he did have an ultrasound as the doctor recommended,  he is better enough  that fears of dire ligament damage are receding rapidly.

Sailing

Before Nick came over here on Saturday night, Declan went and spent Friday night and all of Saturday with Nick. They went sailing all Saturday afternoon, which Declan loved. Nick is an experienced sailor, so Declan was his crew.

Declan took to it, he says because it is all about geometry and angles. He got the hang of the idea of change the angle of the sail to get the best wind pushing you in the right direction, and very proudly told us that they didn't capsize once.

Lan parties

Last week Callum decided to have a Lan party with his school friends. Three of his friends who were available during the holidays came over on Thursday afternoon, and with a brief break for pizza and nerf warfare, played computer games until about midnight (when, they promised me, they went to bed).

Waking up before 6, they continued until hunger drove them to breakfast.

We have discovered that the lab is perfect. They gamed and slept up there, and we could barely hear them. And even though that room faces directly onto Falcon St, they were too tired to notice when they finally went to bed.

Not to be outdone, Declan had his friend Nick P over on Saturday night, and Tom Linigen came down from the mountains. So the four of them gamed and slept up there again, but with more of a break for a movie, and an earlier bedtime.

It seems we have a teenage retreat to match our new teenager.

Trophies

Measurement

We measured the boys, as we always do on a birthday. Callum is now 157cm, he has grown 3cm. A bit less than I expected, but that does mean he has grown 10cm in the last year. Declan hasn't grown quite as much, he is now 148cm, which means there is 9cm between them, the most ever.

So Callum is (according to the percentiles) slightly above average height, and Declan is about 66th percentile (and when we see them with their friends, we do have to remember that they are both pretty much the youngest in their years, so look shorter for their age than they really are).

Neither of them has added any weight in the last four months, which means that their BMI percentile has dropped. Callum is quite lean these days at 33rd percentile, and Declan is 66th (which puts them both back to where they were when they were toddlers).

Teenager party

Callum had a party to celebrate his teenage status yesterday. Four of his friends came over. After a quick round of gaming, they caught a bus to the city, to have an Escape Hunt match.  The five of them competed against Evan and Declan.

Amazingly, despite Callum's party being well ahead for most of the game, they ended up losing because none of them knew how to open a briefcase! (despite having figure out the six figure combination).

After the match, it was more gaming, pizza, cake, presents, and then, this morning, cleanup, with Callum going for a military theme as he got rid of the popcorn.

Callum becomes a teenager

So today marks Callum's 13th Birthday. Our boy has become a teenager.

As if to mark the occasion, Callum slept in this morning - which is something he very rarely does. He then smiled broadly over a range of presents, and is looking forward to a party this afternoon with his friends.

After 13 years Cal's maturing into a lovely young man. He demonstrates great maturity in many things, inter-spaced with flashes of childishness that continue to make his parents smile. He's clever, generous, sensible and has a wicked sense of humour. In spite of his ongoing efforts, he still has difficulty with people's names and faces and, sometimes, with their motivation. But the positive side of that remains that he's very much his own person, he doesn't follow his peers thoughtlessly - and that's no bad thing as he heads into these turbulent teenage years.

While he's still not as tall as Jennifer, he's shot up recently and all the Tae Kwon Do means there's some lean muscle to go with the height. He's still not likely to end up particularly tall, but he stands straight and walks with a confidence that often makes him seem taller than the measurements would suggest. He continues to get better at TKD and is pretty good runner, but ball games are simply not going to be his thing.

He is fascinated by everything around him and sucks in knowledge like a retentive vacuum cleaner. Science, and especially the hard sciences, absorb him; but he's almost as interested in economics and history. He reads constantly and voraciously: He reads while playing computer games, while washing his face, while eating - he rarely has a book far from his hands. And he plays computer games - a lot.

Thirteen years ago we held a tiny, beautiful baby in our arms. Today a wonderful young man gave us hugs. Thirteen years have flashed past and it's sometimes hard to join the dots between that baby and the teenager we now see before us. He's changing and growing, and doing both more and more quickly, but what remains the same is our enduring pride in, and love, for our amazing son.

Mathematics Olympiad

Last Thursday Callum did the Australian Mathematics Olympiad. A four-hour exam covering some truly mind-bogglingly difficult maths questions.

Regardless of the outcome of the exam, I'm once-again really proud of the way he handled such a huge undertaking.

The exam took up so much of his day, that the poor boy only had one class to go to. And wouldn't you know it, that one class was maths.

Dec's debating marches on

Declan is spending two days at a debating camp next week. I'm not quite certain what's involved from a debating point of view but there's a lot of excitement building up about the camp part of it.

We also just found out that he's been nominated to try out for the regional representative team, which is pretty exciting.That takes up most of Friday next week and is apparently highly competitive.

Autobiography nearly finished

Declan has spent most of this term writing his autobiography, his major work for the term. It is now around 10,000 words, and we are at the editing stage (where Evan and I ask Declan to use more conjunctions than, "and then" and more adjectives than "amazing").

Evan and Declan came up with a great idea for the front cover - a 3d printed version of Declan's face, complete with LED lighting. Not sure if the photo does it justice, but it does, indeed, look like Declan, albeit a bit of a creepy version of him.

Harbour Hike

As regular readers know, we are very big fans of walking. So for the third year in a row, we signed ourselves up for the SIMS Harbour Hike, an 11K walk from Kirribilli to Chowder Bay. We were dubious whether we would do it last night, with the forecast being for "scattered showers, clearing late afternoon", but this morning decided to press on, and really only got rained on in the walk from the bus stop to the beginning at Bradfield Park.

Despite an early flurry of problems (when Declan decided that tight lacing had meant that the boots we bought him a month ago already were too small for him), we had a lovely walk, taking just over two hours to get to the finish line at Chowder Bay.

We were so fast that the coffee van hadn't even arrived. As a bonus, we decided to actually check out the science - as the event is to raise money for the Sydney Institute of Marine Science - and the boys got to take blood from the heart of an oyster, and test it for protein.

This is a real test that scientists do, as the amount of protein in an oyster's blood is a good proxy for how stressed it is.

The boys then got to dissect the gills of the oyster. As the scientist showing them all this pointed out (after trying to recruit them both into marine science) the great thing about studying oysters is that they can't look at you mournfully as you stab a pipette into their hearts.

In a triumph of public transport, the ferry back to Kirribilli arrived just in time for us to catch a bus almost all the way home.

Informatics Olympiad

Cal did the Australian Informatics Olympiad yesterday. The Olympiad, "is a programming event and is used as the major basis of selection of students to attend a selection school for training and selecting a team to represent Australia at the International Olympiad in Informatics."

It was a three-hour exam involving three questions which Callum had to write and submit computer programs to solve. The programs take an input file of data and have to output the required results. He managed to come up with an answer to all three, which is a great start in itself. 

I must say having read the questions I'm dubious I could have solved them in three days, let alone three hours, and I'm rather in awe of him. 

Regardless of the how he goes, I'm also very proud of the maturity with which he handled it. When we discussed it last week, I asked him where he would be doing it and he said that as usual he'd wait for the teacher to come and get 'them' - I had to explain that there were about 100 kids sitting the exam across the country so he was almost certainly the only student at Mosman doing it. So he set out and talked with the teachers, got it all worked out, did his revision and then handled the three-hour exam with aplomb. All great learning experiences.

Callum's map project gets real

For the last few weeks Callum has been working on a project to create an interactive map of his school using the Google API. 

When one of his teachers noticed what he was doing she showed the Principal and they have now put Cal's project on the school website. He is a very proud young programmer right now.

www.predavec.com/mosmap

Declan's ipad coding

Declan has been learning javascript, and has made  a program for the ipad. You just tap on the screen, and it creates a circle!

Here is the link:

and a picture of what you can do with it.

On reading this article, Declan would like me to stress how hard this programming is to do! It is very very very hard, and he had a lot of frustration trying to make the circles appear.

Geekiness is now pretty much done

After our week of geekiness last week, we had one geeky thing left today, which was the Mythbusters "behind the myths" show(cue loud excited music and explosions).

We had tickets to see the mythbusters show at the Entertainment Centre (now called the Qantas Credit Union arena) this afternoon and all had a great time. The boys were primed to be audience volunteers (despite the one page of closely written legal disclaimers that had to be signed before ascending the stage) but sadly their demographic (pre teen boys too old for superhero capes) was over-represented in the eager volunteers and under-represented (ie zero) in the demand from the stage, requiring some quite specific skills (eg blowing raspberries at a particular frequency).

Nevertheless we all had a great time, and caught up with Rob and Angela and Tom after the show for coffees (adults) play in the playground and icecream (kids) before the mountain folk retreated up the mountain.

Debating

Declan had a debate this week, in which he was chosen as third speaker (it seems to have been a rotation during the competition). Despite insisting that morning that he was a hopeless debater, particularly as third speaker, his team won, with the adjudicator commenting that he "carried the team". The topic was that "team sports should be compulsory in schools" and Declan's team was affirmative (despite most of them believing the opposite).

Robin Williams retrospective

I've mentioned here before, that if we are home on a Saturday night, we generally watch a movie together, with the aim of watching a wide variety and making sure that every now and again we see a classic (think Maltese Falcon or the Seven Samurai). Well two weeks ago, we saw Dead Poets Society. Two days after that Robin Williams died, and so we watched Good Morning Vietnam last week and Mrs Doubtfire (which neither Evan nor I had seen, but Declan was keen on, based on school feedback) this week.

Declan spent half the movie with his blanket over his head, but still claimed to enjoy it. I'm still wishing I had insisted on Birdcage, or Good Will Hunting. Next week we may move onto Lauren Bacall, despite Declan's protests about black and white movies.

Year 9 choices

This week has been absorbed with Callum's subject choices for next year. It appears that's difficult at the best of times, but his particular circumstances are making it a minefield.

So there are the core subjects everyone has to do: English, Maths, Science, Sport, History, Geography. Then there are a bewildering and exciting array of elective subjects. The restriction there is you are supposed to pick three for each of years 9 and 10, each one being worth 100 hours, and one of those must join up to make 200 hours with continuity over the two years.

The complicating factor is that Callum will start Extension Maths next year (what we in the dark ages used to call 4 Unit Maths). Everything else being equal that will have him sitting the HSC for maths the year after next when he's otherwise in Year 10.

Beautifully, Callum would simply like to do a bit of everything - which is good to see. He's also rejected several electives that would be easy marks on the basis that he wouldn't learn anything. So he won't be doing Software Design for example even though that might seem right up his street and be easy marks. We're now trying to find a balance between his workload and his interests. 

We seem to be coming down to a unit called Beyond Visible which is unique to Mosman. It combines advanced maths and science to do some really cool stuff like working on dark matter and quantum coding. He'll also do Advanced Design and Technology. That's an accelerated course which does two years in ine and so will give him the required 200 hours in the space of one year. That will make for additional work next year but potentially less the following one when he's doing the Maths HSC. His third choice is wavering between Engineering which is nice and hands-on and a language.

We're also talking with the school about them exempting him from an elective to make sure he isn't overwhelmed given the workload that Maths will entail and the inevitable mess it will make of the rest of his timetable. What makes this all especially tricky is that the timetable doesn't get set until next year and the time tabling conflicts will drive some of huge choices. Luckily Mosman is being incredibly supportive through all this. It remains a work in progress though.

Week of geekness (and illness)

Declan trying out a remote controlled robot at Maker Faire

This week, we knew was going to be a big week. We had Dr Who on Tuesday, Sleek Geeks on Wednesday, Young ICT competition on Saturday and two things on Sunday - the new Escape Hunt Sydney and Maker Faire at the Powerhouse. Plus an information evening at school about Year 9 on Thursday, just to complete the set.

Unfortunately, we were all also sick this week at various stages, which involved days off school/work/teaching young geeks/ at various stages of the week, putting at risk the major event of the week - the Young ICT competition.

Callum missed all of last Sunday sleeping (which was supposed to be his final preparation day) and spent the rest of the week scrambling to catch up. Evan spent the majority of the week in a feverish haze (but only Tuesday actually in bed). And Declan, after being smugly only smitten with a cold most of the week, was in despair on Friday morning, as he was convinced he was going to let his team down the next day.

Three model tardises from Dr Who fans on Tuesday night

As it turned out, everyone was fine for the big day. Declan brought a long a bucket just in case, but only needed tissues, Evan got by on adrenaline, and Callum was almost entirely better by the end of the week. And we were all well enough to make it to both events on Sunday, in a great end to an absorbing week.

A lesson for us, though next time we are tempted to book such a big week. It is tempting fate!

Young ICT Prize winners!

Callum and Declan both won first prizes in the Young ICT Explorers competition.  This is one of those posts that would be better done by someone else because I've been part of the story. And the danger is that because I'm too close ill under-rate the achievement.

Callum was in a team of one. I must admit I didn't think he'd win. The thing that seemed to carry it off, beyond the underlying tech, was that he calmly dealt with his demo not working at first and answered all the questions with amazing maturity.

Dec was in a team with Nick and Nikita. They pulled off a stunning presentation, helped by a professional presenter's input, but backed by a deeply engaging solution. The judges were completely clear that they had a viable solution to a real problem.

Callum had a live project to monitor a car-share space, warn off illegal parkers and then notify the rangers. Dec and team had a project to watch one or more recycling bins and tell the school how full they were with the aim of encouraging recycling.

They reached the finals in the face of hundreds of entries and in the finals beat out a lot of, it must be said, highly resourced private schools to take the first place prize in their age-groups.

In both cases the judges made a point of how they'd managed to answer all the questions tossed at them, and solved real problems. 

I can't express how proud I am of both boys and honestly how thrilled I am to have been involved in the whole process.  And, as a parent, as opposed to that amorphous teacher/mentor role, them both having won just makes the whole thing exponentially better.

Who fanatics

In a triumph of internet shopping, Evan managed to get tickets to the Dr Who live showing of the first episode of the new series last night.

Sadly, this triumph didn't include being healthy enough to go. While Evan took to his bed, Declan's friend Nick took his ticket and the four of us trooped off to the State Theatre.

We all had a wonderful time watching the episode. I had been wondering how to extract them all from what promised to be a long Q&A session in the second half with Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman, but (not really fortunately) Nick was so excited by the episode that he was sick at interval. I was proud of Callum and Declan, who responsibly helped Nick in the gents, while I waited anxiously outside, and we all decided that we were really better off not taking a chance with the second half.

Evan is still insanely jealous, and the boys are carefully avoiding spoilers.

Autobiography

Apparently it is standard in Year 6 to write an autobiography, so that is Declan's big assignment this term. He has spent what seems to have been a very enjoyable time rereading both our travel blog, and this blog, mining for material.

It's been fascinating to see what he chooses to write about from the travel blog; it has emerged that although Beynac-et-Cazenac was one of his two favourite places, along with Iceland, there were no adventures there, so not much to write about. He's up to 5,500 words so far about his life; I fear some editing will be necessary (which is not Declan's favourite thing, hence not ours either).

ICT again (!)

Declan and his partners in crime Nikita and Nick presented their project Bin IT to their class and the school principal during the week. It didn't go very well, as they lost the plot on each bit of the presentation and answered questions by talking about their in jokes.

So this morning, they came over again, with Nick's dad Tim (award winning journalist) to give them some last minute coaching. They are now very impressive, as Tim not only coaxed out of them their major theme (we need to encourage recycling) but also suggested that they put everything they have done up on their website and call it open source.

The judging is next weekend, wish them luck.

Illness

Callum has had a weekend of illness; he had a horrible cold on Saturday, woke up vomiting in the middle of the night, and then slept off and on until 3 this afternoon(!) We realised while we were chatting over dinner (which he was better enough to eat a bit of) that he hasn't been that sick for some years; probably since we were in Sorrento on our year away.

He seems much better for all the time spent sleeping, and hopefully he will be better for another night's sleep.

Declan cartooning

We've been watching Horatio Hornblower (the BBC miniseries, with Ioan Gruffud). Declan is very taken with it, and drew this cartoon to celebrate.

ICT projects

Evan talked about the Young ICT Explorers a few weeks ago. I'm pleased to report that both teams made it into the final, which will be in a couple of weeks.

Today we had a big ICT day - to put the finishing touches to both projects.

Nick and Nikita came over to combine all the bits of BinIT, design a poster, and plan their presentation to the judges.

Meanwhile Callum worked by himself on putting together the electronics and the various bits and pieces for his goget parking idea.

It was a very productive day, and the boys are now quite tired from all the work.

Front page reporter!

Declan is part of the team that produces the Neutral Bay magazine - Navigator twice a year. The first issue has just been published, and Declan has the front page story! He was very thrilled to show me the whole magazine, in which he has two more stories - a serious report about Gladiators, and a game review.

Dinner

Gradually, more and more, the boys help Evan cook dinner most nights. Declan was inspired on Monday night to declare that he would cook the dinner entirely by himself.

And he did! It was pasta with Bolognese sauce, and he cooked the pasta, the mince, some vegetables, stirred in the sauce and served it up entirely by himself.

And then once dinner he sat and chatted to me in a very grown up way while Callum and Evan cleared the table.

Callum is now determined to take a turn soon.

Sydney geek heaven!

I happened to notice a tweet from Adam Spencer this week, asking for some "smart, slightly geeky" 10-15 year olds to help review his new book this weekend. So I signed the boys up (via twitter - first time for everything) and they were part of the group in his tweet below for a few hours on Saturday afternoon.

Fascinating process as a group of a dozen smart 10-15 year olds year my maths book to pieces. #Proofread
— Adam Spencer (@adambspencer) July 26, 2014

They came home with a proof copy each, and a promise of a credit in the published book, and even more fascination with numbers than they had before. Declan took the book to bed with him, and has been continuing with the proof reading today, when he has a spare moment.

And as a bonus, Evan got to meet Adam Spencer.

Just shook @adambspencer ‘s hand. #greatgeekymomentsinsydney
— Geek in Sydney (@GeekinSydney) July 26, 2014

Schools decsions

We've finally had to narrow our options down on schools. With slightly shaking hands we've turned down the selective school offers and removed Declan from the private schools lists. So he'll be going to Mosman High. We're all happy with the decision, but can't help having some qualms as the options disappear.

Young ICT Explorers

Callum and Declan are entering the Young ICT Explorers competition. It's a national competition in which kids create something using information technology.

Cal is in a team of one and has produced the Car Share Monitor. It uses a sensor to monitor the parking space where a car share car should park. If a car parks there illegally it warns the driver they are parking illegally via a LED screen. If the car doesn't move, the device then sends an email to the Council Rangers and to the car share scheme and, potentially, to the driver of the car share car. It's all solar powered.

Declan is in a team with his friends Nick and Nikita. They have made Bin I.T! They have a device that sits in a recycling bin and sends information on how full it is to the Internet where it ends up on a web page that teachers can put on their smart board or students can put on their computer or iPad. (The page is at: www.GeekinSydney.com/binit.) The aim is to encourage more recycling by showing how much is going on and offering rewards if the bins are filled.

Both teams have fully working prototypes of their projects up and running, although not without some frustration on the way thanks to a series of complications and cheap electronic parts failures. We're all really quite chuffed with what they've managed to achieve.

They've now submitted the reports on their projects to the judges. The next step is that successful teams are invited to a final judging day at UNSW which operates like a trade show. We should find out if they make it to the finals in a couple of weeks.

Family shortbread - the tradition continues

While I was away ("gallivanting") in the Blue Mountains this weekend, Granny came and gave the boys a lesson in making her famous shortbread.

Callum took detailed notes of both ingredients and method, and has promised me that he will be able to replicate it at will.

I can report that although there was very little left by the time I got home on Sunday night, it was delicious. We have a theory that it has been improved (if that is possible) by the use of our special family sugar (which has a vanilla bean in it to give it a subtle vanilla flavour).

First week of the holidays

The boys spent the first part of last week at courses at UNSW. Declan did an economics course, and Callum one on controlling computers with his muscles. They both seemed to enjoy themselves, Callum more because of the subject matter and Declan because he made firm friends in the first ten minutes although the course itself wasn't quite as engaging as he'd hoped.

They proceeded to make up for this flurry of activity by spending much of the next few days playing computer games.

Cal's second report with other seconds

Callum got a second report at the end of term - this one his Year 10 Maths report. It came with a second Principal's Award. And he is coming second in the class.

Three out of three

We found out tonight that Declan has comfortably got into his first choice selective school - Manly Selective. We are all pleased (as that means he's done as well as necessary in all three of his exams).

We are probably going to turn it down, though, after a final check with Mosman High that they will definitely take him next year (they offered him a place, which he accepted, but for some bureaucratic reason the final confirmation takes some months).

Come to the dark side - we have cookies

In our Saturday afternoon cooking, Declan has got back into biscuits in a big way. After we made chocolate spiral biscuits, he decided that we needed to make Darth Vader biscuits - and this time we would make light and dark Darth Vaders.

Cal's report

Callum got a very good half-year report, although his English result was a poorer than expected. He also received a Principal's Award for academic excellence.

Last night we went to the parent-teacher meetings. There were no real surprises although several teachers commented that he was more mature and focused than his peers - which was sort of amusing given he's a year younger than them. The best comment was from one teacher who explained that the report system had nowhere she could write that Callum was just a 'sweet kid'; she explained that the class is doing a dance routine in PE and one of Callum's group is very shy, and she'd observed Cal helping and encouraging him through the whole experience.

Rorke's Drift

After our regular Saturday night movie last night was the movie Zulu (the original one with Michael Caine), Declan remembered that one of his favourite paintings in the NSW Art Gallery was The Defense of Rorke's Drift, a classic war painting in the heroic mold (also in the same room is a Waterloo painting entitled Vive l'Empereur!).

So we decided to walk into town and have a wander around the Art Gallery.

Despite a bit of rain, it was a really nice walk, across the bridge, through the Botanic Gardens (with a stop at a cafe we have been going to for many years) and then a quick wander around the high points of the Gallery. We caught the bus home; 6km was enough walking for one day.

Racing Declan

Suddenly yesterday evening, as we were getting ready for bed, Declan suggested that we enter the Minimos race the next day (today!). I didn't really want to discourage such enthusiasm (despite not feeling all that excited by the idea myself after tae kwon do), so this morning at 8.15, Declan and I found ourselves on the start line of the 5K race in Mosman.

Despite him having heard about the race through school, in the end I saw more people I knew than he did, but we both ended up having a few people to say hello to.

I think Declan was a bit fitter this time (or I was slower) but I couldn't keep up with him in his sprint finish with a girl roughly his own age so there is no finish line picture this week.

The dessert ninja reappears

Last week at dinner with the grandparents I happened to wonder idly what had happened to the dessert ninja. Next thing I knew he reappeared with some delicious lemon slice for all of us.

Declan's run

Warming up before the start

Declan and I did our 7K run this morning on what, despite the forecast, turned out to be a beautiful sunny winter morning (only cold if you are used to recent Sydney temperatures).

We started by warming up next to the pancake stand, while waiting for our race to start.

Half way through the trees

Then the race itself, where we ran the whole way (except for each water stop) while being passed at frequent intervals by all the half marathoners on their second lap.

A beautiful Sydney morning

Then the finish line, where Declan did a nice sprint to the finish,

Sprint to the finish

and finally a pancake each as our reward for a Sunday morning race. We ran about 7 min 30 second kms (for those counting).

I'm not sure if I've convinced Declan to make this a regular occurrence, but I'll give it a go. Perhaps next time we should enter in the shorter race (4K) so he can race against all the kids his own age who were passing us at an alarming rate.

Pancakes as recovery

Festival of Jennifer

Last weekend, for my birthday, we went to Cockatoo Island for the weekend. And in a feast of luxury, we didn't camp, but stayed in one of the houses! The boys had managed to keep the whole thing a secret from me very well, and collaborated pretty well in Evan's misdirection in making it seem as if on Friday afternoon we were just setting off for something in town, rather than to go away for two days of weekend.

Relaxing on Sunday morning

My parents joined us for the regular Friday night pizza, and Declan and I gave them a tour of the biennale while Callum and Evan went off to the birthday party of one of Callum's friends on Saturday afternoon. Then a quick trip to the "mainland" for a tour of Vivid and a lovely relaxing Sunday morning to finish off the weekend.