A Bad Product Or Service

Whenever we go to Burger King we order mini sugar coated donuts. I always count the mini donuts as on some of the packets it says 5 donuts. We came around to the drive through, we placed our order and kept going. When we arrived I looked at the packet, it said 5 donuts... I counted the donuts and it had 4. My dad always says it's bad service and tries to talk to the manager for a refund, we went inside and said that we didn't receive the correct amount of donuts. The manager gave us another donut and we were out of there. Disappointed as I was we kept  going, and stopped at the next Burger King...

Homework Challenge G1

Give to children in need: Participate in the 40 hour famine

Last weekend I participated in the 40 hour famine. This year the topic for year 7/8 students doing the famine through school was living in a box for 20 or 40 hours or no technology for 20 or 40 hours. I did the "no technology" famine. I picked the hardest day to complete the famine, it was raining. It made it really hard because usually on a wet day I would be using electronics to occupy myself. During the famine I completed another of my homework challenges, E2 Create an original artwork using recycled materials. The day felt like it went on forever...

Science Fair - 2013

This year for science fair I chose the topic "Does temperature affect physical performance?" I tested 15 students from my class, I got them to run between two bins. One by one I called them out and they ran from one bin to another and back again. I timed each person and recorded the times on a spreadsheet. I converted the times into graphs of when that person get their best time. I recorded each person three times, cold, moderate and warm temperatures. On the last night I had to glue everything on my board, I was up until 8:30pm.

Captcha

Captcha is a program that most websites use. It can tell wether you are a human or a computer. It stops computers from spamming websites and blogs. The program generates two different words and tells you to  type them out, one word is easy to read by humans and computers and the other is a word from an old book, newspaper or radio show. 200 million Captcha's are solved everyday. Each Captcha takes about 10 seconds, altogether these puzzles consume 150,000 hours of our time.

Tauranga Intermediate School Cross Country 2013

Yesterday we had our school cross country. There were 4 events... Year 7 boys, year 7 girls, year 8 boys & year 8 girls. We were last (year 8 boys). The race started, I was at the back of the group. Someone from Tawa fell over in front of me and I tripped over his right leg. I had a long mission to get to the front. I managed to get past heaps of people when I started picking up my pace again, until I twisted my knee running down the road. I instantly went from about 50th to 150th. I had to slowly run the rest of the track and dropped back for a final position of 187th.

Computer Game Description - Angry Birds

Angry Birds

Angry Birds is a game that can be played on android and IOS. There are several different versions of the game, Angry Birds Friends, Angry Birds Star Wars, Bad Piggies, Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Seasons & Angry Birds Space.  The aim of the game is knock down the structures by flinging the bird, you pull back your finger on the bird and release to send it flying. You gain points from knocking down the structures. You can also earn power ups!

My Parent's Jobs

My step-dad works at a paper mill in Kawerau. He manages a paper machine that runs 24/7. He works on the machines if they are not functioning correctly. He has to travel 2 hours each morning just to get there in time to start working. One of the paper rolls at his work has recently shut down and is now the maintenance manager of the last remaining paper machine. My mum stays at home, she is studying for a business accounting job. She goes to Polytech most days of the week. She usually gets 90-100% on her assignments and exams, which is usually at the top of her class.

Argument At Home

"Unload the dishwasher!" Screamed Mum.
"No thanks, I don't feel like doing that today." I replied
Mum screamed louder this time, "Unload the dishwasher!"
"No thanks," I mumbled, "this is the second time today."
Mum moved on to the next topic, "have you cleaned your room?"
I quietly muttered, "been there done that..."

Indoor Football

Yesterday we played an indoor football match against Tawa. We lost 1-0. They managed to get an easy goal against us. It was a very competitive game, we had several chance of scoring. They had the Blue Rovers premier goalie, he saved every shot. Our next game was at lunch time... We played Kauri. We won 6-1! Nathan scored 4 times and Travis scored twice. They managed to get one lucky goal. Our house had great support with nearly three quarters of the house showing up. Today we are playing Kahikatea, we think that this will be the toughest game

The Weekend

On Saturday we played our second game of the season in soccer. We played a team that has recently versed another team from our club, they beat them 11-0! We managed to survive with them only scoring 2 goals. We had several chances of scoring. Our goalie kicked the ball, it landed in the middle of the field. I headed the ball an it landed 5 metres in front of me, I managed to get around the defenders and had a great opportunity of scoring. Luckily for them I had to use my left foot... The ball went flying in the lower left corner, the goalie was just in the right place at the right time!

Idioms

Cut to the chase

Cut to the chase means leave out all the unnecessary information and just get straight to the point. You could say cut to the chase if someone was chattering on about something and they are going in depth when you just want them to get straight to the point. My mum always says "great minds think alike." This idiom originated from silent films, particularly comedies.

Conversation

"Do you want to play Mary?" asked Joseph.

Mary replied, "Totally. What's the teams?"

"Me, you and Matthew" said Joseph, "versus Andy, Campbell and Karen."

"Cool!" Screamed Mary, "let's play!"

Joseph screamed, "Pass to me!"

"Goal," wailed Mary whilst she danced around with glory. The whole team shouted Mary's name!

The bell rung for the end of lunch, all of the kids sprinted back to class as the teacher grumpily yelled        "Get back to class!"   

Odd Relative...

I have a strange relative... My auntie Jodie! This isn't any ordinary auntie though, she stutters every second word and speaks with very basic vocabulary. She phones us every night, as soon as we pick up we hear "what you been up to, much"? We have taken caution to her phone number and try to avoid answering. Although I haven't met her in person I can tell she has a very odd personality.                          

Charging Laptops At School

What are the negatives of charging laptops at school?
•Wastes money that could be used for new resources for the school.
•Wastes power, Rimu house uses the most power because of charging laptops.
•Wires all over the classroom will cause more injuries.

What are 2 suggestions for solving the problem?
•Students charging laptops at home to prevent all of these problems.
•If your computer runs out of battery after lunch, you should be able to charge your computer, but only at the teachers desk.

Homework Challenge E2

Create an original artwork using recycled materials

I have collected bread tags over the last few years and have just recently thought of creating something with them. I have been thinking of making the shape of New Zealand, until the idea of the "Swag Tags" came to mind. I firstly placed my tags on the canvas. After that I glued all of the tags whilst straitening the others. I then decided that the cavas still looked a tiny bit empty so I underlined the word "swag". I created this piece of art whilst I was doing the 40 hour famine (no technology). This art took half of my day and is great to see it finished.

Events Of My Weekend

On Saturday, I woke up to the thought scoring a hat trick in soccer. I was nervous as it was the first game of the season but I was also excited to kick off the season with an easy game. The referee blew the whistle and we were off. Our team was confident of winning until the opposition scored their first goal and made the score 2-1. Our coach gave us a stern talking to during half time. We had the incentive of seeing our old coach running around Greerton in his undies if we win our games by more than 3 goals. We headed out onto the pitch... By the final 5 minutes we were leading 4-2. We just needed one more goal. I received the ball from half way, chipped it over the first defender, then the second. Once I was in the clear I smashed the ball as hard as I could to the bottom left corner and scored... Our old coach, the referee, stared at me in disbelief. All the parents started laughing...

How Do Fireworks Explode?

The fuse sets of a charge that ignites the gunpowder, that propels the firework into the sky. Once the firework is in the sky, the gunpowder in the firework ignites. This causes the explosions or "stars". They contain metal salts and iron fillings, which explode into the bright sparkles that you see in the sky. Most big fireworks have automatic timers for when they go off.

Why Do The Tides Go In & Out?

The earth and moon are attracted to each other like magnets. The moon tries to pull anything on earth but the earth manages to hold everything except the water. Because the water is always moving the earth cant hold it, the moon is able to pull. There is two high tides and two low tides each day. It takes roughly 12 hours and 25 minutes between the two high tides. Wind currents move the surface water making waves.

10 Questions

1. Why do clouds look so fluffy when they are really hard?
2. I wonder why the tides go in and out?
3. I wonder why fireworks only explode when they are in the air?
4. I wonder why no one has evidence of aliens existing?
5. I wonder why our faces are symmetrical? 
6. I wonder why Rimu is the best house in the school?

Homework Challenge A5

Improve your research study skills: Research Rimu.

Rimu is one of New Zealands most beautiful and useful trees. It has been the main native timber since 1910 when it started to displace kauri and is said to remain the main timber for a long time. The quantity of rimu is rapidly falling and will be endangered in one or two decades. Rimu can live up to a ripe old age of 1000 years, most average rimu trees live from 500-600 years. The first 300-400 years of a trees life they grow slowly until they reach the canopy when they meet the sunlight and start to grow faster. A mature rimu tree will drop over 200,000 seeds. These trees are consistently be milled for furniture purposes, so regenerating the forest so that rimu do not become endangered is a must. Rimu is usually found in lowland and montane forest.

Rimu is very important to Māori. In the olden days rimu's inner bark was used for medicinal purposes. Mainly to heal cuts and burns. The bitter gum could be used to stop bleeding. The leaves were used in vapor baths. The red cup that holds the rimu seeds were eaten by māori. Māori believe that the bark of the rimu had healing qualities but only if taken from the side of the tree facing the sun rise. The heart of rimu was used for spear tips in pre-European days, and the rimu also provided the materials for making combs. We discovered that the leaves are in fact useful for combing hair as we tried this at our school camp. In Captain Cook's time the tops of young branches were used to make spruce beer which was given to the sailors to prevent scurvy. Rimu serves many purposes. Most old houses in New Zealand are made from rimu wood, wether it is the floorboards or the roof every old house would have some rimu in them.

Rimu is the best tree in the school because it is a canopy tree, they tower over the others. Rimu also has various uses, treating burns, making furniture and many more. One other reason is we all co-operate together and know how to solve various issues. We show initiative by placing our roots deep in the ground so that we will not fall from our place at the top of the school

16th Ave Graveyard Visit

Last week room 42 visited the cemetery on 16th Avenue. We walked down to the cemetery in the second block on Friday. The reason we went to the cemetery was to carry out statistics tests. We had to get into partners and choose something to collect data on. Hoani and I chose to see "which type of headstone appeared the most"? There were loads of different types of headstones. We found some graves of children that didn't even reach the age of 1. There were several Air Force and Navy graves. Once we had left the graveyard we had to wash our hands to get rid of all of the tapu. One thing I found disrespectful was there was a lady throwing balls for her dogs in the cemetery, one of the dogs pooped on a grave and the lady did not pick it up. We are heading back to the cemetery another day this week.

Homework Challenge G2

Create 3 three course meals 

Number 3: The Fiesta

Entrè

Main

Dessert

Comments:

Karen:  Another wonderful meal thanks Flynn!  The homemade salsa was beautiful, with just the right amount of chili to give it a good zing.  I especially liked the flavour that being fried in butter gave the tortillas... yum, and the baked bananas were delicious.  I like the way that you themed all of your meals and it has been so nice to have some time out of the kitchen.  Thank you!

Bruce:  Delicious, well done. The salsa was to die for, better than most I have had at any cafe or restaurant. Looking forward to you spending more time being the chef!