Mr. Gruff Papercraft

"Atheism, as a philosophical view, is the position that either affirms the nonexistence of gods or rejects theism. When defined more broadly, atheism is the absence of belief in deities, alternatively called nontheism. Although atheists are commonly assumed to be irreligious, some religions, such as Buddhism, have been characterized as atheistic."

Source: Wikipedia

From the Christian? site objectiveministries.org comes this simple papercraft model aptly named Mr. Gruff the Atheist Goat, designed by Mr. Kutsushima of the Happy Origami Ministry in Japan. This model is very much the same design and format as the Jesus papercraft that we've posted before. The head and arms still move, but now, this one is holding a mug - you can also check out some other models on their site like Ruby the Lioness, Lambuel, and many more.

Mr. Gruff [Download]
Objective: Ministries [Site]
Mr. Kutsushima [Site]

Frog Papercraft

Nothing much going on today, just waiting for winter to come, this Texas heat is unbearable. Here's one for you, a realistic looking frog from our friend Keiji Kawaguchi at Raspera.com, pretty much every papercraft model in their site has good form, very easy to build, and looks realistic - none of that blocky effect that you hate so much. Raspera requires membership, which will set you about 30 bones, I think it's worth it for all those models. There's also some samples to give you a taste of his work - a chameleon, a golden retriever, and a booby. Have Fun!

Realistic Frog Papercraft [via Mediafire]
Raspera [Site]

New Math Mammoth books: Clock, Money, and Measuring

Finally the time has come, and I can announce that there are THREE new books for my Math Mammoth Blue Series:

Math Mammoth Clock - about telling time, for grades 1-3. Price: $3.50.

Math Mammoth Money - counting coins, making change, simple money problems. For grades 1-3. Price: $3.

Math Mammoth Measuring - getting familiar with common measuring units for length, weight, and volume. Includes lots of hands-on problems. Mostly for grades 2 and 3. Price: $4.

As usual you can find some sample pages, table of contents, and more info on each book's web page.

The Blue Series and the All Inclusive packages have been updated, accordingly.

New Math Mammoth books: Clock, Money, and Measuring

Finally the time has come, and I can announce that there are THREE new books for my Math Mammoth Blue Series:

Math Mammoth Clock - about telling time, for grades 1-3. Price: $3.50.

Math Mammoth Money - counting coins, making change, simple money problems. For grades 1-3. Price: $3.

Math Mammoth Measuring - getting familiar with common measuring units for length, weight, and volume. Includes lots of hands-on problems. Mostly for grades 2 and 3. Price: $4.

As usual you can find some sample pages, table of contents, and more info on each book's web page.

The Blue Series and the All Inclusive packages have been updated, accordingly.

Rozen Maiden: Suiseiseki

Meet Jesuke, cosplayer extraordinaire. I found her in Deviant Art, and she makes the best costumes I’ve ever seen. She can portray both male and female characters beautifully, and makes sure every detail of her cosplay is just right.

This is one of my favorite pictures of hers. She’s cosplaying Suiseiseki of the Rozen Maiden series. Notice that one of her eyes is red, and the other is green. That’s because Suiseiseki has a twin named Souseiseki. They both have red and green eyes, and for whichever twin has the one color on the left, the other will have on the right.

Make sure you visit Jesuke’s Site in Deviant Art for more of her cosplay pictures!

Technorati tags: nanao, research, jesuke, deviantart, deviant, art, cosplay, rozen maiden, suiseiseki, souseiseki

Felis Catus Papercraft

Here's a new one for the feline lovers out there, it's a cute papercraft cat from epark.co.jp - is currently being hosted at Yahoo Kids Japan along with other easy papercraft models. They have different kinds of animals, vehicles, and buildings that will surely keep your kids busy this summer. To the cat lovers, I think this post should balance out the dog vs. cat thing that you've been e-mailing me.

To those who've requested the Gock/Magock chokipeta papercraft, I'm still looking for it, I know I've saved it before and I've also made a print/scan copy of it for my archives. I did all those while I was still living in Cali and hopefully it wasn't lost when I moved here to H-town.

Also, I'd like to thank our Korean friend, Snake, for the Wind Waker Link papercraft he sent in, and if you could please send the password to the Tetra file, Hangul is really not my forte :)

Cat Papercraft [Download]

Naruto: Haruno Sakura

I’ve seen many people attempt to portray Haruno Sakura from Naruto. And in my *ehem* unfortunate experience, they either don’t get it right or they’re just trying to hard.

Sakura is a fun character to cosplay. She’s a headstrong, very intelligent, and if she doesn’t get her way, you better run.

How could Sasuke resist such a cute girl? Beauty and brains, and still he prefers revenge…

I love her dress and her hair… Her eyes look like they can pierce your soul… But I begin to wonder…

Why are her nails painted neon green..?

Image was first found on the Anime Illusions Forums.

Technorati tags: nanao, research, naruto, haruno, sakura, sasuke

Bleach: Ishida Uryuu

I got this image from Rukia was the one who found this image and gave a nice article about it…

I quote from the review:

Some die-hard BLEACH fans say that the black detailing should be blue, while others argue that he/she probably based it off of the manga. I?ve even heard of people complaining about the hair color.

To me, give it a rest people!!! Unless you yourself can cosplay better than this, I suggest critiques should keep their mouths shut! This Ishida in his Quincy outfit is g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s! So there! >:E

I have to agree with her… Also, I think this cosplayer is a girl. No confusion and/or arguments about it…

Technorati tags: nanao, research, bleach, cosplay, ishida, uryuu, rukia, anime, cosplayer, ishida uryuu

Air: Tono Minagi

Being an otaku means entering into a world of fantasy where anything can be achieved by anyone. This is a place where people sometimes become a fantasy themselves just for the heck of it…

Enter the world of cosplay.

The term “cosplay” is a merge of 2 words: costume and role-play. As the word suggests, people wear costumes of their anime character of choice then role-play the character, including his/her mannerisms and attitudes.

I have never actually cosplayed myself, though I do appreciate how people work hard to get their costumes and hairstyles to look just right. On the picture is an example. This girl is cosplaying Tono Minagi from the Anime Air. Otakus who are familiar with the anime will think she jumped right out of the game and into the real world.

Now this is what is known to be “real” cosplay…

More pictures to come…

Technorati tags: nanao, research, air, tono, minagi, anime, manga, game, cosplay

Reflecting back - planning ahead

You might or might not be taking a break from school for summer. I know one family where the child does schoolwork 3 weeks, then is 1 week off, all year long. But many follow loosely the typical school year and will soon be off school for a while.

And this break time is a good time to reflect back on the past school year, past instruction, and also to plan ahead.

You know, I always encourage parents and teachers to see math instruction as a set of concepts, skills, and topics that you wish your student to master before some set point in time, instead of seeing it as "a book for this grade" or "these pages". You might still use a book or books, but study the book so you know which are the main topics in the book.

The "set point in time" does not have to be the end of a school year, either. Of course many homeschoolers realize this.

So what kind of concepts have your student or students studied this past year? Which ones are mastered? Which ones still need more practice?

A very big part of the elementary math (years 1-5) can be summarized in the fact that the children are learning the four operations addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division:

1) first with whole numbers
2) then with fractions
3) and with decimals.

Four operations, three kinds of numbers. Of course whole numbers in reality are decimals, but kids have to first start learning with whole numbers.

So this boils down to four operations, and two kinds of numbers. It's arithmetic, the art of calculating.

All in all, it's not that much material. It might seem like a lot, since it takes 5-6 years to cover, but in actual substance it is not that much. A lot of the topics get repeated a lot over the grades.

On grade 6 on, we also start encountering topics such as ratio, proportion, and percent — and two more operations: exponentiation and a tiny bit of square roots. Of course geometry and measuring topics are present on all grades.

You might want to glance over this chart again (I've posted this before):


(click to show larger image)

Consider where your child is at, and where you're going from now.

If you are planning to buy a math curriculum, or wish to find free curriculum materials, check the homeschool math curriculum resources section on my site. You will find reviews, plus these articles:

How to choose a homeschool math curriculum

Is your math curriculum coherent and logical?

Scope and sequence chart suggestion

Free and inexpensive curriculum materials - this is a list of materials that you can use to supplement, or in a pinch even for a complete curriculum if you plan it well.

The State of State Standards - an article rating the various states' mathematics standards and explaining the reasons why most states' standards are "substandard". Only three states got an "A" in this review.

Reflecting back - planning ahead

You might or might not be taking a break from school for summer. I know one family where the child does schoolwork 3 weeks, then is 1 week off, all year long. But many follow loosely the typical school year and will soon be off school for a while.

And this break time is a good time to reflect back on the past school year, past instruction, and also to plan ahead.

You know, I always encourage parents and teachers to see math instruction as a set of concepts, skills, and topics that you wish your student to master before some set point in time, instead of seeing it as "a book for this grade" or "these pages". You might still use a book or books, but study the book so you know which are the main topics in the book.

The "set point in time" does not have to be the end of a school year, either. Of course many homeschoolers realize this.

So what kind of concepts have your student or students studied this past year? Which ones are mastered? Which ones still need more practice?

A very big part of the elementary math (years 1-5) can be summarized in the fact that the children are learning the four operations addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division:

1) first with whole numbers
2) then with fractions
3) and with decimals.

Four operations, three kinds of numbers. Of course whole numbers in reality are decimals, but kids have to first start learning with whole numbers.

So this boils down to four operations, and two kinds of numbers. It's arithmetic, the art of calculating.

All in all, it's not that much material. It might seem like a lot, since it takes 5-6 years to cover, but in actual substance it is not that much. A lot of the topics get repeated a lot over the grades.

On grade 6 on, we also start encountering topics such as ratio, proportion, and percent — and two more operations: exponentiation and a tiny bit of square roots. Of course geometry and measuring topics are present on all grades.

You might want to glance over this chart again (I've posted this before):


(click to show larger image)

Consider where your child is at, and where you're going from now.

If you are planning to buy a math curriculum, or wish to find free curriculum materials, check the homeschool math curriculum resources section on my site. You will find reviews, plus these articles:

How to choose a homeschool math curriculum

Is your math curriculum coherent and logical?

Scope and sequence chart suggestion

Free and inexpensive curriculum materials - this is a list of materials that you can use to supplement, or in a pinch even for a complete curriculum if you plan it well.

The State of State Standards - an article rating the various states' mathematics standards and explaining the reasons why most states' standards are "substandard". Only three states got an "A" in this review.

Papiroflexia

Papiroflexia (Spanish for "Origami") is the animated tale of Fred, a skillful paper folder who could shape the world with his hands.

Created by Joaquin Baldwin at the UCLA Animation Workshop, 2007. Original Score written by Nick Fevola.

Papiroflexia [Site]

The Uphill Roller

Today we'll be having a papercraft automata model of a mechanical paradox that was first presented in 1694 through a published recreational volume called "Pleasure With Profit". You may know it by familiar names such as, the Uphill Roller or Double Cone Incline. In it we have a set of shapes which is comprised of a cylinder, a double cone, and an inclined plane. First we tested the cylinder, and it rolled down the incline, just as gravity would dictate. But when we put the double cone on the bottom of the incline, it seems to defy the rule of gravity and it actually rolls up. This kind of thing might look magical to the untrained, but for those of you who where present in class when this was taught or discussed, then you already know the simple explanation to it.

Ok, I'll try to explain it as easy as can be, this apparent paradox is explained by demonstrating the property of the center of gravity of bodies, which tends naturally to move downward. Since the rails diverge, the center of gravity of the double cone, placed on the axis of rotation at the maximum diameter of the device, does not rise when the entire body seems to move up; on the contrary, the center of gravity descends. For a more detailed and better explanation, with video and trigonometry equations - check this page. And here's the papercraft automata version, from our good friend at paperpino.net

Anti-Gravity Double Cone [Download]
Thanks to Cliffy for creating the short video.

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Rhino Head Papercraft

Rhinos have been driven to near extinction – the world rhino population has fallen by more than 90 percent in the past 30 years. Whereas 30 species of rhino once roamed the planet, only five remain today, and all of them are endangered. In Africa, only the black rhinoceros and white rhinoceros still exist.

What’s the cause of the rhino’s precipitous decline? Not the habitat loss or food supply disruption that affects so many African animals. Rather, it is man’s relentless pursuit of the animal’s unique horn that poses the single most dangerous threat to rhinos today.

To help educate others, you can go to the African Wildlife Foundation web site for more information on how to help protect and preserve these majestic beasts.

Today we have a rhino head papercraft model from one of our favorite paper engineers, Chan See Lik Paul, who designed this model for 3dpapermodel.com.tw - we've previously posted on his other works such as this Easter Egg and Easter Bunny for Epson Hong Kong.

Rhino Head papercraft [Download]
African Wildlife Foundation [Site]

Update: 06.11.07

Original Chokipeta Wind Waker Link papercraft now available. [Download]

Previous model can be found here and other Choki models here.

Notes: Ron would like to give special thanks to Jen for her work on the first Wind Waker Link pattern and also thanks to Snake for sending in this new model.

Bartolomeu the Troll Sniffer Papercraft

Arf! arf! arf!, said Bartolomeu the papercraft dog. He must have found a live one, go on Bart, bark at those trolls. Bart is family friendly and easy to build, you'll have no problems assembling him, quick and simple to end the weekend. Have Fun!

Bartolomeu the Dog [Download]