Annual day

Rishab’s Annual day of Kindergarten was scheduled today.

Annual day at Rishab’s school

Annual day at Rishab’s school

He sang and had the fun as usual with rest of his school.

Rishab’s first software program/Animation using scratch

I recently attended a session on Raspberry Pi in Waltham library. One of the link that was demonstrated had an educational programming software called Scratch developed by MIT.  This project already had more than 2 million users and 4 million programs uploaded on their site. Most popular among 12 and 13 year old kids. Interface looked damn easy and intuitive. I decided that its the right tool for Rishab to learn.

I installed it and tried a simple animation myself quickly with the help of YouTube video. Demonstrated it to Rishab and asked him to do a few steps, he was excited to see that he could make the cat say his name and do lots of fun stuff very easily.

After 2 days, I gave him an assignment, he watched the video back and forth, step by step and ended up creating the following program that simply spins a sprite(character)

Spin sprite – First program by Rishab. Click to play animation in MIT site

It was very tricky for Rishab to create multiple images. Specially dragging, making those small circles and cutting in half to make ears etc. It took him more than an hour to create this animation all from scratch using Scratch. Finally when it was ready, we uploaded it to MIT’s site.

Where do we go next after learning this basic programming? Well Scratch is already interfaced with a few hardware tools to make interesting projects. Play-i (a crowd sourced project) is coming up with a robot kit that can be controlled with Scratch program using bluetooth 4.0. I am sure there are more out there and will show up as we explore more of such technologies.

This exercise of teaching Rishab his first programming language,  brought back the excitement that I had when I was learning Basic language and the high I use to get creating those random lines and blimp programs. Where as everyone else was just focused on writing those palindrome, prime number related  programs.

After reading this, if you happen to install and use Scratch, please leave a comment here or on Rishab’s page on MIT site. We would be glad to link to your page and see what others are developing.

Prospect hill park, Waltham, MA

Rishab and I often go to Prospect hill park located in Waltham, MA. This view from the top often energizes me. Fall season made it all the more beautiful.

Prospect Hill – Boston view from Watham, MA

Not just the view from the top but also the path that leads there is equally beautiful.

Road to Prospect hill park in Waltham

Sleeping in the car

One evening while we were returning home, Rishab remembered that he had left his favorite teddy in the trunk. Rishab was quite tired as he had played all day. He knew a way to reach trunk from inside of the car. He opened it, took out his teddy and in a few seconds he slept off in the same position.

Sleeping in the car

We drove home carefully and he remained in the same position.

Batman pumpkin

Rishab’s this year Halloween theme is BatMan. So it started with preparing his costumes and then came a play date with Sofia. Both kids first drew what they wanted on their pumpkins and then we parents carved them in the pumpkins.

Rishab & Sofia helping to clean the pumpkins

Since i was doing this for the first time, Sofia’s experienced dad helped us with ideas on what and how to carve. Rishab and I carved Batman logo on one side.

Rishab with our carved pumpkin with light inside.

It started developing fungus after a few days and it started getting batman’s real black color.

Fungus on pumpkin with batman logo

We disposed it after a week. Next time we shall apply some Vaseline(petroleum jelly) on the carved part to protect it.

Soccer field Waltham, MA

This soccer field in Waltham, MA on Trapello road is newly created and we hardly see any activity yet. While we were waiting for our friends, me and Rishab thought of checking it out.
Rishab with his fav Iron Man pose at a soccer field in Waltham, MA

Artificial grass over this soccer field felt very nice. I wonder why so many people spend so much of time maintaining their lawn & spray pesticides.

Autumn and birds

One evening I saw these small berries in the bushes attached to our patio. After clicking the picture, I plucked one of the not so good looking berry and Rishab said “Don’t do that…! Birds eat them”. I wondered if any bird really needs berries from our patio. Nevertheless I stopped touching them thinking about Rishab’s emotional attachment to the berries and the birds.

Berry in our patio

One week passed and its autumn time, looks like birds aren’t finding enough food around and they started eating these berries. Found a common sparrow eating these berries. In 2 days all the berries are gone.

Sparrow eating berries in our patio

Rishab taught me a great lesson today: As we grow, We often tend to forget the small deeds that make BIG difference in some one else’s life.

Happy Halloween from Boston, MA

Happy Halloween in advance from all of us from Boston, MA.

Happy Halloween from Boston, MA.

Rishab is ready for Kindergarten

Cant believe that Rishab more than 5 years old now. He is ready for school..!

This picture was taken just before he was about to step out to his kindergarten school.

Update: Every morning is a drama

Day 1: He didn’t seem to have liked his new friends on the first day.

Day 3: Rishab slept late last night & Daddy is trying to wake him up. Rishab mutters: “I want to be absent today..!”

Day 5: Mom waking him up “You are getting late Rishab…!” his response… “Let me have the last dream mama…ZZZzzz…”

Day 7: Dad tells Rishab that he will be late to school if he doesn’t wake up quickly.. Rishab mutters ” Stop saying that…! I am trying to sleep..Zzz…”

Canoeing in Auburndale, MA

This pretty summer weekend was a great day to go out on a canoe.

A small family living on one of these island kept fresh water bottles. kids were thoroughly tired after rowing.

Canoeing in Auburndale, MA

It took us about an hour to go one round to the nearby island.

Canoeing in Auburndale, MA

It was first ever experience of rowing for Rishab. I am sure it was great fun for him. It sure was for me.