Moon shadow

As noted in a post in 2014, most of the United States will be able to see a total solar eclipse in August 2017. That is all kinds of cool and lots more information will be available as the date gets closer. This is an incredible video of the eclipse shadow, something I had never seen focused on before, for the 2012 Total Solar Eclipse in Australia.

The Sweeping Shadow - Total Solar Eclipse, Nov 14 2012,The Granite, FNQ, Australia. 

from Colin Legg on Vimeo.

ExploratoRio 2015 time lapse videos

We set up ExploratRio 2015 on Tuesday, April 14. That process looked like this.

ExploratoRio 2015 Setup



The following day we opened our doors to Rio physics students and local elementary school students. It looked like this.

ExploratoRio 2015 Day

ExploratoRio 2014 Night

Here is the conclusion of this year's ExploratoRio time lapse series. We see the 90-minute exhibition and the 60-minute striking of the set. In the end, the classroom has returned to its original state and is ready to go for the next day.

ExploratoRio 2014 Night

ExploratoRio 2014 Daytime

To be a bit different in this year's time lapse, I toured the camera around the room before setting it back on its perch. I also took it outside and into the dark room. A white balance (set to the fluorescent light of the classroom) penalty was exacted.

Earlier, I relearned the lesson that my wide-angle lens is, in fact, a manual focus lens. And easily jarred when the camera is moved, the battery is changed, and the memory card tinkered with. Life goes on.

Here's today's clip. ExploratoRio 2014 had been going for three hours by the time this clip began rolling. So we see things through to the end of the daytime portion.

We had 12 elementary classes come to visit, so that's about 12 x 30 = 360 little ExploratoRions. I hope to see them again as students a few years from now.

ExploratoRio 2014 Daytime

ExploratoRio 2014 room prep and exhibit setup

From 3pm to 5pm, we ready the room. From 5pm to 6pm, the exhibits come in. Here's what it looks like, shot at 1 fps, displayed at 30 fps.

ExploratoRio 2014 Room Prep and Exhibit Setup

ExploratoRio season is in full bloom

Gratuitous time lapse of this year's exhibit adoption. Special thanks to Britknee for being such an excellent bouncer/door guard.

2014 ExploratoRio Exhibit Adoption


The "season" runs from the close of Presidents' ("Ski") Week until ExploratoRio (Open House). Exhibitors bring their exhibits in to show me that they work. Or I show them how to use school equipment to set up their exhibit (so they'll be able to do it on their own on ExploratoRio Eve). We discuss the operation, logistics, physics, perception.

I schedule one or two exhibits after school each day during the season, with the exception of Thursdays and other known blackout days. (Thursdays are out due to district-mandated "collaboration".) The one-on-one time with each set of exhibitors pays dividends on ExploratoRio Eve and Day in terms of operational smoothness and crisis avoidance.

Support staff positions are filling up nicely. Elementary class hosts are bringing in teacher contact information, and I've laid out a visitation schedule. We have three time slots yet unclaimed (two them being 11:30am-12-30pm). There are times when the space we have gets a bit crowded. We want to get as many elementary class students as we can to come in for a visit, but we have school for only a minimum day, so there is a hard time limit. One solution, I suppose, would be moving ExploratoRio off of Open House. But the original vision of ExploratoRio was for it to be the Open House activity.