Take Your Child To Work Day

Take Your Child To Work Day was celebrated last Thursday. For the first time, we decided to participate. Included in Ethan's were his Cub Scout binder, and his Nintendo DS. Much to his chagrin, I informed him that if he was going to miss school to come to work, he would be doing some learning!



The main accomplishment of the morning was earning his Cub Scout computer belt loop and academic pin. This involved studying the inner workings of a PC, using software to write a report, learning about Ethernet networks (sadly, just the 100 Mb/s that we use, not the 100 Gb/s that we build), learning about servers, and visiting the Boy Scouts website, where he discovered some games.



Next up, we decided to do some Snap Circuits projects. Handy enough, I stumbled over their introductory logic circuits. Ethan learned about AND, OR, NAND, and NOR. I explained the logic portion, and how charge actually flowed to make the circuits work. He predicted the truth tables for NAND/NOR and tested his hypothesis. Finally, we discussed how NAND is itself a complete logic set and that, in theory, you could make entire computer from NAND circuits!



All-in-all, we had a fun morning and I think Ethan learned a lot. I even got some of my own work done on the side!

When his brothers came to pick him up, they decided to extend some of the logic truth tables.

Now and Before

I just received my freshly-renewed passport. I'm wondering how many "watch lists" I am now on due to my new photo. It looks like I've gone from grimy college student to "international trouble-maker."


BEFORE


NOW