Shane

The Helicopter Museum

Weston-super-Mare, England

We actually weren’t going to go to this museum but we did after my mom saw a sign for it as we were headed to Wookey Hole. After we were done in Wookey Hole we went to the Helicopter Museum and saw all the helicopters they had stored there. They had one helicopter that had lots of guns, it was probably my favourite, that they actually had, my real favorite helicopter wasn’t there. Most of the helicopters were for transport and lifting vehicles, like tanks and cars and such.

It was made in 1958 and is the largest dedicated rotorcraft museum in the world and the only one of its kind in the UK. It started as collection of documents and artifacts, and in 1969, their first full size helicopter, a Bristol Sycamore Mk. 3. By 1974, The British Rotorcraft Museum was formed and the collection had grown to 9 aircraft by 1978. A restoration hangar was opened in 1993 and a display hangar in 1996.

In 1997, the museum’s name changed to The Helicopter Museum. The museum received £500,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for expansion. From these funds the collection has come to be what it is today.

I saw the ‘Hind’ Russian Anti-Tank Helicopter. It is capable of holding 4 Missile Launches, 128 Rockets, and shoots 60 rounds per second fire power. The museum also offers Helicopter Experience Flights. They give you an experience of how the helicopter works with a pilot to explain the controls and tour you around the area.

I thought this was alright, they didn’t have that much cool stuff, they had lots of helicopters but after you see them all there isn’t much to do, besides go to the gift shop and look at or get the cool stuff they have there. They also have a playground for kids, with swings and a helicopter that has been stripped of all it’s old items. I don’t think I would go back there, only for the special events they have maybe, but otherwise no.

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Wookey Hole

Wookey, England

Wookey Hole is a cave network. People who work there give tours of the caves and tell the history of the caves. When we first walked into the caves it was dark and they turned off the lights for a minute and they showed us the formations of the cave. When we walked in we saw a little baby bat, or at least it was small.

The tour guide showed us the Wookey Witch, which was a stone shape that was called the Wookey Witch. She was turned to stone by a monk who sprinkled her with holy water. The story is that she was evil and did bad things to the town and the people. The tour guide said that she was turned to stone by a monk while she was casseroling a child. The monk turned out to be the man that she loved when she supposedly used to be beautiful and not an ugly witch.

The Wookey Hole was formed by a great ocean that used to cover England 400 million years ago. Small sea creatures swam in that ocean and their shells became limestone and then settled onto the ocean bottom. It mixed with sand and hardened into rock. The ocean bed was squeezed and pushed into what is called the Mendip Hills. Over millions of years, sand and limestone were washed into the hills and summits making what the locals called ‘Pudding Stone’ or scientifically called Dolomitic Conglomerate.

The rain fall over the years made weaknesses in the rocks that widened cracks forming the River Axe. Fissures, which are cracks, in the limestone moved around in the Conglomerate and enlarged the caverns. New shafts and tunnels were being made through the years. In total, we were told about 25 chambers that were known. We went through 9. We could not go to anymore because the rest of them are under water up to 19, but you would have to be a diver to get to it.

When we came out of the Wookey Hole there was a beautiful green stream flowing, which is the River Axe. It was very beautiful. When we walked further out there was a park with dinosaurs, King Kong and some Neanderthal men. There was also a Wooly Mammoth and a Sabre Toothed Tiger.

In my opinion it was awesome. I say this because of the dinosaurs, dragons and the games that came after the caves. I even have video of me levitating some foam balls in one of the play areas.

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SS Great Britain

Bristol, England

The SS Great Britain was launched in 1843. It was designed and built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The ship had a 1000 horsepower engine and it could carry enough fuel to power her to America. It is called the great great grandmother of all ships. Because of its size, power and innovative technology Brunel built a ship that changed history.

When I walked up to the ship we first saw the bottom of it, it looked old and rusted. It was big, orange and dusty. When we walked up to it, it looked like it was under water still but there was no water under the ship. So we got to walk around the bottom of the ship.

We then walked into the museum part that was before we went on the top part of the ship. It showed the changes of the ship through pictures. They had a ship simulator that you had to steer towards the sunset and it was hard to do. There were artifacts from the ship. There were stamps you could put on your ticket at each section of the museum. I got all of them.

Going into the ship, there were a lot of mannequins of people dressed in the old time clothes from that time. It was big and it had different rooms for different passengers. There was one with rats in it and people that looked sick in it. There was one that had a quarantine sign on the outside that said you needed the doctors permission to go in. There was a doctors room that had a weird medicine smell. There was a toilet that when you pushed the door there was a recording of him saying ‘Pardon me, this lavatory is occupied!’ He said other things too. It was funny.

The engines were big and really loud. The engines were working and moving around. The kitchen was right behind the engine room. They had it so you could pretend you were cooking. There were pieces of meat nearby the oven, one looked like a T-Bone steak. They also had fish.

We found out that the SS Great Britain sailed around the world 32 times, which is more than a million miles at sea. In 1881 a man called Anthony Gibbs and his partners bought the ship and removed her engine to convert her to sails. In 1914 the ship supplied British warships for World War I. In 1933 the ship stopped working, it was no longer used. In 1937 they scuttled the ship, which means to flow water into the hull making it sink, in Sparrow Cove, Falkland Islands.

In 1969, Ewan Corlett went to the Falkland Islands to plan a salvage of the SS Great Britain. In 1970 it was brought back to Bristol for visitors to see it. In 1998, the year I was born, they found the ship was in serious risk of corrosion. In 2001 the Heritage Lottery Fund gave £10 million to save the ship. They put a glass crate around the bottom of the ship that made you feel like you were underwater when going in but it was dry. The glass plates were finished in 2005 for visitors to see the ship.

Overall my experience visiting the SS Great Britain was cool. Our tickets are good for a year so we can go back to see it and catch anything we missed. The ship looked really cool on the topside. I got a book that shows the ship and all its levels. Brunel made a lot of things that we saw on this trip.

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Concorde at Filton

28 March 2010

My visit to see the Supersonic Transport Plane.

The Concorde was first flown on March 2nd, 1969. It was built by Bristol Aeroplane Company. It was developed in the late ’50’s when the United Kingdom, the United States, France and the Soviet Union were all trying to develop supersonic transport. France and Great Britain were further in development than others and were mostly funded by their government.

We went to the Airbus Plant in Filton, England to see the Concorde. They showed us around the facility and told us all about the history of the company and how it came to be.

The original name was the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, in 1956. In 1959, it merged with several companies to become the Bristol Aeroplane Company.

They showed us where the original building was that started the company while they drove us around in a bus. Across the runway was where the plant for the Rolls-Royce Aero Engines was located but it is now a Royal Mail sorting plant.

Sir George White, the owner of Bristol Tramways is the person who founded the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company in 1910. One of it’s first designed aircraft was the Bristol Scout made for the military for spying. The tour guide said that it later became fitted with bombs and was used as a fighter also.

In 1939, when the war was going on, the company in Filton was the largest single aircraft manufacturing unit in the world. It had over 2 million square feet of space. In the late 1950’s the company started doing research on the supersonic transport which later turned into the Concorde.

The company became British Aircraft Corporation in the 1959. In 1977 it became BAE, British Aerospace. BAE is still around today but they mainly produce munitions and defence electronics.

We got to walk around the outside of the airplane. The one we saw landed at Filton in 2003. We watched a video of it’s flying around Bristol for the last time. We learned about the danger areas for workers when they worked on the plane on the inside, like the fuel tanks. Then we were told about how fast it could fly and where it flew. It’s highest speed was Mach 2.0 and the highest it could fly without going into space was 58,000 feet.

The guide also told us about the engines and the time it crashed in July 2000 when the fuel tank caught on fire in France. The crash was caused by a piece of Titanium from a DC-10 that flew into the Concorde’s tire and punctured a fuel tank which caught the plane on fire and killed everyone on it also four people on the ground.

We then went into the plane and got to see the cockpit. They played the actual recording of it’s last flight and the flight crew talking to the passengers. We also got to see the menu for the food they served on the plane and pictures of the food too. All the seats were first class and very comfortable. They had a lighted sign that showed us the height and speed we were flying at. It also told us the temperature.

We eventually got up to 58,000 feet which they said if we went any further, we would be in space and need oxygen. The plane we were on was a British Airways model. They said that British Airways still owns it so they come check it out every so often to inspect it. We also got told about flights that they offered for lunch that you could have taken from London for £199 to go on it and experience the supersonic speeds.

I think the plane was cool but I think it is too bad they don’t fly it anymore. It gets you places faster than normal. From London to New York is only three hours which is much better than 7-8 hours it takes now. They say that it is from 9/11 that the plane started losing money because passengers who flew it regularly were customers who worked in the Twin Towers. So the guide said he wasn’t sure if it was because they died in the 9/11 attacks or if they just had nowhere to go work in New York after that event.

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West Somerset Railway

Spring Steam Gala

March 27, 2010

We left Bristol in the morning around 9:00 to drive to Bishops Lydeard for our first ride on a steam train. We arrived to the station in time for the first train but when we got on the train there were lots of people and no good seats for us to sit in so we waited for the next train.

The route they were running was from Bishops Lydeard to Minehead.

My mother purchased us passes to ride the route back and forth as many times as we wanted for the day. The first train we travelled on was the BR Jarvis/Bulleid Pacific 4-6-2 No: 34046 Braunton – Owned by Locomotive 34046 Ltd. The West Somerset Railway Spring Steam Gala was a way for the people to show us what the most travelled route of steam trains was back in the old days.

The West Somerset Railway was opened in 1862 and was working from Norton Fitzwarren Junction to Watchet.  The consulting engineer for the making of this railway was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The purpose of this railway was to link the railway network with the popular areas for seaside holidays.

On our first trip, we went from Bishops Lydeard to Minehead. We stopped in Minehead and went for lunch in a local restaurant. Minehead was a coastal town. There was Butlins Holiday resort there. While we were there we watched a train engine go on the turntable and get turned around to go the opposite way on the tracks.

They welcome 200,000 passengers each year on the West Somerset Railway. There are 55 full time employees and an amazing 900 volunteers working on the railway. There were even young teens volunteering on the train. It was an exciting day.

We then went from Minehead to Watchet and found that this station was much smaller than Minehead so it was interesting to see that the last original stop on the line was so small but it was definitely a holiday town because there were many static caravans near the station. It was a pretty town.

After seeing the town of Watchet, we went back to Minehead. Minehead is known for its having the longest station platforms on any heritage railway. The turntable at Minehead was installed in 2008 and is manually operated. When we watched this being done, it looked really hard to do. The men were pushing the train around from both sides and when they had to stop it looked really hard because they had to stop at an exact spot or it wouldn’t work.

We travelled back to Bishops Lydeard at the end of the day. We got to watch the daylight go to sunset and it was really cool to watch out the window. I stuck my head out the window and watched as we travelled. There were even pieces of soot inside on the table from the steam engine burning the coal to make the engine go.

I found out that in December that the West Somerset Railways has a Santa Special train for the kids. There is also the Murder Mystery train, they have actors from “Murder By Appointment”, who give you a mystery to solve while riding the train. That sounds exciting to me, even though they say it is not suitable for children. I think they should make one that kids can go to too.

At the end of the day, I liked this because it was fun and enjoyable, also because I didn’t have to walk much, I just had to sit and look out the window to see cool stuff. I highly recommend it to everyone.

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First view of the bridge from a distance

The Clifton Suspension Bridge

Bristol, England

Thursday March 24, 2010

The bridge was built in 1864 by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. the bridge is located in Bristol, England over the Avon Gorge. It is named the Clifton Suspension Bridge. It was named the Clifton Suspension Bridge because the area it was built is or was called Clifton. In 1822 there were bridge plans proposed for Clifton and then again six years later.

In 1828, the Bristol Chamber of Commerce was putting pressure on the Society of Merchant Venturers to build a bridge and have a steamship service to Ireland. This was seen by Bristol as an economical venture for the city to make money and benefit from becoming a profitable trade location.

In 1829, the Society of Merchant Venturers set up a committee of commissioners. They prepared an Act of Parliament to change William Vick’s Will which stipulated a toll free stone bridge. William Vick was a wealthy wine merchant originally from Minchinhampton, England. In his will he left £1000 to the Society of Merchant Venturers. He wanted them to invest the money until it reached £10,000, at that time he requested they build a toll free stone bridge across the Avon Gorge from Clifton to Leigh Down. Vick believed that it would be a great public utility for the area.

in 1829, the amount of money had grown to £8000. October 1, 1829 the Commissioners announced a competition for an iron suspension bridge at Clifton Down. They gave competitors just seven weeks to put in their entries. they were to build the highest and longest suspension bridge in the world. According to the visitor’s center at the bridge, there was no list found recorded of the entries but there have been various sources claiming 22 entries were submitted.

Many people submitted designs, ranging from all stone bridges that estimated up to £93,000 to fancy bridges that seemed to be time consuming to build and not very practical.

An amazing four entries were submitted by a young man named Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He was 23 years old and did not have much experience with suspension bridges only the two short span bridges that he worked with his father on in Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

Many of the designs were rejected due to cost and appearance. Five designs were left to choose from. They decided to ask Thomas Telford the Father of Civil Engineering, as well as, the first President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. In his experience, he was cautious about designs larger than 600 feet/184 meters due to his bridge in Menai being damaged from storms. He dismissed Brunels designs stating that ‘although they were pretty and ingenious, they would certainly tumble down in a high wind.’

Mr. Telford decided that none of the designs were suitable for adoption. There were two designs that he felt were practical so he recommended that they should share the prize money but that they would not be appointed because the amount of alterations would make the schemes a new design. This would save the committee any embarrassment.

So, they were left with the option to invite Mr. Telford to produce a suitable design. He was able to design it in three weeks time. It was a short span suspension bridge with two masonry towers with a span of 110 meters/360 feet.

In October of 1830 the committee held a new competition as there were many arguments about the design and the financing of the bridge. Local citizens were complaining that there was no budget in place, as well as the practicality of the designs to make the gorge still have a nice appearance. In October of 1830 the competition was given a deadline of December 18th.  In this competition Thomas Telford entered as an equal competitor with everyone else. For this competition, there were thirteen recorded entries. The judges for the competition were more from a scientific and mathematical background.

In this competition the winners were: 1st Smith and Hawkes, 2nd Isambard Brunel, 3rd Capt. S Brown, and 4th James M.Rendel. There was debate between Brunel and Davies Gilbert in regard to his design. Gilbert required Brunel to make several changes to his design which made his bridge limited to 214 meters/ 703 feet. Two days later Brunels design was declared the winner.

To find out more about how the bridge was built and what went on during the building process, I suggest you go visit Bristol and see this beautiful bridge. The finished product was  completed on 8 December 1864. The bridge is 414 meters/1352 feet long and 9.5 meters/31 feet wide. It is also 75 meters/245 feet above the high water level.

What I thought was cool about the bridge was the view from the sides, you could see almost all of Bristol. Also the Gorge was very cool, it had cool looking mountains on both sides and a muddy river. We took many pictures of it and I will try to share them with you.

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Today, we crossed over the Thames River to get to North Woolwich, we were going to use the Woolwich Free Ferry, but the one we were getting on was going to have to wait for a half-hour to let us on. So we took the Woolwich Foot Tunnel. The tunnel was very dirty, we could clearly see it was very old, there was dirt across some areas and you could also see something like water or something else spilt across the ground in some spots. It smelt pretty bad but you could easily get used to it, as it wasn’t a very strong smell. When we got to North Woolwich, we went to some stores and things like that. After that, we headed back home, and this time caught a Woolwich Free Ferry, it was pretty big, probably the size of 2 houses side-by-side, maybe bigger. You could see it wasn’t treated very well by some passengers though, there were a few bottles on the floor, and some spilt stuff, like in the tunnel, you could smell smoke from cigarettes, but it was better just to stay by the water, and not have to smell smoke and that kind of stuff, once the ride was over, we finally went home. We had to take a bus and then walk back, and then we were home. Also, On Wednesday is when we should be going to Bristol, and a few other places I think, and when we head back, I think the next day, we might stop by LegoLand Windsor, which makes me happy!

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English seems to be getting more fun, this term we aren’t reading another book but we are working on our own magazine article about a topic we wanted to use. When we started, we looked at magazines for inspiration (although most of us didn’t need the magazines).

Once we had chosen our topic, we had to narrow it down so it couldn’t be any simpler, we then shared our ideas and began working. We worked on it at home and researched our topic and eventually Mr. Raisdana gave us a paper that was supposed to be a chart, there were many boxes on it we put our main ideas above the boxes and wrote our questions in the boxes, and below those boxes, were more boxes. Inside those we tried to answer our questions, or give supporting facts to our topic.

During all of that we learned about Transitions, Transitions are words that connect sentences (or paragraphs) like bridges, words such as and, similarly, likewise, etc. We then used Transitions in our paragraphs and highlighted them, so we could tell where they were fast.

After all of that, we went onto Google Docs (Documents). We used our paper and typed up our topic and such in there, then invited Mr. Raisdana to collaborate on it, he put (in his special highlighted words) in certain areas where we should have Transitions or more detail and such. That helped us with making it just right.

Now with all of that done, we begin proceeding into our next topic, ‘Voice’.

-Shane  

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1. 

Describe when and how you used this strategy to help you better understand the novel. The reading strategy that I chose was Visualize, It helped me better understand the novel by making me imagine pictures of what was going on at those moments in my mind.

Give examples of activities we did in class and how they were connected to the strategy you chose.  One time we did a ritual from a page in The Egypt Game. It was connected to my strategy because we were visualizing what had happened in a certain page in the book.

How did this strategy change over time? Did you make any adjustments? What might you do differently next time?  It changed over time because we got to compare to certain moments and soon acted out those moments. We had to make adjustments to our performances but eventually got it right the final time. Next time we might be able to rehearse more and get it right, and we will probably be doing a different thing next time!

Discuss a strategy you did not use but would like to try out next time. Next time I might do Predict, because predicting is fun if you want to try and see if you get right what happens next in a story or something.

2.  1.What was it?: I picked the character viewpoint of Marshall. I picked him because he was my favorite character, he’s the best boy character I think that because he is funny sometimes but is also smart and helpful. 2.How did you understand it?: The reason I relate to Marshall is because him and I both have a Security-like thing. My security was a blanket, and I took it almost everywhere I went, I also would play with it too, but never lost it unlike Marshall. 3.How did it change throughout the book?: At the beginning of the book Marshall was quiet and nice, he would talk with the girls and go to Egypt, but he mainly stayed quiet. At the middle of the book, Marshall was very nice and talked more, he played with the girls more enthusiastically. At the end of the book he was very smart, helpful, and talked to all of the Egypt gang. He solved a mystery and became a hero. 4.Conclusions:  In the end this book was really good. Although I normally read adventurous kind of books like Eragon and such, but this was still an OK book.

3.  

Explain what each one means to you: The first Simile on page 150, it means (to me) the smoke is curling around like a snake would in a cartoon when it dances out of a jar to music.

The Personification on page 71 means to me that they are trying to make fear act like a shady, strange person.

The metaphor on page 7 means to me that they are trying to compare excitement with electricity.

Give visual examples of each one:

How did these literary features influence your experience with the novel?:  They gave almost everything something to do, like making smoke into a curling snake. I liked having these kind of things in the book.

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