Legos and The Franklin Institute

Twice this month Rudy and I have gone to the Franklin Institute for Lego-related activities. A few weeks ago, Rudy entered a Lego building contest sponsored by the museum in honor of their newest display- The Art of the Brick.
(Sorry the pictures are so small, I took them on my phone and if I try to make them bigger they are blurry)

There were Star Wars characters around to join in the celebration.

While we waited for the Lego contest, we explored an exhibit about the brain. There were cool illusions (these only showed up in 3-D in photos; otherwise it just looked flat)

Rudy explored some Lego robotics.

That's Rudy's skeleton moving as he moves.

Rudy's Lego display waiting for judging. It was a WWI battle scene.

Since it was opening day of The Art of the brick, the museum was very crowded and the lines were long. So even though we got a pass to the exhibit from being in the contest, I decided we would come back and use it another day.

So today we finally went back. The crowds were MUCH better and we were able to go right in to The Art of the Brick. The whole display is art created by Legos. Rudy really enjoyed it. The artist created famous works of art from Legos.

A stained glass window from Chartres made out of clear Legos.

This is what Rudy did the entire time (until he had no space left on his Kindle), he took pictures.

Posing with a cool original sculpture.

The Liberty bell "fixed" with Legos.

After walking through the Lego exhibit, we found a place to play with Legos. So Rudy spent about 20-30 minutes in the zone building a house.

The finished product

Then we explored the rest of the museum.  We built a domino line and sent it off.

Rudy attempted to design a plane.

And he was fascinated by this, which was created using Newton's Laws. Golf balls rolled through this over and over and he just stared and studied it for a good 10-15 minutes.

Lego Festival

We went to a Lego Festival in PA. The line was long to get in and it was very crowded but Rudy had a great time looking at all the Lego displays.

This was a display that had electronic connections to the Legos, so you could move them and play with them.

I thought this was cool.

And of course, even though we (and all the kids there) have Legos at home, the Legos to play with were a big hit.

Catching Up

We've been having trouble with our computer, so I haven't been getting pictures off the camera. The computer decided to start cooperating the other day, so I took advantage of to get pictures from the camera and now create one post for the last month.

In January a local bookstore had a Lego creation contest for kids. This is what Rudy came up with- Monster Factory. The Lego people go in as regular people and come out as monsters.

Once again we went out for a walk at the wildlife refuge in the cold.

And another day we went to walk a trail at Batsto and saw some cool sites. Snow and ice around a tree.

There was a layer of ice around all the water, which Rudy wanted to see how far he could go on it and we kept calling him back.

 Water half frozen.

A little bit of green moss peeking up through the snow.

A monkey in a tree

A monkey trying to get in a tree.

Making their own tracks.

Charlie stayed with us for about a week while Chris and Patti went away. He brought some costumes with him that Noel enjoyed using.

We had snow one day.

March brought Read Across America week and Wacky Wednesday.

 

And Cat in the Hat face painting.

Rudy had another class at the Arden and we were lucky that it was one of the few, warmer, sunny days we've had this winter.

Noel brought chap stick with him that he felt the need to apply continuously all over his mouth. And then point out to everyone we walked past that he had his own chap stick.

Rudy's class at the Arden was a Scavenger Hunt. So they just told us about they did and where they found clues.

And for my birthday, we went to Bass River and had a little picnic and took a short walk.

Notice Rudy's amazing physique. (he wore his Iron Man costume underneath his clothes)

Rudy showing ff his muscles.

And N showing off his muscles.