Aerial views of our school

Thanks to Sergeant Tom Mansfield for sending on the following photos taken from the Garda helicopter during the visit from the Garda Air Support Unit on June 17th 2008.

Wow!!

visit from John Thompson

On Friday the 20th we got a visit from John Thompson.He sent us pictures of planes and thats how we got the idea of the paper mache planes.He is the Granddad of two puples in this school, ******* and *******.We sent him lots of questions and we got great answers back.He told us about the different planes.We took pictures of him with ******* and ********.We did presentations for him.We all did presentations we did about the Wright Brothers ,the Robo show,Papier Mache,KNex and the Lego Models.We showed him how a story board works.

Microsoft and Helicopter Visit School

Click on the Posts link on the bottom right corner of the Player. Click on Helicopter Visit to hear a podcast about the visit of the Garda Air Support Unit and Captain Phillip O' Brien who came to visit us from Baldonnell.


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Yesterday Microsoft came to our school. But first at 9:30 2 guards called Sergeant Paul Duggan and Sergeant Tom Mansfield arrived. They showed us videos and told us about the radar and the gadgets that are in the helicopter. We saw different videos from car chases and people running from the police at night. They told us about the Garda Air Force and we asked them lots of questions. Then they showed us pictures of helicopters and at about 10:30 we heard a helicopter. I was on the camera and I took the camera off the tripod and everyone lined up outside in the hall. Ms O' Connell told us to stay on the school side of the wire that a helicopter was going to land in the pitch. The helicopter circled the school a few times and then hovered over the pitch before landing It was very loud and the rotor blades made the place very windy. It was raining and they took a long time to turn off the helicopter. Then Captain Philip O' Brien the driver of the helicopter came out with Carmel and the dog trainer with his English Springer Spaniel Deas. Captain O' Brien introduced us to everyone and then we went down to the helicopter. We split into 2 groups. 1 group stayed at the helicopter and the other group went to look at Deas the dog. Then we went for lunch and after lunch Captain O' Brien gave a speech about the history of flight. He then had to leave because it was raining and with too much rain the helicopter could get grounded.It only took them 35 minutes to come here from Baldonnell. Before they left they brought Ms O' Connell on a spin in the helicopter and we got even closer to the helicopter and it was even more windier. We had to go back inside and wait until Ms O' Connell came back and we got Roses sweets from Mrs. Brett and when they we about to land we went out again. Then they left after that.

Then we did our presentation that we have been practising for ages. We went up when we had too and everyone talked about their pieces. Mary Healy {Captain Philip O' Brien's cousin} Siobhan Moore from Microsoft, Cathal O' Connell{NCTE}, Deirdre Butler from Tech Net and St. Patricks Drumcondra and Fr. Mcgrath was here when we were doing our speech. Captain O' Brien, Carmel, the dog trainer sand the dog Deas weren't there because they had left before it. Mary Healy also made chocolate chip muffins for us aswell. Thanks Mary!!

At the end of the day we played games and sixth class got footballs from Cathal because we won't be here next year and that was probably the last time we will see him. Microsoft's Siobhan Moore also gave us a goodie bag with pens, PC mouse mats, calculators, highlighter pens and mints. Today {Thursday 19 June} we will be looking at some of the footage that we took yesterday. We had a really good and exciting day yesterday.
By: Danan.

Yesterday on 18th of June it was the best day of the eight years I was in school so far .At the start of the day there were Guards in our classroom to congratulate us for our Microsoft award. They were called Sergeant Tom and Sergeant Paul. They weren’t normal guards, they were helicopter guards and they rescue people aswell as arrest people. G**** was terrified that he would be arrested. Garda Paul was showing us ideos of car chases, motorbike chases and much more. Some of the videos were very dangerous like a motorbike crash and a video of a fight. We could see a video from a helicopter looking at a man during the night and it was pitch black but with the thermal imaging you can see a black shape moving and it is the person on the run, you can see the black because of his body heat. After a while at 11 O’ clock Miss O’ Connell brought us outside for a surprise and a Garda helicopter landed in the football pitch, the wind from the rotor blades is unreal, it makes you take a few steps back. Captain Philip and Carmel who is the navigator showed us all the controls of the helicopter and then to our surprise a small dog called Deas that was a Springer Spaniel(a sniffer dog)came out of the helicopter and got a lot of attention from everyone, mostly the girls! Now it was breaktime and everyone went and got their lunch and went into the shed and were talking about the helicopter . After break we went into our classroom and Philip started talking to us about helicopters and flight. He showed us a powerpoint of pictures of planes and helicopters that look unusual. Philip, Carmel, Deas and the dog trainer were leaving, but first they took Miss O’ Connell up for a spin and we got to closer to the helicopter for take-off and the amount of grass that flew back into our faces was horrible but the wind was lovely. The helicopter flew for around five minutes and it came back down to ground. They took off for real then to go back to Baldonnel and we all waved them off.

It was now time for our own presentation. ***** introduced us and I was first and I talked about the Wright Brothers and showed my LEGO model to everyone. In the audience were Sergeant Paul Duggan and Tom Mansfield, Siobhan Moore from Microsoft, Cathal O’ Connell(NCTE) and Deirde Butler(Teach net St. Patricks Drumcondra), Father McGrath and Mary Healy. The teachers and the junior room were looking too. Siobhan Moore made a presentation to mark our achievement as the best school in Europe, she also gave every student pens, calculators, highlighters and mints. Garda Paul put the handcuffs on ***** and the bulletproof vest . Cathal gave everyone in sixth class a football because it was probably the last time he would ever see us. As I said before it was the best day ever.
By: The Red Baron.

Visit from Microsoft Ireland

On Wednesday the academic program manager of Microsoft Ireland Dr. Kevin Marshall, will be coming to our school to give us our prize for the Microsoft Innovative teacher forum.Dr. Deirde Butler of St.Patricks College will be coming also. She set up the Empowering minds in Ireland,this is the group that co-ordinate the LEGO project in Ireland. We have invited our old friend Cathal of the NCTE to come down to celebrate our win.

Today a few of us, including me will be staying in school until six o' clock to prepare for the day. Nine hours is a long time to be in school but I'm sure it will be worth it. Everyone will be talking about something that happened in school this year. I will be talking about the research we have done on the Wright brothers and the model of the 1903 flyer that I made out of LEGO. You will hear all about Wednesday soon enough.
By:THE RED BARON

Filming the Little Prince

We have been working on our Film of the Little Prince over the past few days. Here are some of the photos taken by Ronaldo.

Click on the posts link on the bottom of the player and choose 'The Little Prince Podcast' to listen to how the film was created, in the words of 'The Little Prince'.


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Translating 'Le Petit Prince'

Today we are translating our 'Little Prince' Script into Irish. It is our plan to make the film in three languages, English, Irish and French. Perrine, our French teacher has translated the script into French but we are doing the Irish translation ourselves. You can see us working hard on our script in the photos.

Aeroplane Project

When an aeroplane climbs (gains altitude),it has a nose-up altitude.This means that the nose of the plane is higher than the tail.Picture an airplane just after take off, as it climbs into the sky. The attitude of the plane,weather nose-up or nose down is called pitch.Pitch is controlled by the elevator,which is a horizontal surface located at the tail of an airplane.Airplanes also use ailerons to help control direction.Ailrons are located on the rear edge of each wing and can move up and down.When the airplane turns,the left and right ailrons move in opposite directions.One moves up the other moves down.Ailrons cause an aircraft to tilt to the left or right you have no doubt experinced this if you have ever been a passenger on an airplane.This left/right tilting moting is called roll.How is an airplane steared? Cars are steared by simply pointing the front wheels in the direction you wish to turn.Boats have a rudder at their stern or backend which controls their direction of movement.Like boats,airplanes also have rudders. The rudder is located at the end of the aircraft.The rudder is vertical and has a side-to-side motion that "stears" the aircraft to the left or right.This left/right steering motion is referred to as you.

On the way back from the Roboshow

On our way back from the Roboshow we went to Mcdonalds in Carlow.We were hungry.It took a long time to get to Mcdonalds. When we got there we all finished our happy meals really fast.We got toys there too.The girls got a fairy cd rom and a little fairy toy. The boys got a dragon cd rom and dragon cards.
Then when we were driving through Callan we stopped at Callan park. We all went running in. We all climbed onto the roundabout. The boys pushed it and they jumped on. It went really fast.Half the boys fell off! Then we went on the tight rope. It was scary.We also went on the slide. It was really high.
Some of my friends went on the see-saw and the swings .
It was really good fun.
We had to be back in the schoolfor 6 o'clock so went back to the bus and drove back to school. We left our lego in and left it on the tables. We were proud of ourselves and all our hard work up at the Roboshow and we can't wait till next year!!

Roboshow 2008 St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra

On Tuesday the 13th of May I got up at 6:15am and ate my breakfast got dressed and packed my bag because kilvemnon school was going to the Roboshow. The Roboshow is where we show off our LEGO Models. Once we got there we set up our stand. After that we waited until all the other schools were there and with our groups we went and looked at other models. I was with Smiley, The Rose, Danan and Sparkey.We saw a town and robots and an Irish explorer and hydraulic lifts and lots of other models then after that we were on our stand talking about our plane project. It was fun telling other people about our models and then once we finished that we went and looked at other models again. Then we went with the other schools and got our award. Then we went and looked at others models. Once we left we had our lunch on the pitch and played soccer. It was great fun. Once I was on the at the stand I told them about the Control Tower and what it did like help the pilot land and clears them for landing. I told them how long it took to build the airport and lifts. I also told them what the lifts were for. I really enjoyed it.

By B612

Red Baron:Wright brothers 1903 flyer

Name of model:
The Wright Brothers 1903 flyer

Timeframe of construction:
About 12 sessions of LEGO

Team involved:
Only meR

Contributors:
Batman, Jimsey and Past Pupil

Initial idea:
I got the idea of doing the Wright brothers flyer from doing research of the Wright brothers and I found it really interesting. We looked at videos of the plane in flight, it was animated though. I found it interesting learning about how they were bicycle engineers and that they used to make gliders before the engine powered plane. They became interested in flight when they were young. Their father who was a bishop brought them a type of thin that flew by an elastic band. You would twist the rotor blades on top and let go and the blades would spin around making the thing fly.

Adaptations:
I had to change a few things. I built the plane in a way but it didn’t exactly work so I tried something else and that didn’t work. One day I asked Past pupil if he could give me a hand so he helped me with I and we did a thing with gears to work the front part of the plane and sadly that did not work either but eventually we found the right idea and we used pulleys with the elastic bands and it worked so that was good. In the back of the plane it wasn’t hard at all and the first thing we did worked. After a few more LEGO sessions Miss O’Connell saw that the motor wasn’t in the right place and it looked wrong where it was, so I moved it.

Changes in the future:
I am not sure what changes I will have in the future and hopefully I won’t have to make any changes. I will be making the Wright brothers flyer out of lollipop sticks with Danny and a few other people so I am looking to that.

Programming:
The programming on my plane is not so complicated, the plane just goes 0.2 seconds one way and 0.2 seconds the other way and repeats a few more times. The programming on a model is when you can make the plane do what you want and it is controlled by the RCX which is connected to a motor by a wire and the motor spins. You use the computer to program the RCX. An RCX is a control unit that is specially designed for LEGO MINDSTORMS.

Migration

Swallow:
The swallow flies from Ireland to South Africa. It takes him 1.5 months to get there. His wingspan is 38cm. He is 17-20cm long.

Osprey:
The osprey flies from Ariemore, Scotland to Senegal, Africa. It takes him 20 days to get there. His wingspan is 150-170cm.

Arctic Tern:
The arctic tern flies from The Shetland Islands to Antartica. It takes him 2-3 months to get there. His wingspan is 70-80cm.

Monarch Butterfly:
The monarch butterfly flies from Maine, USA to Mexico. It takes him about 2 and half months to get there. His wingspan is 10cm.

Grey Whale:
The grey whale swims from Bering Sea to Baia, California. It takes him 3 months to get there.

All birds know where to go because they follow these - Magnetite, it is like a magnet in their heads, instinct.

By: Smiley

Piggley's Adventure

Click on the posts link in the right corner of the player. Link to 'Piggley's Adventure in Zagreb' to listen to our podcast.
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Piggley our little mascot went to Zagreb in Croatia with our teacher, Miss O'Connell, and had an amazing trip. He got up at 5:00 in the morning to get onto his first plane in Dublin. Piggley got special treatment on the plane for all his hard work he did on the computer. He got his own seat and extras to eat from the staff (but he also packed his own lunch)!!!
Our amazing little mascot also took some amazing photos. Miss O'Connell took one of Piggley working on the computer. The next morning Miss O'Connell took another plane straight to Zagreb. But before that she met 3 famous boxers called Eric Donovan, Darren O'Neill and Jimmy Halpin.
Once she got on the plane it went straight to Prague which is in the Czech Republic. On the first day she went into the hotel, Regent Splende, and unpacked and then went to the Croatian State Archives and went and set up a stand. Then she went back. On the second day she went and got things and put them up. Then after that Piggley went around sight-seeing. He saw a cathedral and a market.
Once he was done he went back and Piggley met the Saltash chicken, aka his girlfriend. Then Piggley heard the awards and he came.............1st !!! I think it was the best day of Piggley's life!!
Piggley also met Chris Rea who is a famous singer. When Piggley came home to Ireland, we had an amazing party. At first we got drinks either orange or 7up. Then Mrs. Brett came around with walkers crisps. Then Mrs. Brett came around with sweets and **** I got extra sweets. Then Ms. O'Connell tried to burst the champagne poppers but it wouldn't burst so we just ripped it open and threw the confetti out.

By: B612

Visit to Kilkenny Airfield

In February we went to Kilkenny Airfield. Vincent Vaughan brought us there. He said " one person will be able to fly in the plane with me". It was a very small plane. Only two people could fit in it. At school we did a raffle and **** won. We went there at 11 o' clock. When we got there we went to see the plane. We thought it would be huge but it was small. We all got to sit in it. *** and I sat in it together. There was no steering wheel but instead there was a joystick. At the side of the plane there was a little hole and if you blow into it, it will tell you how fast you are going. Then **** got in the plane and it took around five minutes to take off. They were gone for 20 to 30 minutes. **** came back with a smile on his face. Then we went home. By: The Rose


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