Have you been inspired by the Great British Bake Off?
We are BIG fans of 17 year old Martha, and love that she has shown Britain that kids can bake just as well (if not better!) than adults. After leaving the show, Martha said “I wanted to show that young people can do it and you don’t need hundreds of years of experience”.
A lot of you probably have already done a bit of baking with parents or grandparents, but moving on to baking independently can be a bit daunting.
To help you get your bake on, we’ve some tips on getting started, and simple recipe ideas that will make you feel like you’ve baked a showstopper. So, move aside, mums and dads, this is all about baking for kids!
On Your Marks, Get Set… BAKE!
Image Credit
Before you start to bake, get all your ingredients out and put them on the worktop. This prevents you getting halfway through the recipe and then noticing that you’ve run out of something really vital, like eggs!
Where did the loomband craze start, and who invented loom bands? That is the question we are going to answer today. Set your loombands aside for a moment and find out!
The Loomband craze started in 2011 with a Malaysian father of two crafty kids. Cheong Choo Ng’s daughters Teresa, then 12 years old, and Michelle, then 9 years old, liked to make bracelets out of rubber bands.
Cheong wanted to join in the fun, but his fingers were too big. His first loom made similar bracelets to the ones his daughters were making, which didn’t really excite them.
His next attempt had three rows of pushpins, and he discovered that he could loop the bands in various geometric patterns to create much more interesting bracelets. Now his daughters were impressed!
At first the family made bracelets for friends and neightbours, until Cheong’s 12 year old daughter suggested he should try to sell the kits. He invested $10,000 in the first sets of RainbowLoom, and approached local stores with his invention.
At first the stores were reluctant to stock the RainbowLoom, so Cheong and his daughters filmed YouTube videos, so that people could see what was so fantastic about the loom.
An American toy shop owner discovered RainbowLooms, and started selling them in her two stores in Atlanta. She and her staff would demonstrate the loom bands to young girls, and the kids would ask their parents if they could buy them.
They soon found that loom bands appealed to boys just as much as girls, and that whole families were soon getting crafty with the little elastic bands!
The store in Atlanta was part of a nationwide franchise (a chain of shops) and when the owners of the other shops heard about this fabulous new product, they wanted them in their stores.
Cheong couldn’t keep up with the demand, as the shops were selling out of RainbowLooms as soon as the new delivery arrived! Cheong gave up his normal job as an engineer for Nissan to work full-time as a toy manufacturer.
So how did a dad with a fab idea beat the big toy manufacturers and come up with this best-selling invention? Cheong told Fast Company, that his training as an engineer helped him to create the RainbowLoom, and how to be successful in business
“Being an engineer I was more open to trying different things. Don’t give up. Try all options. Learn as you go. Push as many buttons as possible, one of them will work.”
In fact, Cheong said that the biggest lesson he has learned as a new business owner is to practice something common at Nissan: the lessons learned system. When something goes wrong, you do a step-by-step critical analysis. Trace the problem all the way back by asking why did the problem happen, and why did the cause of that problem happen and so on and so on until you find the root cause. And then figure out how to fix it so that it doesn’t happen again.
Cheong redesigned the loom 28 times until he was totally happy with the product, and spent a lot of time working out the best way to manufacture it, how to get the best quality, how to film the videos and market his invention.
The story of loom bands is often told as an ‘overnight’ success, but that neglects to look at the hard work and innovation Cheong dedicated to developing the product. Having a great idea is only the first part of making it a success.
Part two of our series on the features on Minecraft asks the question – What IS Obsidian anyway? In Minecraft, Obsidianis a deep purple and black block known for its high blast resistance and strength, but what is Obsidian in real life like, and what is it used for? (Hover over words in CAPITALS for further explanation).
Obsidian is sometimes known as ‘Nature’s Glass’, because of its smooth, glassy appearance. It is an [infopopup:Igneous] rock which forms when molten rock (i.e. lava) cools very quickly. The speed of the cooling means that crystals didn’t have time to form.
Where Can I Find Obsidian?
Since obsidian is formed by the cooling of molten rock, the obvious place to start looking for it would be around a volcano, right? That doesn’t narrow it down much, because we are looking for places which have experienced [infopopup:rhyolitic] eruptions, which include Argentina, Armenia, Canada, Chile, Greece, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Scotland and United States.
The rocks have a glassy appearance and while black is the most common colour, other colours such as red, dark brown are also known. As mentioned in the above video, obsidian flows very slowly. Other obsidian flows may occur on top of each other, giving the rock a stripy, or streaked appearance. Obsidian is somewhat brittle, which means that it break easily. The edges of broken obsidian can be extremely sharp.
The sharp edges of obsidian were used as far back as the 9th millennium BC to serve as knives, scrapers and razors. In the Bronze Age, obsidian was used as tools and weapons, eg arrowheads, but also for vases and other objects. Obsidian was highly valued, and ancient people mined, transported and traded in obsidian over distances of up to a thousand miles.
The sharp cutting edge of obsidian means that even today it is used in medicine. Thin blades of obsidian are used for modern surgical scalpels, used for precision surgery. It is equal or better than surgical steel!
Obsidian is also used in jewellery, often as highly polished beads, but it is easily broken or damaged, which limits it’s usage slightly. It’s more likely to be found in necklaces or earrings, rather than rings or bracelets. This lack of hardness brings advantages – it’s relatively easy to carve. Artists have been using obsidian to make sculptures and figurines for thousands of years.
Part of our series on the features in Minecraft. If you are a Minecraft player, then you know that Cactus blocks grow naturally in deserts and mesas. The blocks can be harvested, but will destroy any items that come in contact with them. But what are REAL cacti like (and why do we sometimes say “cactus” and other times say “cacti”? Sarah takes a closer look.
What is the longest loom band that you’ve been able to make? Perhaps you managed to make one long enough to skip with, but have you ever wondered about the world’s longest loom band?
