BIG idea physics

This morning I’ve been having a quick look through some documentation from The Ministry of Education on proposed changes to NCEA Level 1 Science. For those not familiar with the NZ secondary education system, a typical student would complete NCEA level 1 at the end of year 11.  In this regard, it’s broadly similiar to […]

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Quantum cryptography

I was reading last week a children’s book about “Secret codes”.  You probably know the kind of thing I’m talking about – substituting one letter for another, or a squiggly shape for a letter, rearranging letters, and so on. Fun things to do, but not the basis of modern cryptography. However, the book didn’t just […]

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Circling line-following robots

A few weeks ago I commented on a task our second year software-engineering students are doing: building robots to follow a white line with the Lego 'Mindstorm' kit. It's been entertaining watching their various attempts and their design selections. Most groups have pretty-well optimized their robot now, and there's some final tweaking going on, ahead […]

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Seeing in the dark

No, nothing to do with carrots and vitamin A I'm afraid.  With dark evenings and mornings with us now :(, Benjamin's become interested in the dark. It's dark after he's finished tea, and he likes to be taken outside to see the dark, the moon, and stars, before his bath. "See dark" has become a […]

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