Robot Alex I and Alex II

In addition to his normal toys Alex also has two robots. These robots are called Alex I and Alex II and can only be played with together with his dad.

Robot Alex!Robot Alex

The first robot is a balancing robot (which I found on Kickstarter). It drives around on two wheels trying hard to not fall down. Even a little poke from Alex does not bother the robot and it will keep its balance.

The robot can be programmed by using a simple programming language (blocks), and then sending the program to the robot using its USB cable, but this is something we’ll maybe try in the future.

Robot Alex 2!Robot Alex II

The second robot is a bit simpler and just drives around. It does have an entire computer on it’s back, which can be controlled via wifi and my phone.

This robot as got some software set up to move about, and much more features can be added as phyton programs.

Alex has these robots because I think is it very benificial for him to get in touch as early as possible with something that will be everywhere in his future. Alex his current robots remind me of the computers I had when I was young. Slow, huge and with a black and white screen. After taking a long time to boot all you would get was a prompt, and that was it. Internet didn’t exist and was still a thing of the future.

Alex’ robots are far more advanced that my old computers and cost a fraction. They will advance extremly fast for sure and in a few decades Alex will look back at these things as I look back at my old PC’s.

Art

Alex three years painting (20150221)!
Alex’s mother was in Barcelona for a congress a couple of days. He missed her a lot, and wanted to make something for when she returned. The result was a beautiful painting of the sun, with grass, the sky, the ocean, a boat, a snail, daddy and a couple of A’s (A for Alex).

Menu from 2035?

In twenty years time a lot will change and one of these changes will be the food we eat. Meat will become a luxury product that only the richt will be able to afford. The rest of the population will be forced to find alternatives. Fake meat, meat like or maybe even insects. We are already adapting to the future and made some nice meals with insects.

Tortilla with worms!
Tortilla with worms.
Ingredients: Buffalo-worms, egg, potato, chorizo
Result: Good!


Grasshoppers and shrimp!
Grasshoppers with garlic and shrimp.
Ingredients: Grasshoppers, shrimp, algae, mushrooms
Result: Well…. maybe it was a bit to salty and the grasshoppers take some getting used to. They have a strange crunchy structure. We need a bit more time to get used to this dish, but it has potential.

Sinterklaas

Sinterklaas will even visit the Canary Islands! Tonight we are all going to the south to see the sint. All the Dutch children have been invited to hotel Barbacan where the Sint will make his appearance. Alex behaved very well the last year, so there is a good change he’ll get a nice gift.

Update: Alex received his present together with a lot of candy. He liked the party a lot and it was nice seing the Sint arrive with a percussion bend, fireworks en the sint in a nice cabrio instead of his usual white horse.

Photos

Pasfoto!In Spain even the schools are very commercial. If you want a photo of your kid and his entire class you are required to buy a photo package with a lot of extras. The photo package contains lots of small portrait photos, a calendar with photo, a couple of Christmas cards with photo, a key chain with photo and a few bit portrait photos.

We are lucky that Alex is quite photogenic.

Bugs

Meat is getting more and more scarce. There are more people every day, and even though we can fit more animals in smaller spaces they can’t keep up with the growth of the human population. In our near future we will have to widen the range of things we eat, and it looks like we will have to include bugs into our diet.

Alex and me have started already. A dried bug it’s all that bad, and if you mix it with something else it should be okay. What surprised me was that Alex didn’t have any problem trying a little bug.

Bugs, Alex and Adrie!

Beer!

Beer!Una cerveza por favor. This is a much heard phrase in Spain. It is the way to ask for a beer and it is one of the first sentences I mastered when studying Spanish.

But… I will not be needing this sentence anymore because we are going to try and make our own beer. We already have a big package of natural ingredients, two huge plastic buckets a a lot more stuff. I look forward to making a all natural beer.

We need to think about a good name for our beer. Does anyone have any ideas?