2010 Launch: XO-2

There's always room for improvement! Here are a couple of photos of the new and improved XO-2 laptops that will be released after the next 2 years. As you may have already noticed in the photos, the most noticeable new feature is the dual touch screen instead of the conventional keyboard and monitor. Click here for the complete article found on the cnet news page.

Until next time!
--->ELIZA!

Microsoft and OLPC team up!

Based on the article posted on May 15th, it is now official that the XO laptop will be available to be running on both Linux and Microsoft XP. Negroponte says that people are very impressed with this new upgrade! The new and improved laptop will be sold next month, and a much more broad launch will begin around August or September in 5 or 6 countries. Click here for the full story!

Until next time!
--->ELIZA!

Buying Computers on Ebay & Kijiji

2 classes ago, our class experimented with using the advanced search on eBay and kijiji to find computers being sold from locations in Canada. On eBay, we clicked on the advanced search link and entered a key word. Every time we wanted to dis include a word we put a minus sign before the word (ex: computers -dell) or a plus sign if we wanted to include the word in the search (ex: computers -dell +sony). In order to find more than one computer being sold in a package we added the statement "+lot". The majority of results that came up were computers being sold in sets of 5. We were able to find all sorts of information for each result that was displayed, such as how old the product is (new/used), the price it is being sold for, the name/location of the seller, information on its features, and even a positive rating percentage! I personally found this site to be quite helpful in trying to find the perfect product online.

Kijiji is a little different from eBay, considering that it is a website containing local "classified" items. From the kijiji website, we tried to find a computer being sold in Vancouver. First, we clicked on the BC province on the map, clicked on "Vancouver" entered "computer" in the search box as well as "buy and sell" from the drop down menu. All in all, it was interesting to experiment with how so many people today shop online!

ND Bridge Building Contest

Every year, Notre Dame Regional Secondary holds a Balsa Bridge Building Contest for all Physics 11 and 12 students. Click here to go to the contest website and here to see photos from last year's contest!

Contestants work away for weeks to construct a bridge made out of balsa wood and super glue that does not exceed a weight of 100.0 grams. A container would be suspended from the bridge during the testing period and weights would gradually be added to see how much weight the bridge is able to support. The current record weight is 209.4 kg (Record Holder: Matt Sullivan).

And now a word from our sponsors....

ND's major sponsor is the Proffessional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC. Click on the logos below to visit the websites of some of our other sponsors.

Vancouver is a city with many interesting bridges, including the Burrard street bridge, the Granville Street bridge, and the Port-Mann Bridge. The Patullo Bridge in New Westminster is my favorite. Click on the photo for a closer look

Hopefully a senior from our grade 12 class will break the record! Be sure to drop in next Tuesday, May 6th for this year's up coming bridge building contest!

Click Here for an interesting link to help kids build their own bridges from the Additional links section from BalsaBridge.com.