Those are things we are doing. Right now. Maybe in that order...
Brother is back in the Nutcracker, and they asked him to perform in two casts this year. He didn't get Fritz but he's excited to get to be in twice the amount of shows. We're hoping they'll have the orchestra in the final show December 23rd, because the final show is our favorite show and he's going to be performing in it along with 10 others shows.
So as you can see, given we have but one mother, we are busy, busy, busy, busy peoples. So busy! So, so, so very, very, super-extra busy!
We aren't online that much! But we are still doing our thing. Trust you us people, we are working! Little by little we are ordering Lego gnomes to double as dwarfs and Mom and Brother are figuring out how to build a Snow White Lego piece. I don't speak Lego like those two nerds do but they're piecing together a Snow White somehow.
Don't forget our version of the Snow White Mine Train ride, which is supposed to be for Disneyland the Original (I just gave it that name, cuz it's the original Disney theme park), is stuck between Fantasyland and Frontier Land, kind of across from Thunder Mountain Railroad. (we don't actually know if it ought to go there, we've only been to Disneyland ONCE our WHOLE LIVES! And we were little kindergarteners! We don't remember the lay of the land but we're guessing using park maps and a new Disneyland puzzle Mom got) 1/3 of the mountain dedicated to a Pecos Bill dark ride. How we will translate this into a Lego model, I have no idea but we just will!
Ok, that's enough jibber-jabbering for now, we'll update you all later!
Jr.s
Friday, September 13, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Gnomes!
We ordered Lego minifigure gnomes today! Just two of them, but they are going to be the dwarfs for our Lego Snow White mine coaster, and we have some options we are going over for Lego Snow White. We realized we will be needing quite a few of those gnomes in time, since our dark ride vehicles have a dwarf driver on board. That being said, we're going to also need a lot of Lego forest animals for this project.
Can't wait until the first batch of gnomes get here!
Can't wait until the first batch of gnomes get here!
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
WDI ImagiNations Contest 2014
Just in case they said yes, we wrote to the Imagineers to ask if they would consider letting us present our ride models during the contest final as one-time honorary special guests...but they said no. There are rules. Of course we knew there were rules but we kinda thought Imagineers loved bending them, so we asked anyways.
So now we just decided to stop writing for real...for now! I even said 'In the name of Walter Elias Disney', but that didn't work any magic on them. Heartbroken!
Our new goal, instead of trying to give a presentation of our version of a Snow WHite Mine Train coaster model to real Imagineers, is just to be invited to the grand opening of the Mine Train ride at Walt Disney World next year.
The awesomeness of that would be awesomer than the awesomest thing awesome ever had to offer!
We imagine that with enough Facebook likes and posting our model online just might do the trick...but we need to get real serious about it. And we know it will take much work but we still want to try and make a working model of our Snow White Mine Train dark ride vehicle. It needs a working animatronic on board, and that's what Brother Wonder will be learning to do. He has been very busy Legoing-I'm convinced he is as good as a Master Lego builder. If Imagineering won't take him, Lego will! http://legoderek.blogspot.com/
We found animatronic companies that actually work with Disney, and we are going to ask them the first things we need to learn to make an animatronic. Here are the places we are going to write:
Garner Holt, it looks like a really fantastic company, and we're hoping they're open to little Imagineers like us.
http://www.garnerholt.com/ghp-inc/about-us/tour.aspx
Sally Corp also looks pretty cool, we like to use their dark ride blueprint as a resource for our own dark ride drafts.
http://sallycorp.com/
Life Formations is an animatronic company that does a lot of museum stuff. The other two companies above do dark rides while Life Formations seems to just do animatronics. We can't go wrong with that!
http://www.lifeformationsblog.com/p/contact-us.html
Okay, I just wanted to update this blog so we can get focused on our new goal-winning an invitation to the new Mine Train ride opening. Wish us Luck!
So now we just decided to stop writing for real...for now! I even said 'In the name of Walter Elias Disney', but that didn't work any magic on them. Heartbroken!
Our new goal, instead of trying to give a presentation of our version of a Snow WHite Mine Train coaster model to real Imagineers, is just to be invited to the grand opening of the Mine Train ride at Walt Disney World next year.
The awesomeness of that would be awesomer than the awesomest thing awesome ever had to offer!
We imagine that with enough Facebook likes and posting our model online just might do the trick...but we need to get real serious about it. And we know it will take much work but we still want to try and make a working model of our Snow White Mine Train dark ride vehicle. It needs a working animatronic on board, and that's what Brother Wonder will be learning to do. He has been very busy Legoing-I'm convinced he is as good as a Master Lego builder. If Imagineering won't take him, Lego will! http://legoderek.blogspot.com/
We found animatronic companies that actually work with Disney, and we are going to ask them the first things we need to learn to make an animatronic. Here are the places we are going to write:
Garner Holt, it looks like a really fantastic company, and we're hoping they're open to little Imagineers like us.
http://www.garnerholt.com/ghp-inc/about-us/tour.aspx
Sally Corp also looks pretty cool, we like to use their dark ride blueprint as a resource for our own dark ride drafts.
http://sallycorp.com/
Life Formations is an animatronic company that does a lot of museum stuff. The other two companies above do dark rides while Life Formations seems to just do animatronics. We can't go wrong with that!
http://www.lifeformationsblog.com/p/contact-us.html
Okay, I just wanted to update this blog so we can get focused on our new goal-winning an invitation to the new Mine Train ride opening. Wish us Luck!
Monday, April 8, 2013
Yet Another Update!
We were reading the blog and I noticed that Mom talks too much when she's on. I'm just saying!
I also wanted to update that we didn't do the science fair and Brother didn't do his Rube Goldberg machine :(
It's a sad update.
Oh, and when we get to 100 likes we will write to Imagineering-not 1,000 likes because like, that's too many likes. Like yay! Like totally! Like, no way! (Like, that's how Mom says I talk, like totally not true!)
Like, I should totally be in bed. Like, boo hoo!
I also wanted to update that we didn't do the science fair and Brother didn't do his Rube Goldberg machine :(
It's a sad update.
Oh, and when we get to 100 likes we will write to Imagineering-not 1,000 likes because like, that's too many likes. Like yay! Like totally! Like, no way! (Like, that's how Mom says I talk, like totally not true!)
Like, I should totally be in bed. Like, boo hoo!
Friday, April 5, 2013
The Walt Disney Family Museum
During our spring break we went on a great adventure to San Francisco to visit my mission and The Walt Disney Family Museum. It was the most beautiful day ever in San Francisco! When we got to the Presidio, where the Walt Disney museum is located, we could see perfectly across the entire bay! We took photos of the Golden Gate bridge, even though it was red, and had the best-ever picnic on the grass watching the sailboats glide across the water. We played a great game of tag and clapped when Mom did cartwheels without falling on her head. We also lost our new video camera in the grass without knowing it, but a man and his sons found it, looked at the pictures, and spotted us up the lawn to give us our camera back. Thank you kind, honest people!! You're great!! And thanks to them, we were able to take videos and snap pictures inside the Snow White special exhibit and the Disney Museum. We met up with our cousins and Aunt and Uncle at the very end, they were too late to buy tickets for the museum so we went to Fisherman's Wharf for In & Out Burger instead. They were late because they had to buy our Uncle his class A SFFD uniform for his special dinner, because he is getting an award from the fire department for being an awesome guy. He learned his awesome paramedic skills from my brother the stuntman. We would go to his award dinner but Mom said they didn't need to witness my Uncle in action to prove his awesomeness, and besides, it's during the school week, and it's for grown-ups anyways.
The Walt Disney Family Museum
Hanging out with Walt Disney
The Golden (not) Gate Bridge
Snow White Exhibit
There She Is!! Lily Belle!!!!
Mary Blair's Desk!
Steamboat Willy Interactive Exhibit
Trajectory!
The Jr. Imagineer's word of the week is: TRAJECTORY!
We will be studying a physics word every week at a level that we kids can understand each week to help us design our rollercoaster. We just got in our Science of Imagineering DVD on Trajectory and will be watching it this weekend after Mom gets home from work. Stay tuned to learn along with us!
We will be studying a physics word every week at a level that we kids can understand each week to help us design our rollercoaster. We just got in our Science of Imagineering DVD on Trajectory and will be watching it this weekend after Mom gets home from work. Stay tuned to learn along with us!
Monday, March 18, 2013
Imagineering Explained
Mom here.
This summer, we will take a model of the family version of a Snow White Mine Car rollercoaster to give a full presentation of our ride to the real Disney Imagineering. We will use the ImagiNations http://disneyimaginations.com/contest as a guideline for how we will prepare and present our project.
When we first came up with the our Dwarf's rollercoaster several years ago the kids wanted to Imagineer a scavenger hunt with a maze for the queue line to FIND the ride, putting a trap door in the floor to dump guests into the mother lode of jewels (a ball pit). While I talked them out of it back then, they're just as excited as ever to see their plan in model form.
Now that they're older both kids are skilled and knowledgeable enough to create their own model by themselves. When we finish with the rollercoaster model the kids will branch out onto their own to create the maze queue. We will then be presenting the first coaster as a family team with the kids giving their own presentation of the maze and scavenger hunt. The rollercoaster model will be created out of hobby train materials with storyboards and a PowerPoint presentation while the maze will be made out of Legos with a presentation/walk through using Lego stop-motion video.
The Ride:
The Snow White ride is to be two separate rides with separate queues: a dark ride typical of the classic Disneyland Fantasyland rides and a rollercoaster worthy of its own Disney mountain. The Disney term 'dark ride' means that a ride is contained completely within a building. Peter Pan, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White's Scary Adventure are all good examples of dark rides.
We did extensive Disney Imagineering research to make our presentation as close to a work of their own as possible. Disney says every ride starts with a story so the first thing we did was to craft a tale to turn into a ride.
Snow White is preparing to marry her prince and the Dwarfs are in charge of mining the jewels for her crown and ring. Within their mine is 'the mother lode' which is a huge stash of their most precious jewels hidden deep within the mining mountain, accessible only by one map which Dopey accidentally lost. Now, everyone needs to help the dwarfs search the countless tracks of the mine to find the 'mother lode' and bring the map back to the group so they can race back in, fit the jewels into the jewelry, and make it back in time for Snow White's wedding.
The hunt for the mother lode is the dark ride portion, with the queue line beginning the story for the guests. The vehicles in the dark ride are to be driven by an animatronic dwarf with a forest friend companion who is supposed to help map the path the vehicle has taken, for not all vehicles will find the mother lode, but all will at least drive past it. The vehicles are to interact with one another as well as the scenery it passes, with dwarfs waving to each other, talking to each other and making comments along the way. When the ride is over, guests have the option of exiting the ride and leaving the mountain altogether, or continuing in a queue to the rollercoaster portion.
The rollercoaster portion has two queues for the story, one is to pick up the jewels and make the crowns for the wedding, the other is to race to through the forest with the crowns and jewelry to the wedding itself. The loading for the first coaster loads in an area visible to the dark ride's loading station. When guests exit the first coaster portion, they again have the option to exit into the queue for the second portion of the coaster ride and complete the story via rollercoaster or exit the ride altogether taking in the rest of the story visually through the exit queue.
Even though the Imagineers have their own version of this ride coming through, we will craft a model of our interpretation of the ride to present to the Imagineering team. Now, cross your fingers and say some prayers while the kids will again write to Imagineering to ask for the opportunity to come down and present our models for the sake of it. Let's hope for a great response!
This summer, we will take a model of the family version of a Snow White Mine Car rollercoaster to give a full presentation of our ride to the real Disney Imagineering. We will use the ImagiNations http://disneyimaginations.com/contest as a guideline for how we will prepare and present our project.
When we first came up with the our Dwarf's rollercoaster several years ago the kids wanted to Imagineer a scavenger hunt with a maze for the queue line to FIND the ride, putting a trap door in the floor to dump guests into the mother lode of jewels (a ball pit). While I talked them out of it back then, they're just as excited as ever to see their plan in model form.
Now that they're older both kids are skilled and knowledgeable enough to create their own model by themselves. When we finish with the rollercoaster model the kids will branch out onto their own to create the maze queue. We will then be presenting the first coaster as a family team with the kids giving their own presentation of the maze and scavenger hunt. The rollercoaster model will be created out of hobby train materials with storyboards and a PowerPoint presentation while the maze will be made out of Legos with a presentation/walk through using Lego stop-motion video.
The Ride:
The Snow White ride is to be two separate rides with separate queues: a dark ride typical of the classic Disneyland Fantasyland rides and a rollercoaster worthy of its own Disney mountain. The Disney term 'dark ride' means that a ride is contained completely within a building. Peter Pan, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White's Scary Adventure are all good examples of dark rides.
We did extensive Disney Imagineering research to make our presentation as close to a work of their own as possible. Disney says every ride starts with a story so the first thing we did was to craft a tale to turn into a ride.
Snow White is preparing to marry her prince and the Dwarfs are in charge of mining the jewels for her crown and ring. Within their mine is 'the mother lode' which is a huge stash of their most precious jewels hidden deep within the mining mountain, accessible only by one map which Dopey accidentally lost. Now, everyone needs to help the dwarfs search the countless tracks of the mine to find the 'mother lode' and bring the map back to the group so they can race back in, fit the jewels into the jewelry, and make it back in time for Snow White's wedding.
The hunt for the mother lode is the dark ride portion, with the queue line beginning the story for the guests. The vehicles in the dark ride are to be driven by an animatronic dwarf with a forest friend companion who is supposed to help map the path the vehicle has taken, for not all vehicles will find the mother lode, but all will at least drive past it. The vehicles are to interact with one another as well as the scenery it passes, with dwarfs waving to each other, talking to each other and making comments along the way. When the ride is over, guests have the option of exiting the ride and leaving the mountain altogether, or continuing in a queue to the rollercoaster portion.
The rollercoaster portion has two queues for the story, one is to pick up the jewels and make the crowns for the wedding, the other is to race to through the forest with the crowns and jewelry to the wedding itself. The loading for the first coaster loads in an area visible to the dark ride's loading station. When guests exit the first coaster portion, they again have the option to exit into the queue for the second portion of the coaster ride and complete the story via rollercoaster or exit the ride altogether taking in the rest of the story visually through the exit queue.
Even though the Imagineers have their own version of this ride coming through, we will craft a model of our interpretation of the ride to present to the Imagineering team. Now, cross your fingers and say some prayers while the kids will again write to Imagineering to ask for the opportunity to come down and present our models for the sake of it. Let's hope for a great response!
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Summer Adventure
Mom is working on helping us make a facebook fan page for our project. We decided that even though there is a new Snow White Mine Car rollercoaster in Walt Disney World, we still want to make a complete model and present our own version of the ride to real Disney Imagineers. Maybe with enough likes on the page, the Disney Legal department will let us through to the real Imagineers and they will invite us over to present the ride.
We will present the project like an ImagiNations entry: http://disneyimaginations.com/index.html and it will give us something fun to do as a family. We're going to wait for the Facebook page to pick-up 1,000 likes before we write again to Imagineering asking if we can present our model to them.
While we do that, we're making the design & story boards and hunting down materials for the model itself. And we're off! Kind of. Actually, we're home sick today...so we're not really off to anywhere.
Until next time!
We will present the project like an ImagiNations entry: http://disneyimaginations.com/index.html and it will give us something fun to do as a family. We're going to wait for the Facebook page to pick-up 1,000 likes before we write again to Imagineering asking if we can present our model to them.
While we do that, we're making the design & story boards and hunting down materials for the model itself. And we're off! Kind of. Actually, we're home sick today...so we're not really off to anywhere.
Until next time!
Sunday, March 10, 2013
The Latest in Jr. Imagineering
Great news world, we have a new computer! A good computer too!
With the new computer, Brother can now start stop-motion movies and upload them to his Lego blog. The only thing standing in the way to making them this very minute is his homework. No really, he hates to do his homework.
Two weekends ago (or was it three weekends?) The World's Greatest Hobby tour came through town and we of course went to see it. We got our very own Carolwood Lily Belle train set, and Mom stopped by Michael Broggie's Carolwood Pacific booth to pick-up her very own autographed book on the history of Walt Disney's Railroad. We are very serious about making that trip to Disneyland this summer and stopping at the Carolwood Pacific in Griffith Park. Fairy Godmother wasn't able to send us last year to Disneyland and we now know the truth as to why, as well as the truth about Fairy Godmother. I won't say it out loud here in case not everyone knows the truth, I don't want to hurt their feelings.
We are back to Imagineering, well, we were Imagineering at home but not sharing our adventures online. Mom decided it is important to do as much Imagineering as possible since we don't have too much science in our new schools. There is going to be a Science Fair, and Brother really wants to make a Lego Rube Goldberg contraption for the science fair but his teacher has a funny way of teaching class and usually tells everyone they're too stupid to do anything and doesn't really let them join in on any good stuff. He was super excited for the school's Math Bowl this year, and Mom went out to get stuff for him so he could be ready since there was a lot on the take home test he needed to learn and hadn't been taught in class but we didn't catch the date for the Math Bowl. So suddenly it was the Math Bowl, and Brother said his teacher passed out the test and told the class no one would make it and was real mean. So guess what, no one made the Math Bowl in his class, including him. So now here comes Science Fair...we'll see where that goes. Mom thinks Imagineering will be a great substitute for Science Fairing and Math Bowling. So stayed tuned...because we're back!
With the new computer, Brother can now start stop-motion movies and upload them to his Lego blog. The only thing standing in the way to making them this very minute is his homework. No really, he hates to do his homework.
Two weekends ago (or was it three weekends?) The World's Greatest Hobby tour came through town and we of course went to see it. We got our very own Carolwood Lily Belle train set, and Mom stopped by Michael Broggie's Carolwood Pacific booth to pick-up her very own autographed book on the history of Walt Disney's Railroad. We are very serious about making that trip to Disneyland this summer and stopping at the Carolwood Pacific in Griffith Park. Fairy Godmother wasn't able to send us last year to Disneyland and we now know the truth as to why, as well as the truth about Fairy Godmother. I won't say it out loud here in case not everyone knows the truth, I don't want to hurt their feelings.
We are back to Imagineering, well, we were Imagineering at home but not sharing our adventures online. Mom decided it is important to do as much Imagineering as possible since we don't have too much science in our new schools. There is going to be a Science Fair, and Brother really wants to make a Lego Rube Goldberg contraption for the science fair but his teacher has a funny way of teaching class and usually tells everyone they're too stupid to do anything and doesn't really let them join in on any good stuff. He was super excited for the school's Math Bowl this year, and Mom went out to get stuff for him so he could be ready since there was a lot on the take home test he needed to learn and hadn't been taught in class but we didn't catch the date for the Math Bowl. So suddenly it was the Math Bowl, and Brother said his teacher passed out the test and told the class no one would make it and was real mean. So guess what, no one made the Math Bowl in his class, including him. So now here comes Science Fair...we'll see where that goes. Mom thinks Imagineering will be a great substitute for Science Fairing and Math Bowling. So stayed tuned...because we're back!
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