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Everyone is packed and ready - we are off to Aachen at midnight!!

We set off from school just after midnight on Tuesday in the pouring rain. The journey to Bad Salzig takes about sixteen hours, but with rest breaks, a chance to stretch our legs on the ferry and lots of DVDs to watch it is bearable! Some found it fun to be watching movies or having a good laugh with friends during the night, others just slept!

We caught an early morning ferry and set off across France, Belgium and a little part of Holland before reaching Germany. The mood on the coach was lifted by a stop at services with a play area, and some welcome sunshine.

The view from the coach became much more scenic and finally we arrived at Bad Salzig.

Our hotel was on the main street of a small village, and everyone was soon settled into their rooms. Some of the boys seemed prepared for a long stay!

After tea we went for a walk around Bad Salzig, some phoned home then we relaxed in the hotel before an early night. Everyone was tired!
On thursday we were up early for breakfast and a drive to Boppard for a tour of the town on a small 'train', a little shopping and a trip up the side of the valley on a chair lift.

The chair lift was a bit scary (there were a few screams!) but the view was amazing!

Next was a boat trip to Koblenz. It started to rain, but the boat had plenty of room inside, and a cool slide to play on.

At Koblenz we walked into town, stopping where the Rhine and Mosel rivers meet for another group photograph.

We'd just reached the centre of Koblenz when it started to pour down! Everyone got into their groups and rushed into the shops. There were some bargains to be had, and some of the boys learned valuable lessons about shopping with girls.....

After tea back at the hotel we went for a walk up to a nearby field and played football or rounders, or just chilled with friends. Apologising in German was practised after one football went into someone's garden! Then back to the hotel where everyone was excited (or nervous!) about our trip to Phantasia-land next day.

The theme park took about 90 minutes to reach, but was worth the journey. This was most peoples favourite part of our time away, with some awesome rides and a hot sunny day. Some braved the amazing 'Black Mamba' or the scary 'Colorado', others got soaked on the 'River Quest' but everyone had a great time with lots of stories to tell. Some comments were,

"Phantasia-land was the best. We had a lot of fun, I've never had so much fun in my life!"

"Phantasia-land was a never ending thrill. My expectations were high, but the rides were higher!"

"It was really fun and exciting, and I went on my first ever rollercoaster!"

Back at the hotel, after a shower and tea and a little packing, it was time for the disco. Peter the coach driver had a great selection of music on his i-pod and became DJ for the night.

This was excellent, and everyone groaned when it was time to finish packing and go to bed.

Another early start saw us on our way home. The journey back seemed to last for ever, but a few DVDs and plenty of talking and laughing passed the time.

Finally, we were home! The coach got to Egglescliffe at 10:30pm and everyone went with their parents - tired, but happy - and with lots of stories to tell on Monday morning.

Great trip Mrs Fisher!

(...and thanks to Miss Blueitt for organising it.)

This is Mr Robinson testing out his new-found blogging skills!
Before he goes to Germany he must remember to feed his cat.

This is Fiver enjoying her tea!

There are several projects around the world that are trying to cure a number of serious diseases, including HIV, Malaria, Cancer, and Alzheimer's.

One of these projects is called Rosetta@home, but they have a problem. They need massive amounts of computer processing power (more than you can get from the most powerful supercomputers). You can help by downloading a small program that runs their program when your computer isn't busy.

If you would like to join in then all you need to do is go to the Boinc website (Boinc is the name of the software package), download the program and run it.

There are lots of different projects you can donate computer time to, but Rosetta@home is my favourite.

When the program asks you for a project, the one you need is http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta.

Once you've done that you can have a look at your account settings and join the boinc@egglescliffe team - we get points for every computer hour donated.

In case you get stuck, here's a short video to show you how to attach to the Rosetta project and join the Boinc@egglescliffe team:

(apologies for the poor video quality - I wouldn't recommend using ScreenRecord for the Mac based on today's experiences)

EDIT: You can join more than one project at a time - find a list at the Boinc website

To finish up the year, two of the Year 8 ICT groups have been researching British Sign Language on the Internet and have prepared a couple of videos.

For some useful websites see the credits at the end of either video.

The Stop Motion Animation Club has finished for this term and the three groups are proud to present their work here.

All of the videos were produced using Apple iMacs, Canon MV890 DV cameras, I Can Animate and iMovie '06.

The third video is titled "The Chase" and includes some quite clever use of hand-made backdrops.

The Stop Motion Animation Club has finished for this term and the three groups are proud to present their work here.

All of the videos were produced using Apple iMacs, Canon MV890 DV cameras, I Can Animate and iMovie '06.

The second video is titled "Street Driftin'!" and features a lot of 'post-production' work as you will see :-)

The Stop Motion Animation Club has finished for this term and the three groups are proud to present their work here.

All of the videos were produced using Apple iMacs, Canon MV890 DV cameras, I Can Animate and iMovie '06.

The first video is titled "Zombie Wedding"

Every Monday at Egglescliffe we have a Stop-Motion Animation course for lower school pupils (11-14). This week we had the first session for our new intake.

We had a quick experiment with 3 different animation techniques

* Claymation (with Plasticine)
* Tracing (tracing an image, step by step)
* Everyday objects (fairly self-explanatory)

We had lots of fun and produced 6 short videos.

We had script, no message and only 10 minutes to make each one, so we don't think we did too badly for a first attempt!