I apologize for not posting anything recently, we are currently in the process of migrating this blog to the Saint Louis Science Center's website. It should be done by the end of the month! Look here for future updates!

Update August 10, 2006: It's been a busy summer and I've finally migrated all of our posts from Cyberville's old blogspot.com websapce! Welcome and I hope this space becomes a regular visit in your web surfing routine! You can visit our new blogging homepage at www.slsc.org/cybervilleblog.aspx

Not much going on in Cyberville at the moment: Although it is "Field Trip Season" (we don't officially call it this!), today it's kinda slow, and I thought I'd use this opportunity to post!

If you don't follow robotics competitions, this might not interest you. But, to those who love a good robot match: FIRST National Robotics Competition in Atlanta, GA is this week! One of the cool things about being the Cyberville Gallery Leader is that the Science Center supports my involvement with FIRST! I am going to drive down to Atlanta on Wednesday and for the rest of the week, I'll be a competition referee! Normally, I'm the head referee for the St. Louis Regional, but at the national competition, I'm a normal ref. I need more years under my belt before I can head ref at nationals. If you're going, stop by my field (don't know which field I'm on) and say, "Hi!"

If you're into computer game history and reviving old gaming genres, this article about interactive fiction is fascinating. We used to call them text adventures, and technically, they're not "games" in the true sense of the word. However, it's good to know that "interactive fiction" is still alive albeit in an obscure part of the net. It let me take a walk down memory lane though!

Here's a cool new tech toy that I wouldn't mind getting my hands on: the Sony Reader(warning to those with a slow connection: this link leads to a page that uses Flash)! It uses e-ink to dynamically create pages that look just like paper! I wish Sony would donate some to our gallery! ;)

Since this is my weekly post, sometimes, I will just throw out a couple links of interesting stuff! Check these out!

Do you know what your zip code looks like? Check this page out! It uses Google Maps (if you haven't used Google maps before, it's fantastic!)

Are you an Apple fan!? For those who want a behind the scenes look at their retail operation, check out this account of an Apple retail employee. Since Apple is very hush hush about their product releases, even their store employees are left out of the loop! They do make some cool computers though!

And for all of you geeks out there: you know how much you love your coffee. Check out this flickr site on how to roast your own coffee beans! (flickr.com is a cool photo storage site that does a lot more than store your digital photos!)

I apologize for taking so long to update the Cyberville Blog...I'm going to make it a routine to update it on Friday mornings from now on! Don't worry, I'll finish the Furby Autopsy! I'm actually going to create a standalone page for it because if I do it in blog fashion, it would be backwards!

What has been happening in Cyberville? A lot!

In March, which is also known as "FIRST Robotics Season, the St. Louis Science Center sponsored the St. Louis FIRST Regional. I, Frank the Cyberville Gallery Leader, was the head referee (My 3rd year as head ref), and I had a blast! The game this year, "Aim High" was well conceived and a joy to ref: also the robots this year were really cool as the game was very demanding. I also want to take this time to "shout out" to the Zabriski's who are vital to pulling off the game: two of them refereed with me, and their father was the field manager! Thanks! The whole field crew this year was great! I also want to congratulate Team 71 ("Team Hammond"), as they were the Chairman's Cup winner and were a part of the competition's winning alliance (along with teams 537 and 547). I also went up to Chicago and head ref'd up there as well! Team 71 was there too, but this time, they lost in the final round! #71 is definitely one of those "legendary" teams as they have won the national competition a record 4 times!! Speaking of the national competition, I'll be finding my way to Atlanta at the end of April to be a referee. It's at the Georgia Dome again, and it's great fun!

Upcoming Event: At the end of May, we have the Science Center/Warfactory LANetarium LAN party!!! It will run from 9:30am to 2am on Saturday, May 27!! We'll even have the championship rounds on the Omnimax screen! Even if you're not a gamer, I invite you to watch the fast and furious gaming action as the event is open to the public from Noon to 5:30pm. If you have a sweet gaming rig and what to join us, go over to Warfactory's website to sign up! You have to be over 14, and bring your own computer! If and when there are any more announcements, I'll post them here!

Here's a ruler to help you determine how large the new Furbies are. Notice, the feet have screws in them: special screws. Hmmm...the screw head requires a triangular headed screwdriver, and I lacked this tool. Luckily, the interchangeable screwdriver I borrowed from my co-worker, Mike from Electronics, had a screwhead that worked just fine! 

Here are the tools I used to perform the autopsy! I actually only used the separator, the screwdriver with interchangable heads, and the wire cutter. I also used the ruler, magnifyer, and mirror as props. 

Welcome to the New Furby Autopsy! Here we have the new Furby on the left and the old furby on the right. As you can see, the newer Furby is much, much bigger than its ancestor. From a subjective point of view, the newer Furbies are cuter and much softer to touch! 

I know it's been a month since we've posted here at the Cyberville blog, but there's a bit to report. On December 3rd, FIRST Lego League and the St. Louis Science Center along with St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley hosted the First Lego League Missouri Championship! Just go to the FIRST link above to get details on the competition.

And now, following this post, we're going to post a fun and exciting project: The New Furby Autopsy! I'm currently live in the galleries conducting this experiment! I'll be posting an update soon!

A lot has gone on in the last month since I last posted here in Cyberville!

On September 24th, from 9:30am to Midnight, the St. Louis Science Center hosted the Cyberville/Warfactory LAN Party! The WarFactory Gaming Group is a local group of young professionals who organize LAN Parties. For the uninitiated, a LAN party is what could best be described as a geek sporting event (and for me, geek is not a pejorative term). About 100 gamers get together, bring their home computers, hook them up to a computer network that WarFactory built the day before, and we play multiplayer computer games for the next 15 hours. Click here to view the pictures of the event! The pictures go a long way to describe what I'm talking about. I want to send a BIG thank you to AGEIA and Dr. Manju Hedge, CEO of AGEIA, for sponsoring the event! He gave a great presentation on his PhysX processor: it's a dedicated physics processing microchip (it's awesome for gaming!). Another BIG thank you goes out to Ranken Technical College for also sponsoring the event. THANK YOU!

Also, on October 22nd, Cyberville will be hosting Dr. Phil Fraundorf from the University of Missouri--St. Louis. He'll be presenting his work on nanotechnology here in Cyberville from 11am to 3pm! Here's a link to his page if you want to find out more about his work!