Hi, everyone!
The Saturday after Easter was the date for Imagine RIT. That’s the day when all the students at Rochester Institute of Technology show off their projects.
Grandma and I went with Uncle Steven’s family again this year. We always start at MAGIC, because that’s where the video games are! This year, there was a student-produced animated movie to watch, even before we got into the game studio. Some of my tree friends are sequoias, so I was happy to see a movie about helping them!
By the time I finished watching the movie, James was already playing his first student-written video game. I tried that one, too! After I made a MAGIC moose friend, Thomas and I spent some time figuring out what exhibits we wanted to make sure to see. Then James found another video game to play!
When we went down to the sound stage area, Thomas and I starred in a short CGI movie! We were on a sofa and behind us a projected monster picked up the wall to look at us! Then James and Thomas tried some virtual reality games. Before we left, I made another CGI movie with James!
Everybody wanted to get ice cream frozen with liquid nitrogen, so that’s where we went next. Students were making ice cream base with most of the same ingredients Grandma and I use. Then they were pouring liquid nitrogen into the bowl. That’s very cold! The ice cream base freezes and the nitrogen turns back into a big gas cloud. After we got our ice cream, we saw another big tank of liquid nitrogen coming in!
Next, we went to the Gosnell Hall atrium. That’s where all the geometry games are! James warmed up by playing a triangle fitting puzzle. Thomas went right to the shape competition. Last year, he was second best for the entire day! Then James did the shape competition. He and Thomas both got to the eighth shape before time ran out. I looked at an exhibit about fractals and sat on the stairs with lots of decimals in the value of pi.
We watched taiko drummers on our way to the SHED. That’s where we saw electric motorbikes and robots. One robot was scooping ice cream! That was a very slow process with a long waiting line. We got our ice cream at the next table over, where humans were using the robot scoop attachment and going much faster! Thomas and his friend got the last of the supply of ice cream cups. They took them back for seconds and went outside to eat.
At Gordon Field House, the students had set up a carnival! Thomas and his friend and I tried to imagine what riding on an electric snowmobile would be like! On our way back to the parking lot, there was a table with RIT souvenirs. I got a hug from the RIT Tiger mascot!
The last Monday in April, Grandma and I went back to Highland Park. This time of year, a week makes a big difference in what’s in bloom! Some of the trees in Apple Valley were starting to drop their blossoms, but the magnolias were just opening up!
I said hello to my magnolia friends. I was glad they mostly survived frost damage to their flower buds. I took time to sit on my favorite bench near the magnolias and pose at the hollow tree.
On Reservoir Avenue, the later blooming cherries weren’t open yet. Some of the tulips were blooming. My helleborus friends in the Poets Garden were still blooming, and some of the lilac flower buds were just beginning to open.
The pansy bed was complete, and some of the pansies were in full bloom. I made some forsythia friends. In the rhododendron gully a few brave azaleas and rhododendrons were in bloom! When we got home, I enjoyed our own blooming daffodils!
We’ve had a lot of windy and rainy days since. It was cloudy last Monday when Grandma took me back to Highland Park. The lilac festival starts in a few days, and it’s a lot harder for me to see my flower friends when there’s a big crowd in the park. The redbuds were in bloom. The trees in Apple Valley were mostly past-bloom green and the magnolias are dropping their petals.
Grandma thought the kwanzan cherry trees on Reservoir Avenue would be in bloom, and she was right! Almost all the tulips in the tulip bed were open, too! In the Poets Garden, the helleborus were still blooming. I saw my white trillium friends, too!
The lilacs probably won’t be in peak bloom for the start of the lilac festival, but some of them are starting to open. There were enough open blossoms to perfume the air.
The pansy bed was looking nice. In the rhododendron gully, my pieris japonica friend had joined the other brave early bloomers. At home, my apple tree is blooming, too!
Love,
Lion-san