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Kids Astound With Their Cool Ideas.  Irvine World News, Thursday, February 4, 2010. Adam Probolsky was a judge at the 23rd annual astounding Inventions competition hosted by the Irvine Valley College Foundation. (Math Monkey of Irvine Participated) Following is his article.

More than 300 students from the Irvine Unified and Tustin Unified school districts entered the competition after having already won at their individual school and district levels.  In years past, Jay Leno has featured some of the inventors on his show.  Back when I was chairman of the IVC Foundation, I remember the Tonight Show producer asking us to look out for the "chubby kids" because they were the funniest.  This year they're request was much more politically correct, they wanted kids who were "talkative."

Every inventor earned a ribbon for participating in the competition.  Red and blue ribbons winners also received cash prizes.  They didn't actually have to make working models - just explain it well, keep an inventor's log, and make a prototype that would give a pretty good idea of w3hat it would look like.

Before the students arrived, I took a quick look at all the inventions.  Some of the best ones included an Electronic Seeing Eye "Dog" to replace the need for a real dog; the Beauty Helper, a vending machine that offers cosmetics; and the surprising simple See-it Salt, real salt that comes in colors so you can see how much of the stuff you put on your food.

For all you germaphobes like me, the Germ-Free Gas Handle would be a dream come true.  The concept: when you return the handle to the pump it goes inside an enclosure where it gets a sanitizing shower.

Keep in mind that all of these ideas came mostly from elementary school students.

The kids were very cute.  I got to meet Janelle, who invented a series of scooter attachments for holding drinks and lunch.  After five minutes of interviewing her I asked if she had any questions for me.  I expected something like, “Did I win?” or “How did you get to be a judge?”  Instead, she asked, “What is your favorite color?”

The best invention I saw was not very technical, nor will it prevent you from getting the cooties at Chevron.  The Choco-Puff solves a problem that plagues campers across America.  It puts chocolate in the center of a marshmallow, melting them both uniformly and cutting down on the assembly time to make a S’more.

school students.

Posted: 02-23-10

Vedic Vine:  Here's an easy way to mentally get the square of numbers that end in 5: Start with a two digit number like 25. We want to find 25 squared.  First step - multiply the 2 by the next higher number 3 and get 6 - this is the first digit of your answer. Second step - compute 5 squared which is 25 and those are the last 2 digits of the answer.  The answer is 625.  For 45 squared, multiply 4x5 = 20, then 5 squared is 25.  The answer is 2025.  Try some more on your own.  Taken from VEDIC MATHEMATICS Teacher's Manual, Elementary Level by Kenneth R. Williams

Posted: 02-03-10

This past Saturday, we spotted Blink at the 23rd Annual Astounding Inventions Competition. 

According to the OC Register, 1/30/10, More than 350 students in Irvine and Tustin school districts showcased their inventions during the annual Astounding Inventions contest at Irvine Valley College on Saturday.

Students in kindergarten to eighth grade put their creativity and hard work into making new and useful produ...cts. All the students won ribbons for first or second place, or an honorable mention. First place winners will receive $50 and second place winners receive $25, totaling $9,000 for students in both districts.

Posted: 02-02-10

We would like to wish all of our families a very Happy New Year! If you are like me, I am glad to see 2009 go. It was a rough year for so many people. Let us do everything that we can to help each other this year to accomplish our goals. There are so many students out there still struggling or bored in school. Help me help them by referring your family and friends to Math Monkey of Irvine or to any other Math Monkey in the U.S. or Mexico.  I have a great new referral program that will help you get your Math Monkey classes for free! Call us for more information at 949-559-6284.

Posted: 01-02-10

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! from the Chief Chimp, Big Banana and the rest ofthe monkeys!

Posted: 01-02-10

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