A School Yard Controversy?

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Rotten Apple with Worm Coming OutHoot’s episode of “Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader” ended and he is no doubt disappointed.

But was he wrong?

Hoot made it all the way to the million dollar question.

That question? “How many common factors do 28 and 32 have?”

Hoot answered “two,” locked in his vote, and lost. He said 2 and 4 were common factors of each, and indeed they are. But he lost because the answer, he was told, should have been three. 1, 2, and 4.

But on the “Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader” message boards, trouble is brewing. A few mathematically inclined viewers in multiple threads have pointed out that one can define common factors not to include the number 1.

A link in one thread to this article states, “Factors are either prime numbers or composite numbers.” Given that the number 1 is neither, maybe Hoot was right!

It would seem a shame not to give the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation $975,000 Hoot fought so hard to win.

Is he Smarter than a 5th Grader?

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Hoot Gibson with Space Camp BarbieFive time shuttle astronaut and friend of Space Camp, Robert “Hoot” Gibson, will be competing for charity on the game show, “Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader,” tonight.

I had the opportunity to speak with Hoot after his return from taping the episode of the show this past July and he said he had some pretty good banter going back and forth with the host, Jeff Foxworthy! And so you should have no doubt that the show is going to be very entertaining even if you’ve never before seen a single episode of the show!

“Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader” airs on the Fox network tonight at 8pm EDT.

Be sure to turn on, tune in, and veg out!

2008 Space Camp Hall of Fame Video

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Space Camp Hall of Fame 2008 LogoThe 2008 Space Camp Hall of Fame webcast is now up online as a streaming video!

The link to the video was just posted to the Alumni Page as follows:

View the July 19, 2008 Hall of Fame induction ceremony … today. This video is approximately 3 hours in length and can take up to 30 seconds for the video to buffer. Click here to watch the archived video.

In order to be able to skip around the video with minimal issues, I recommend using VLC Player over Windows Media Player to watch the stream.

Also, some time ago, photos from the entire Apollo Reunion / Hall of Fame weekend were published online as well.

Hall of Fame Videos Posted to YouTube

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Well. Space Camp has yet to get the Hall of Fame ceremony video onto the internet for those that may have missed it, but that hasn’t stopped someone from posting the wonderful videos that were produced for each Hall of Fame inductee.

Phil Smith HoF Video Still Oscar Holderer HoF Video Still Lisa DeVries HoF Video Still
Captain Phil Smith Oscar Holderer Lisa Devries
Vincent Vazzo HoF Video Still Josh Whitfield HoF Video Still Marlenn Maicki HoF Video Still
Vincent Vazzo Josh Whitfield Marlenn Maicki

Opening Cermonies – ISC 2008

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This past Saturday opened International Space Camp 2008!

Here I present to you the opening procession.

A few things to keep in mind:

1) Not only are international students and teachers invited to International Space Camp, but the United States Teachers of the Year from all states and territories come as well, including the overall teacher of the year.

2) It is customary for the international students and teachers to dress up in native attire (and thus the Canadians come in jeans and a hockey sweater), the teachers from all of the states dress up so as to represent some facet of their state.

2) The teacher of the year this year was Michael Geisen.

3) Michael Geisen led the group. He’s the first one in.

Well done indeed, sir!

Before We Get Too Far Out

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Space Camp Hall of Fame 2008 LogoWe’re just north of a week now since the 2nd annual Space Camp Hall of Fame happened. Whew! Time moves fast!

Before we get too far away from that momentous evening, I want to make sure I cover a few things:

First, thanks again to everyone at the Space & Rocket Center that did such a wonderful job putting on a fantastic show. I some of you worked on almost nothing else for months straight and it showed. My family, who would have been quick to criticize, thought it was an absolutely first-class operation and they had a great time!

I want to thank Al Whitaker and his media guys as the introduction videos they put together were very well done. The scripts were well written and the materials well utilized. I was very impressed with all of them.

Holley Gautney was my primary point of contact for all Hall-of-Fame related questions, comments, and issues. She was always prompt with responses and very helpful. Thanks for all of the help!

My fellow inductees…you’re all class acts and I’m truly proud to have been part of that evening with you all.

Again, I think it was great that they broadcast it on the internet. But given the short notice with which they did it, a lot of people probably didn’t get to see it that otherwise would have loved to have watched!

Given that, I hope the whole think will be made available shortly. Even more importantly, since not everyone will want to sit and watch the while thing from start to finish, I hope that Space Camp cuts it up and puts all of the clips on their YouTube page for quick and easy browsing.

Like I said above, the introduction videos were all so well done, and everyone gave great speeches (well, the others did, anyway). But I can’t say I remember a great deal of them at this point. Between the lack of sleep that weekend and the general anxiety of the evening, I really only remember bits and pieces. I don’t even remember what I said (though that might be a good thing)! It would be nice to be able to pull the clips up.

…From last year too.