Daily Archives: January 28, 2013

River Ice

Posted by Mike on

While my daughter was getting ready for the FTC Robotics competition at Pace University I went exploring around Sleepy Hollow, NY. I did some pre-visit research but apparently not enough. As I was waiting for the gates to the Kingsland Point County Park to open I parked at the Philipse Manor Railroad Station and captured a few pictures of the partially frozen Hudson River. I really liked the ice and the view of the Tappan Zee bridge.

If I had just done a 180 from where these two pictures were taken I could have captured the historic railroad station which is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. I had such a list of places to see in a short period of time but now I feel I really missed out on some great images. I managed to capture the views on my list (still to be processed) but now I want to make the 4 hour drive again to finish my exploring.

As Cold As Ice Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/250s, 26mm, f/8, ISO 200

As Cold As Ice
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/250s, 26mm, f/8, ISO 200

Philipse Manor Marina Breakwall Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/250s, 70mm, f/8, ISO 200

Philipse Manor Marina Breakwall
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/250s, 70mm, f/8, ISO 200

A Word a Week Challenge – Smile

Posted by Mike on

This week Sue over at A Word in Your Ear found a word in her dictionary that was going to give me a problem… smile! I generally do not get images of people. They never seem to turn out like I want and I find I always have issues with every capture. Check out Sue’s post on this week’s challenge at A Word a Week Challenge – Smile.

Luckily, this weekend I had to take my daughter on a road trip to Pace University in Pleasantville, NY for a FTC Robotics competition. She recently joined a new team created from a group of kids that had been participating in the FLL Robotics competitions. What is the difference you ask? Well the FLL (FIRST LEGO League) uses LEGO products to build the robots that are programmed to solve a problem autonomously while the FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) teams build robots out of nuts and bolts with programmable logic and remote control capability which compete head-to-head in an arena to accomplish a specific task, placing rings on posts.

It was my first experience with an FTC competition and I have to tell you I was very impressed. The quality of the robots built by the various teams was incredible. The engineering involved and the different approaches to solving the problem was fascinating. I’ll try to get a post together to highlight the event.

This post is about the smile challenge and hopefully I did it some justice. Here are a couple of pictures of my daughter and her friend dressed for the competition…

Team Spirit Nikon D5100, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8, 1/15s, f/8, ISO 800

Team Spirit
Nikon D5100, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8, 1/15s, f/8, ISO 800

Hi Dad! Nikon D5100, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6, 1/80s, 200mm, f/5.6, ISO 3200

Hi Dad!
Nikon D5100, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6, 1/80s, 200mm, f/5.6, ISO 3200

I can tell by looking at these images that if I want to continue to capture people I am going to need some more practice… lol!