Bright Possibilities

Author: Murali

  • Rising Stars Destination Imagination team – 2017-2018

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    Destination Imagination (aka DI) offers fun and creative team based challenges for teams of up 4-7 kids. Both my kids had participated in the past few years. It encourages them to learn, create, and share with the team. The teams solve a team wide challenge for the entire year preparing props to show along with…

  • “Netflix On Us” offer from T-Mobile

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    Two weeks back I heard about the “Netflix On Us” offer from T-Mobile. Being a T-Mobile ONE customer with multiple lines, this is an attractive offer for us. Plus we are already a Netflix customer paying monthly fees. I had concerns about how this offer will be to sign up and get started. Today I…

  • Back from 2017 Seattle Maker Faire

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    Today Manu and I attended the Seattle Maker Faire. Another year of some exciting things shown at the faire. First and foremost Manu wanted to build and race a pinewood derby car 🙂 which he did quickly as soon as we got in. There were several exhibits around that used arduino based controllers, simple metal…

  • Mentoring and Coaching month 1

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    In the summer, one of our friends asked me if I can coach a student interested in Computer Science. Given that I already volunteer with Spark SIP connecting high school students with internships, I said Yes. A few weeks rolled by and then I was introduced to the student. I had a few ideas on projects the…

  • Learning through games – Chess and such

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    A recent article about family game nights in The Atlantic emphasized the importance of games. In this summer there were days we got together as a family and played a variety of indoor games besides some outdoor games. There were two themes that emerged. Rules Driven Games encouraged discipline. Games like Chess, monopoly, cards, Set,…

  • Learning and coaching of Math with NSF

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    This year I had registered as a coach for Math to teach the students in grades 3-5 who register with North South Foundation (NSF). My 7-year old son participated in a spelling bee competition a few months back and came home interested in doing more Math. NSF also has a program to coach students during the…

  • Wheel of Retailing and path for Fortune

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    Last week I read this business case about Amazon vs. Walmart and the Wheel of Retailing. Over the past two centuries of retailing there have bene several repeat instances where a new comer grabs mindshare and marketshare through discounted offerings and differentiated experiences. Soon this incumbent grows up and wants to get revenue share and…

  • ideaX from KCLS is awesome

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    In the past month, I had taken my 7-year old son to the ideaX event at the Bellevue main library. At this event there are an array of things to play with – blocks, lego mindstorms, 3D printer pens, line tracing robots, liteBricks, paper planes, etc. Besides kids, even adults were enjoying the event. This…

  • Energy consumed and CO2 emissions for top 3 countries

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    Yesterday I read about the smog-filtering bicycles to be launched in China. This brought up a question about the utility and the state of affairs of CO2 emissions and air pollution in China. From my trips to Chinese capital city of Beijing three years back, I recall the high level of pollution and the orange sunsets…

  • Flying High (Poem with Picture)

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    Thanks to a wonderful bird photo from a friend, here is the poem card. Thanks S.Sivakumar for the excellent photo of a soaring bird flying high.