It’s summertime in the northern hemisphere, and the beach beckons.
There’s nothing quite like playing with sand - letting it pour through your fingers or squishing it through your toes - for bringing out the happy, inner-child.
Well, perhaps there is one website that can help you approximate that joy.
Visit thisissand.com and make your own sand art pictures. A click of your mouse causes digitalized sand to pour on your computer screen.
When you enter the site, you’ll see a blank screen with one small gray square on the upper left. Click on the square and you’ll get instructions for changing your sand’s color, or even selecting a color gradient.
You can elect to mute the sound of pouring sand, but I wouldn’t do that. The sound is very soothing, and you can almost attain a meditative state as you create your sand art picture.
Once you’ve completed your masterpiece, you can upload it to the thisissand.com gallery, where you will find incredibly beautiful creations.
Thisissand.com is a joint project of the designers Johanna Lundberg and Jenna Sutela with the Flash programmer Timo Koro who invite you to play in their sandbox:
The digital sandbox on thisissand.com takes after the physical one. The user is allowed to do what he or she wishes with the elements in the sandbox. Sometimes the resulting pieces are expressive, sometimes they become more abstract. And just as a real world sandbox, the one on thisissand.com can be smoothed out and re-sculpted again time after time.
Just like the actual sand gets its colour from its origins, the sand used on thisissand.com covers the RGB palette natural to digital environments. Also the sounds of the falling sand on thisissand.com resemble a real life phenomenon: singing sand is discovered in about 35 desert locations around the world where the wind triggers a low-pitch sound in the natural sand. Instead of nature’s frequencies the digital sand generates white noise, which is a random signal with a flat power density. It is considered analogous to white light which contains all frequencies - like the RGB sand on thisissand.com.
I’d show you my sand art masterpiece, but it’s lost in the gallery. However, I’d love to see yours. Be sure to post your link in a comment.
More Homeschooling Online Suggestions:
Moodstream: Create a soundboard using images, music, and film footage that fits your mood.
Zipcode Zoo - Identify the flora and fauna in any area, and learn lots about animals.
Green Dimes - Stop unwanted junk mail and share ways to “green up” our world.
Kids Cooking Activities - Ideas and resources to inspire budding chefs.
Wordle - Turn your words into a work of art
Animoto - Create a music video with your photos.
Instructables - Discover instructions for all kinds of projects - from recipes to robots - or post your own.
Mr. Picassohead - Unleash your inner abstract artist.
Hulu - Watch a movie or catch up on your favorite TV shows on your computer.
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