Every year in our toddler and preschool rooms, we welcome children who do not speak the classroom language. Mostly, we've welcomed non-English speakers into our English-language rooms. Now, with our new Spanish and Mandarin immersion programs, we are also helping English-speakers to transition into classrooms with a new language for them—a very similar transition, as both teachers speak only Spanish/Mandarin, all day long!
Parents often ask how children who do not speak the classroom language handle the transition. After all, it's already a new environment—and now they need to enter it without understanding the language the teachers and many of their peers speak!
To help you address these concerns for your child, this blog post discusses how the Montessori environment is optimally set up to support the learning of a second language, how we help children transition, and what you, as the parent, can do to help your child make a successful start in his new environment.
An environment that is largely accessible without language. The Montessori classroom is a very hands-on environment. Most materials are readily usable without any language skills: children can take a puzzle, blocks or play dough, and enjoy themselves even if they cannot speak the language. There are few all-group, language-heavy activities. What group activities there are—read-aloud, song time, small-group lessons—tend to be voluntary, so that a child who doesn't have the language skills (or just isn't interested!) has the option of doing something else.
Individual demonstrations, with materials, not purely verbal lessons. In Montessori for toddlers and preschoolers, most of the instruction is one-on-one. A child sits down with a teacher who demonstrates, in slow, careful movement, how a certain activity works. The child can follow along and learn how to do it, even if he initially doesn't understand the words the teacher offers.
Practical Life activities lend themselves for teaching the names of common things, as well as lots of verbs and adverbs. A teacher may show your child how to paint at an easel. There are all the words for the material in use (easel, brush, color, water cup, apron, sponge and so on); all the words for the activity (hang up the paper, paint, clean, dry); and, of course, the words to describe the end product (clear, colorful, bright).
Sensorial materials are great for teaching adjectives of all kinds. Many activities in the sensorial area are designed to isolate a certain attribute—the sound something makes (loud, quiet, high tone/low tone), the color (dark blue, light pink), the texture (coarse, fine, soft, hard), the smell, the taste, the shape, the size, and so on. All of these are wonderful activities for teaching language skills!
Naming Period: "This is a cow." The teacher may show an object, or a picture, and provide the child with the name, then pause to allow the child to repeat the name.
Recognition and Association: "Point to the cow." To check the child's understanding, the teacher will play a game of asking for an object or a picture, guiding the child to hand it to her, put it at the edge of the table, back in the basket, and so on.
Recall: "What is this?" Only after the child has shown he can identify the object, does the teacher ask her to name it un-aided.
This Three Period Lesson gets used all over the classroom: we have many language cards with common objects, such as things from around the house to clothing, from vehicles to animals and so on. We also use this approach to, later, teach more advanced concepts—such as the names of countries, the parts of animals, or types of rocks.
A clear, repetitive structure to support independence. Consistency and predictability are a great help to a child who enters any new setting. This is especially true when a child enters a classroom without speaking its language. Our Montessori toddler and preschool rooms combine freedom for individual activities with a very clear structure and routine. Children learn that they can choose any activity from the shelves, and work with it for as long as they want. They learn that the teacher rings a bell when it is clean-up time, and that they may either put their activity away, or, for older children, mark them as theirs to come back to after lunch.
An ability to observe and learn from peer modeling. Much learning in our classroom happens when children observe other children do activities. A child who joins at age three without language skills can watch as another child builds the Pink Tower, or punches out the shape of a continent, or uses scissors to cut along lines. She can see how children return activities to the shelf, how they clean an easel after using it, or how they sit down at the snack table when a spot is free. Because much of the learning happens at a perceptual, non-verbal level, even children who do not speak the language can easily model after others.
A community where older children are eager to help. Our Montessori classrooms are mixed-age, family-like environments. Just like younger children in a family learn much language from the older children, younger students who enter a Montessori environment learn much language from their older peers. Older students often naturally act as translators for younger peers who speak their language!
A focus on polite, gracious interactions between children. Some parents fear that children who do not speak the language may suffer socially. We don't see that happening in our classrooms! Instead, our students all receive lessons in "Grace and Courtesy": they learn how to greet a child, how to offer help, how to express their feelings and needs using words. As a result, our students tend to be quite empathetic, and willing to help a new child find her way around class.
Teachers add gestures and hand signals to spoken language. Our teachers are experts at using gestures and body movements to help children understand them and, in short order, learn to recognize key words and phrases in their new language. We may point to a jacket and pantomime taking it off. We may pull out a chair and point to the child, then the chair, to show the child where to sit down. We may point to the toilet to suggest it's time for a child to use it. Basically, we do what you did when your child first learned to speak: we slow down, we point, we repeat—so your child can learn his second language by absorbing it from his surroundings, just like he did with his first.
Frequent updates and check-ins with parents. While we encourage all parents of new students to check in with us regularly, we place a special emphasis on frequent updates for those children who come to us without speaking English. Please do share any concerns you have, and help us by letting us know any needs your child may have that he cannot yet reliably communicate in English or the immersion language.
Explain school routines to your child. Before your child starts, review the flow of the school day with him. You may find it helpful to watch some of our videos, and explain to your child in your native language what will happen during the day as you watch these videos. You can also access your campus' photo gallery, and use the photos as prompts to talk about school with your child. Feel free to ask your teacher or Head of School for a detailed schedule of your child's classroom, so you can share all the details with her. Finally, it will be helpful if you can explain a few basic classroom rules to your child before she starts—such as having only one activity out at a time, putting it back on the shelves when done, and not stepping on the rugs children place on the floor to delineate work areas. We can help you with explaining these rules when you come in for your Meet and Greet with your child's teacher.
Provide the teacher with a few words in your language. We'd love it if you provided us with the same list of words in your language, so we could better meet your child's needs during the initial transition.
Help your child toward independence (especially if he's three and above). Our Montessori curriculum places a strong emphasis on helping children become functionally independent—on learning to dress themselves, eating by themselves, using the toilet independently, completing a work cycle on their own. If you, a relative or a nanny have been helping your child with many of these everyday tasks, you can help with the transition to school by slowly introducing more independence at home as well. This article offers some good ideas on how to get started.
One more thing: if you speak a language other than English at home, and are enrolling your child in one of our English-speaking classrooms, we'd encourage you to continue speaking your native language at home. Living in America, and being in an English-speaking setting all day long, your child will learn English well—so well that, unless you consistently speak your native language at home, it will disappear from his life. Growing up bilingual is such a gift, it's worth the hard work that goes into making it happen!


Alejandra Mancilla, The Right of Necessity: Moral Cosmopolitanism and Global Poverty, Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, 140pp., $31.00 (pbk), ISBN 9781783485864.
Imagine you are hiking and you somehow find yourself lost in a remote area. To make matters worse, a heavy storm erupts and you didn't bring camping supplies. If that wasn't enough, you are also running out of potable water. Luckily, you find a cabin in the woods which will provide shelter and which likely has the life-saving supplies you are in desperate need of. The cabin is locked, but with some force you will be able to enter. Is it morally permissible for you to do so? More generally, is it morally permissible to avail yourself of someone else's property without the consent of the owner if it is the only way for you to save your life?
The latter question was discussed intensely by twelfth-century theologians and canon lawyers. The theologians initially followed Augustine who had proclaimed that good intentions or outcomes cannot justify sinful acts. And since the well-being of the soul is so much more important than the well-being of the body, it is better to starve than to sin. Some canon lawyers, however, came up with a different answer. The institution of property, they reasoned, is a product of human law. It is permitted but not required by natural law. Before the introduction by human beings of private property, everything was common and it was permissible, under natural law, for anyone to use what they needed. A situation of necessity will trigger a temporary return to that state of nature, before the introduction of property rights, and revive the original right of use.
What happened next is perhaps one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of European political thought. The idea was accepted by all major canon lawyers, by all major theologians and by all civil lawyers. A consensus grew across the Christian world and it lasted for close to five centuries. All the way into the second half of the seventeenth century, no scholar who wanted to be taken seriously could afford to deny that someone in extreme necessity had a right to take whatever he or she needed to save his or her life. The return to the state of nature was by no means the only explanation/justification that was produced in defenses of the right. Nor was there agreement on the precise modalities of the right. But the existence of the right itself was close to an unquestionable truth. In the eighteenth century, however, acceptance of the right declined. In most of the twentieth century, the right that was once an inevitability in our legal and political tradition is remembered only by a few historians of medieval and early modern political thought.
Enter Alejandra Mancilla. The first chapter of her slim book has the revealing title Reviving the Right of Necessity. After going over some of the statistics detailing the gruesome consequences of global poverty, her focus turns to moral cosmopolitanism. One striking characteristic of moral cosmopolitans is that they have been almost exclusively concerned with the question what we -- the wealthy -- owe the world's poor. All the emphasis is on the duties that the wealthy and powerful have toward those who need our help. Neither justice cosmopolitans (like Pogge) nor assistance cosmopolitans (like Singer), however, have paid much attention to the question what the poor themselves may do to improve their plight. We know, however, that the wealthy citizens or countries are not doing nearly enough to help. And the poor are confronted with a whole lot of violence: they are being chased from their squatting places, arrested for petty theft, and incarcerated when they attempt to cross a border in search for a better life. Assuming that the poor have a right to subsistence, it seems only reasonable to ask what they are morally permitted to do themselves to escape undernourishment and unhealthy living conditions. Mancilla takes care to distinguish the defense of a right of necessity from that of subsistence wars and poor-led movements, as well as that of forced assistance. She also distinguishes her approach from necessity in the law by arguing that no legal system considers chronic material deprivation as providing either a justification or an excuse for using the property of others.
Part I provides a discussion of a few historical accounts of the right of necessity. Chapter 2 briefly peruses some medieval sources, especially Aquinas. She finds in those medieval accounts the main elements that return in later authors.
The rest of the second chapter is devoted to Grotius. Mancilla criticizes Grotius for not specifying clearly enough what is implied in the 'return to the state of nature'. She argues that Grotius' right of use in the state of nature must be a privilege compounded with a claim of non-interference against others to those things brought under one's possession and required for one's subsistence. But, Mancilla continues, this has implications, like the right to use violence to defend the things that the pauper has taken into possession and the duty of the owner to let the needy use his property, which Grotius never acknowledges. I am not sure why we should assume that a duty of the owner not to interfere with the use of goods necessary for survival is somehow inconsistent with Grotius's system. Grotius might well have thought that the need to use violence to defend one's possession would not arise in his state of nature. However, if it did arise, then it would be because of the (previous) owner violating a duty not to interfere with the possession and/or use by the needy of goods necessary for survival. So the criticism of Grotius seems to depend on an assumption that he would deny what he did not clearly state and on an uncharitable interpretation of his thought.
Chapter 3 brings the reader in record time up to speed with Pufendorf's theory of sociability, his grounding of property rights, and his distinction between perfect and imperfect duties. Not to harm others is required for the preservation of society and is hence a perfect duty, whereas promoting the good of others is required 'only' for the well-being of society, not for its preservation, and is therefore (only) an imperfect duty. Such an imperfect duty seems an unpromising basis for a right, but Mancilla points out, first, that Pufendorf thinks performance of this duty may be enforced by civil ordinance, hence making the imperfect duty perfect; and, second, that the needy persons may take matters into their own hands where such enforcement is lacking. A problem with the first point is that Pufendorf seems to be raising the possibility of enforcement precisely to argue that this possibility would eliminate the legitimacy of taking matters into one's own hands. Mancilla then turns, initially, to Pufendorf's grounding of the right of necessity in the man's uncontrollable pull to preserve himself and, then, to the conditions that Pufendorf imposes for legitimate exercise of the right. Mancilla clearly admires Pufendorf's work, and is keen to defend him against charges of inconsistency. Yet it is puzzling that she brushes relatively easily over his criterion of moral innocence. Pufendorf scolded Grotius for omitting such a distinction and thus allowing a right to be given to "idle knaves" whose vices have brought them into want, and he left it to property owners to judge, even in cases of necessity, whether the poor are "an object worthy of relief".
Part II develops the case for the revival of the right of necessity. In Chapter 4 the right of necessity is justified very straightforwardly, by tying it to the right to subsistence as a "concrete expression" of the latter. This is somewhat vague, and one sometimes gets the impression that these two rights are not always as clearly distinguished as one would like. Mancilla argues that the right to subsistence should operate as an internal limitation to any acceptable system of property rights, as it did in Grotius and Pufendorf. She also argues that in our current world, where property rules do not function to the benefit of all members of society, the application of the right should not be confined to one-off, mostly naturally caused emergencies, like the case of the cabin in the mountains. One puzzling statement (p. 72) is that this claim relies on the empirical assumption that there is one global economic society. In the first chapter, there is a similar statement: "That the needy may stake a claim upon almost anyone is based on the idea that we live in a sufficiently interconnected global economic order." (p. 9) But it remains unclear why this assumption (or fact) of interconnectedness is required to make the claim stick. After all, the right of necessity and the right of subsistence are not grounded on any assumption of previous injustice. In the next section, she explores in more detail how the right of necessity would fill a gap in moral cosmopolitanism and how it can partly solve the problem of the allocation of correlative duties.
Chapter 5 argues that the poor should not only be entitled to take what they need to survive but also things that may indirectly serve to obtain the former, such as money or a piece of land. It then explains that the right is a privilege or liberty to act, together with duties of others not to interfere with the action. The remainder of the chapter outlines three conditions for the right to be invoked, namely that the need must be basic, that no other equally important moral interests are violated in the exercise of the right, and that it is appealed to as a last resort.
Chapter 6 tackles three different overdemandingness objections. A moral principle is epistemically overdemanding if an agent cannot know what the correct action is under a complex set of circumstances. For the right-holder, it may be impossible to know whether the owner of the targeted resources will not be in an equally deprived position after the goods have been taken. For the duty-bearer, it may be hard to gauge whether someone is in a state of necessity. A moral principle can be psychologically overdemanding if it requires huge sacrifices, or under conditions of general non-compliance, or if one's moral character is shaped by imperfect institutions. And, finally, a moral principle can be theoretically overdemanding if it is self-defeating, if what it requires ultimately brings about effects that run counter to its aim or to the values that it is supposed to uphold. Mancilla admits that the exercise of the right might create unwelcome consequences for the duty-bearers and bring unfair results, but nevertheless argues that the moral principle ought to be upheld. In the final chapter Mancilla asks whether granting such a right will do much good in practice, and she points to a few issues that need further exploration.
Overall this is an engaging book which brings a very worthwhile idea with real world implications to a debate of utmost urgency. The text is almost always very clear and the points are usually tightly argued. Only on a few occasions does one get the impression that legitimate questions are not given the space that they deserve. For example, when answering the question whether violence is permitted when people do not fulfill their correlative duties, Mancilla answers with Pogge that resorting to violence is counterproductive and damaging as it gives the perfect excuse to those in power to keep things as they are. The reader is left with the feeling that the question hasn't really been answered. Further on, when discussing duties correlative to the right of necessity, she suggests that we have a duty "not to make those resources inaccessible." (p. 97) But this remains rather vague. Suppose that I live in an area with a high rate of burglaries. It could well be that some of the burglars are people who steal out of necessity, but does that mean that I should keep the doors of my house unlocked? Of course, such problems are incredibly difficult to solve, and they are perhaps the domain of law rather than morality. Still, at times one wishes that the book would have delved a bit more deeply into them.
All in all, these criticisms of passages are mere quibbles compared to the profound achievements of the author. The book delivers a very clearly argued case for a right that has been neglected for too long, a right that should be high on the agenda for all moral cosmopolitans. Highly recommended.


text:
run | sew | read
and all things related that make this a good life.
Author: run-sew-read
Mila dungarees (Tilly and the Buttons pattern)
March 21, 2021 March 21, 2021 | run-sew-read
I purchased the digital pattern [link here], printed out the 30 pages of letter-sized paper, and commenced taping them all together in a big rectangle. Then I cut out the fully-assembled pattern pieces.
(Image from Tilly and the Buttons webstore.)
They've put out an add-on pattern for front pockets. I made the pockets, too. Free pocket download and instructions here: https://www.tillyandthebuttons.com/2018/06/mila-dungarees-pocket.html
The pattern instructions recommend using a fabric containing spandex. I did not follow the recommendation, and instead used some vintage thick brown corduroy that I inherited from my grandma's stash. With no stretch to the fabric, I opted to make loose (baggy) overalls. They feel great and are fun to wear. I can do chores and run errands in them because they aren't restrictive. I could take 3 inches out of the waist and hips, and they would fit more like the picture on the pattern, but that would compromise stretch and versatility. I'm happy with my baggy version, and am glad to have used some of my heirloom fabric.
More thoughts and recommendations:
No Front Pockets: I tried to put on the optional front pockets. Then I took them off, remade them and tried again. Then I gave up. I couldn't get them to look right on the corduroy. I learned much, and should be able to get the pockets to look right on my next make.
Bulky facings: I wish I would have used a lightweight fabric for the inside facings and plackets. I used the corduroy, and it's quite bulky. The bulk makes the waistband and side button plackets unnecessarily thick and stiff. It makes the overalls look wider at the waist and hips than if I'd used something lightweight on the inside, that would have enabled some drape in the fabric.
'Overall' Recommendation: Highly recommend. The pattern was accurate and easy to make, and the instructions were very well done.
Future post preview: I'm attempting to make homemade sauerkraut for the first time.
Here is the recipe I'm following: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-homemade-sauerkraut-in-a-mason-jar-193124
I also consulted this tutorial: https://zerowastechef.com/2014/03/29/sauerkraut/
And here is my quart mason jar on Day 1:
Nicodemus, Kansas USA
March 7, 2021 March 7, 2021 | run-sew-read
Please allow me to extend Black History Month by a week, to tell about this unique and special place, the town of Nicodemus, Kansas. Nicodemus is the "only remaining western town established by African Americans during the Reconstruction Period following the American Civil War." (Per Wikipedia)
(Image from Google Maps)
The National Park Service has a page telling the history of Nicodemus: https://www.nps.gov/articles/nicodemus.htm Here's an excerpt from their page:
The small town of Nicodemus, Kansas sits quietly on the northwest Kansas plains. Founded by newly freed slaves in 1877, Nicodemus was a refuge from the Reconstruction-era South, a reflection of a mass black migration from the South to the Midwest after the Civil War. Nicodemus was the first black community west of the Mississippi River and is the only predominantly black community west of the Mississippi that remains a living community today. An all-black outpost on the frontier, this "unsettled" land offered a chance for black farmers and their families to start anew. Today, a few people and buildings remain from the original township, a testament to the resolve of the people of Nicodemus to build a new life on the prairie. Between the end of the Civil War and the 1880s, many courageous black settlers sought better lives, better land, and better opportunities in the heartland.
When the railroad was built, it didn't pass through Nicodemus. The interstate highway system doesn't pass through the town. The challenges getting to and from the town, and the Dust Bowl and other conditions in the region made it hard for the town and citizens to thrive. As the end of the 20th century approached, the town was down to just a handful of residents, and the buildings were badly deteriorating. There was concern that the town might literally disappear. The National Park Service brought it into their system. It's now a National Historic Landmark and Site.
Nicodemus is a more thriving site now, with the NPS resources behind the ongoing restoration projects. They hold cultural events. Nicodemus has a great, active Facebook page, where they regularly post historical facts and photos of their town and related events and places. Here's a post from today:
On my visit to Nicodemus several years ago, while I was speaking to the Park Ranger at the Visitor's Center, a young adult black woman arrived, almost out of breath. She was attending a professional conference in Denver, and saw it as her chance to visit Nicodemus. She had rented a car and made the 5-hour two-lane highway drive to get there. I got emotional seeing her emotion; and I still get tears in my eyes remembering it. Like I said at the start, it's a special place.
Television portrayal:
The town of Nicodemus was featured in two episodes of 'Quick Draw', a Hulu original comedy series set in Kansas. The filming of the series did not actually take place in Kansas unfortunately, but I still enjoyed the 'Kansas feel' to the series. The two Nicodemus episodes are probably my favorites of the series. I'm thrilled that they featured the town. Here's a clip:
Here's the series page on Hulu's site. https://www.hulu.com/series/quick-draw-f15643e4-501e-44da-ac26-bbb3024bf9b1
Nicodemus on the web:
Nicodemus website (NPS): https://www.nps.gov/nico/index.htm
Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicodemus,_Kansas
Nicodemus Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NicodemusNPS
Getting to Nicodemus (It's not on the interstate, or near any metropolis.):
Below are driving directions from airports in the region (Denver, Wichita, Omaha, and Kansas City), and from the Brown vs. Board of Education site in Topeka. Note: The Visitor's Center is currently closed for the Covid-19 pandemic.
Directions from Brown vs BOE site (Topeka, KS)
Directions from Omaha
Directions from Kansas City
Directions from Wichita
Directions from Denver
You say Shrove Tuesday; I say Pancake Day–The 2021 Pandemic edition!
February 16, 2021 February 16, 2021 | run-sew-read
Happy Pancake Day!!! In 2019 I wrote the blog post below about the annual Pancake Day race competition between Liberal, Kansas USA and Olney, England. They've been holding the annual trans-Atlantic race for more than 70 years. I swore I'd try to attend the Liberal KS Pancake Day race in 2020. Then it was cancelled for the then-new Covid-19 pandemic. Now it's 2021 and the event had to be cancelled for a second year for the pandemic. So here I am looking back at the events and vowing to get there in 2022. Have a lovely day, and maybe some pancakes. (US and UK pancake recipes are at the bottom of the post.)
(The original post from 2019)
They say it started more than 500 years ago, when on Shrove Tuesday (the day before the start of Lent), a housewife in England was cooking at her stove, heard the bell for church, and dashed from her house to the church still wearing her apron and carrying her skillet.
Today it is an annual international women's race, in which the participants wear a housedress, headscarf and apron, and must carry a skillet with a pancake in it, and flip the pancake.
The event takes place in Olney, England and Liberal, Kansas USA. Each town holds a race, and the fastest finish time wins the international contest.
(Picture from Olney's website)
A multi-day festival has grown up around the event. Each town maintains a Pancake Day website; and each maintains a Facebook page, which is great for enthusiasts like me who want real-time updates on race day.
Liberal, Kansas USA
Website https://www.pancakeday.net/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/International-Pancake-Day-150100398340271
Olney, England
Website http://olneypancakerace.org
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Olney-Pancake-Race-297925113641129/
How the International Pancake Day Race came about:
Each of the two cities' websites gives a brief history of the Pancake Day Race. Since each site provides a fact or two that the other one doesn't, I've included both. But hey, the best thing to do is visit both websites for more history and photos of past events.
From the Liberal, KS site:
"In Olney, England, the Pancake Race tradition dates back more than 500 years to 1445. A woman engrossed in using up cooking fats (forbidden during Lent) was making pancakes. Hearing the church bells ring calling everyone to the shriving service, she grabbed her head scarf (required in church) and ran to the church, skillet and pancake in hand and still apron-clad. In following years, neighbors got into the act and it became a race to see who could reach the church first and collect a "Kiss of Peace" from the verger (bell-ringer.)
"HOW DID PANCAKE DAY GET STARTED IN THE UNITED STATES?
"It all started in 1950 from a magazine picture of the Olney women racing each other to the church. Liberal Jaycee President R.J. Leete contacted the Rev. Ronald Collins, Vicar of St. Peter and St. Paul's church in Olney, challenging their women to race against women of Liberal. Like in Olney, the traditional prize of the race is the "Kiss of Peace" from the verger (bellringer)."
From the Olney, UK site:
"No one is quite certain how the world famous Pancake Race at Olney originated. One story tells of a harassed housewife, hearing the shriving bell, dashing to the Church still clutching her frying pan containing a pancake. Another tells that the gift of pancakes may have been a bribe to the Ringer, or Sexton that he might ring the bell sooner; for ringing the bell signalled the beginning of the day's holiday and enjoyment, no less than to summon the people to the service at which they would be shriven of their sins before the long Lenten feast.
"Tradition declares that the race was first run in the year 1445, pancakes at the time being a popular dish, receiving royal favour. It was run on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent, and the whole day was given over to a festival of celebration, pranks and pastimes. It is not known where the original start line was but the finish line was at the Church door.
"The race continued through the centuries, and whilst many other local customs died, and the race itself may have lapsed many times, such lapses never caused the race to be entirely forgotten by the womenfolk of Olney. It is known to have taken place during the troublesome times of The War of the Roses (1445 to 1487).
"THE CUSTOM REVIVED
"After a lapse during the Second World War, it was revived again in 1948 by the Vicar of Olney the Reverend Canon Ronald Collins. In clearing out a cupboard he came across some old photographs, which had obviously been taken in the Nineteen Twenties and Thirties of women running with frying pans. Filled with enthusiasm to revive the ancient custom, he called for volunteers, and in response thirteen runners appeared on Shrove Tuesday that year. The race immediately caught the popular imagination and people of Olney set out to enjoy this simple and colourful link with their rich past, a day of festivities.
"THE LINK WITH LIBERAL
"In 1950 the race became an International event. A challenge was received from the town of Liberal in Kansas, USA, where they had, after seeing the press photographs of the race at Olney, conceived the idea of setting up a similar custom. Olney readily accepted the challenge and, in a spirit of international goodwill and friendship, the two towns now compete annually and prizes are exchanged. The race is run on a timed basis."
THE RACE!
At 11:55 am Olney time (5:55am Central US time), the Olney Race begins.
At 11:55 am Liberal time (5:55pm Olney UK time), the Liberal race begins.
The (updated) weather forecast for today (February 16, 2021) at what would have been race time:
Olney: Partly cloudy and 50°F with a SW wind of 13 mph, causing a feels-like temp of 45°F.
Liberal: Cloudy and -6°F with a SE wind of 15 mph, causing a feels-like temp of -18°F.
Don't be fooled by the dresses, aprons and skillets; these races are legit athletic contests. So, what is the actual race like? Here is a recent video from each side of the pond:
The Olney, UK race (2012)
The Liberal, KS USA race (2014)
Attending these two Pancake Day races is a bucket list item for me. It's only a 3.5 hour drive for me to Liberal, KS, but Tuesdays pose a problem. Once again this year, work has intervened to keep me from going. Next year, Pancake Day is on Tuesday, February 25. I shall try again.
I love to eat pancakes, so pancakes must be included in this story:
American pancakes are typically thicker than English pancakes. I love both.
An American style pancakes recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/21014/good-old-fashioned-pancakes/
(photo from allrecipes.com)
An English style pancakes recipe: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2907669/easy-pancakes
(photo from Epicurious.com)
I love pancakes so much that on my first ever trip to England (in 2010), I took a picture of my first-ever English pancake, and the lovely, skilled vendor cook who made it for me.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrove_Tuesday
Alexa, the Show-Me Edition (about the Echo Show) — Part 2 in the Alexa series
February 9, 2021 April 15, 2021 | run-sew-read
Last July I wrote about how an Alexa device has enabled us to communicate easily with our mom who is wheelchair-bound with advanced Parkinson's disease, and has been an 'inmate' in a locked-down care home since the pandemic began. Back then, I wrote about the Echo Dot, which is a speaker the size of a hockey puck, that sits on the desk or table.
We've since upgraded to the Echo Show 5, which enables video conversations. It's been well worth the upgrade.
(Photo from Amazon)
**This is my unsolicited, uncompensated review and recommendation of the Echo Show device, but the links to Amazon are 'affiliate' links, meaning if you click and buy through one of them, I may receive a few cents in commission, at no additional cost to you. The identity of anyone who clicks on an affiliate link will be completely anonymous to me.**
At regular intervals Amazon has the Echo Show 5 promo-priced as low as $45 (regular list price is $89). The Echo Show 5 screen is comparable in size to a smartphone screen.
A few details about our experience with the Echo Show 5:
Mic–The online customer reviews of the Echo Show 5, reveal a recurring complaint that mic is not as sensitive as on the other Echo devices such as the Dot. I agree. It's not so bad that it keeps me from recommending the Echo Show; far from that. But the Show mic is not as good, which is frustrating at times. I can be sitting inches from the Echo Show on my desk and give it an Alexa command, and the device does not respond, but the Echo Dot in the next room hears me and does what I asked.
The optional adjustable Stand:
Amazon sells a little matching adjustable stand for the Echo Show 5. Many of the online customer reviews express my reaction on seeing the item: Really, $20 for a little piece of plastic? Yes. And for our mom, it has been worth it. She needed a different angle for the mic and camera, and we couldn't figure out another way to prop the Show at a good angle for her. So, we caved and bought the little piece of plastic, and it did the trick. It is secure and easy to adjust. I don't need one for my own Echo Show, but for her, it was worth the $20.
Click here or on the picture below, to go to the stand on Amazon.
(Image from Amazon)
Gradually, quite a few of our family members have acquired their own Echo Show 5s to be able to visit Mom and each other.
One of my brothers has gotten the Echo Show 8, which is apparently the only Echo device that works with Zoom. (Here's an article from Zoom on how it works: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360053161571-Getting-Started-with-Zoom-on-Echo-Show )
Changing the Settings on the Echo Show:
With the Echo Show, there are a plethora of settings available to personalize the device and maximize the usefulness of the video screen. Examples:
Display a slide show of your photos (uploaded to Amazon Photos, which provides free cloud storage)
Play movies and TV shows
See your local weather conditions and forecast
See curated news updates
See Alexa tips and tricks
You can also limit promos from being displayed.
Some of the Echo Show and Echo Dot settings can be made on the device screen itself. To see the Settings options, swipe down from the top of the screen. But you'll also want to install both the Alexa desktop browser app and the mobile app. Some settings can only be made on the desktop, and some only on the mobile app. That's a complaint I have. Figuring out where to find a specific setting is unnecessarily complicated by Amazon having put them in two or three different places.
If you simply want to do an action or a task, speak it to Alexa. Or, to see available actions that you may have recently used, or that Alexa recommends, swipe the Echo screen from right to left.
Selfies (and video):
Just say "Alexa, take my picture." Take a plain picture, or first swipe through the sticker selection.
There's so much more. I haven't even mentioned the Alexa Skills and Routines which enable your Echo do specific useful tasks. It will read your Kindle books to you. And then there are the 'smart plug' accessories for turning on the lights, vacuum, etc. Stay tuned…
Alexa can get cheeky on occasion:
"Alexa, what time is the K-State basketball game?"
Painting smock made from a man's shirt
January 5, 2021 January 5, 2021 | run-sew-read
This was a Christmas gift for my mom, who's wheelchair-bound, with advanced Parkinson's. She can no longer sew, and wants to try painting. So I made her a painting smock, upcycled from a man's shirt.
The pockets and other add-ons are made with fabrics from my stash.
Here are some of the details.
The front pockets can hold supplies.
The ties go around the shoulders; not across the back, so she can get the apron on from the front, without being lifted out of the chair.
To protect her sleeves, I made these coordinating sleeve gaiters from chambray in my stash. You can also see the shape/template of the apron as it was cut from the front of the shirt.
And another smock!
After finishing the smock and then looking at the leftovers, I realized there was another smock in the back of the shirt, so I made her a second one, too.
How are the aprons working out? Well, she hasn't shared any feedback (or paintings) with me yet, so I can't assess the success. But I got a big smile from her when giving her the smocks, so I know they are appreciated and will be used.
Is there a tutorial? I didn't take progress pictures to make into a tutorial. But if you do an internet search (like this) for images of aprons from upcycled men's shirts, you'll see a bunch of inspiring examples like I did before starting my project. The examples were all I needed, but the search will lead you to tutorials if needed.
Christmas gifts–Hand Crocheted RBG collar
December 20, 2020 December 21, 2020 | run-sew-read
In September, we lost Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was beloved by many for her words and values. Her passing inspired a trend of crocheted collars.
This picture is the cover of her memoir. Click the picture to go to the book in Amazon.
Hand crocheted RBG collars were the right gift for a few of my peeps. Here's the version I made:
Supply list and product links:
Crochet Thread Size 3*: https://amzn.to/2WyyQnK
Crochet Hook (3.5mm): https://amzn.to/2LO9EHv
Button (1/2 inch or less)
*From one spool of 'Red Heart #3 crochet thread', I got three (3) of the collars described below.
Time commitment: Each collar took somewhere between 2 and 4 hours to crochet. If you like to watch college basketball, you can crochet while watching two games and you'll likely finish crocheting the collar during the second game.
My Version of the Collars (caveat: This is a listing of my rows and what's in them, but not professionally-written crochet instructions.):
Row 1: Chain 77
Row 2: Turn. In every other chain stitch, single crochet + chain 1
Row 3: Turn. *Chain 3, single crochet in space between Row 2 single crochets, repeat from * to end.
Row 4: Turn. *Chain 4, single crochet in chain 3 space in Row 2, repeat from * to end.
Rows 5-7: Repeat Row 4
Collar end: Turn and single crochet 8 stitches along end.
Repeat two more single crochet rows.
Chain 8 for button loop, and attach loop to neck edge with slipstitch.
Neckline: In each chain 1 space, single crochet + chain 1 to other end of collar.
Repeat one more single crochet row on end.
Add button at neckline and tie off thread ends.
Close up of the stitches and back closure button:
Shrink and block the collar.
To shrink, I soaked the collar for a few minutes in a cup of boiling water, and then tumble-dried it in a hot dryer. It came out in a compact ball.
To block the collar, stretch it back into shape by pinning it to padded cardboard, cover with a press cloth and steam it with the iron.
Then sew on the button.
For easy gifting, the collar fits in a greeting card. Hint: The flatter the button the better for mailing in a card.
Other patterns:
For ideas and inspiration, I studied these two RBG collar patterns:
#1–This collar is more authentic to the picture on RBG's book. It uses #10 thread and a 2.25mm crochet hook. The pattern and instructions are free in this blog. https://stitchmelove.wordpress.com/2020/10/27/rbg-or-ruth-bader-ginsburg-collar-pattern-free/
#2–This collar pattern on Ravelry is no longer available, but the pictures and description were helpful. It uses Size 4 crochet thread and a 5mm hook. https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/rbg-lace-collar
MORE ABOUT RBG
Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg
Notorious RBG tour: Take a virtual tour via Zoom, of this special RBG exhibit at the Illinois Holocaust Museum through February 20, 2021. https://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/rbg/ (Pre-registration required.)
On the Basis of Sex (movie): "The true story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her struggles for equal rights, and the early cases of a historic career that lead to her nomination and confirmation as U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4669788/
Several of the usual streaming services offer this movie. Here is the link to stream on Amazon Prime. https://amzn.to/2WzmbRw
**The Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, meaning if you click and buy, I may receive a few cents from Amazon, which will help me offset the cost of my blog, which I'm committed to keeping ad-free.
Beer Bread vs. Wine Bread
September 27, 2020 September 27, 2020 | run-sew-read
It's well-known that beer bread is tasty and simple to make. I've pondered whether bread could be made with wine instead of beer. According to a few people on the internet, the answer is yes. This past week I tried both beer and wine, and both worked. The wine version had a different flavor from the beer version; in a way not easily described. The flavor of beer bread is distinct and also not easy to describe, but it's very tasty. It's sweet, with a velvety soft, slightly spongy texture.
Here is what my beer bread and wine bread looked like side-by-side.
WHAT TO PAIR THEM WITH:
Beer bread tastes great warm or toasted with butter. That's my favorite way to eat it. But it can also be used for sandwiches or as as you would use any loaf of bread.
The wine bread flavor wasn't quite so easily adaptable to my palate, but I did enjoy it made into peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I still want to try it with savory spreads as well.
THE RECIPES:
Beer bread could not be simpler to make. It's only three ingredients mixed together: a can or bottle of beer, self-rising flour, and sugar.
Beer bread recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/6717/beer-bread-i/ (I took the suggestion of several reviewers', and increased the sugar to 1/4 cup.)
Wine bread recipe: https://www.instructables.com/id/Wine-Bread/ (I used some of my Instant Pot Wine!)
No self-rising flour on hand? Make your own with this recipe from King Arthur Flour: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/homemade-self-rising-flour-recipe (It's just all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt.)
I think beer bread tastes better, but when I find myself with a bottle of wine that has been sitting too long, this will definitely a way to use it.
Yeast shelf life…I stand corrected
No matter how long I've kept a jar of yeast, it has never gone bad. Until now. Just two months ago, I wrote about DIY bread mixes; and wrote that 'yeast keeps well past its sell-by date'. Turns out, that very yeast was going bad as I was writing the post. The bread made and pictured in that post turned out fine. But in the weeks that followed, one of those mixes turned out like the one pictured on the left below. I tried another loaf from the same set of mixes; got the same result. So I tried one more loaf, but added 1/2 teaspoon of yeast from a new jar, and got the result on the right.
The old yeast still has not reached the sell-by date on the jar, and has been stored continuously in the frig, but for some unknown reason it went bad anyway. These things happen, I guess. I stand by my advice to buy and keep a jar of yeast on hand. I've baked bread since I was a little girl, and this is the first time I've ever had yeast go bad.
The short loaves didn't go to waste. They sliced and tasted fine, but a bit more dense than a regular loaf.
More desert island music
We are into the final three rounds of the Slice The Life 2020 Album Draft. Round 8 has just begun. For the latest 'desert island album' picks, click here.
For the latest Run-Sew-Read pick, click here, and enjoy the sample below.
Squishy Squeaky Squares — DIY dog toys
September 6, 2020 September 4, 2020 | run-sew-read
When Myrtle the two-year-old pup is being awful, and I need some peace, I can reach for the red plush fabric, and spend 5 minutes making her a squishy squeaky square.
When she sees me grab the red fabric, she calms down and sits as still as a statue by my sewing chair until I'm done. When I finish and hand it to her, her appreciation is a wonder.
Cut out a rectangle approximately 12″ x 6″, of plush fabric.
Fold in half, right sides together, to make a square shape. Sew two sides shut to make a little bag.
You need a dog squeaker and some fiberfill or batting scraps.
Wrap the squeaker in the fiberfill or batting.
Turn the bag right side out and put the wrapped squeaker inside.
Don't worry if you don't have matching thread.
Sew the bag closed with the squeaker inside.
Voila! A finished squeaky toy.
The squeakers came from Amazon. For Myrtle, I got the 2-inch size. https://amzn.to/3jLL9q5
Round 6 of the Slice The Life 2020 Album Draft has just concluded. Four more rounds to go. For the latest 'desert island album' picks, click here.
For the Run-Sew-Read pick, click here, and enjoy the sample below.
Follow run | sew | read on WordPress.com
Alexa tips
The general stuff
A very special quilt pattern turns 89 today.
If you plant it they will come (Monarch Butterflies)
I click on the numbered list every time. And now there's a song about it.
Apple picking season is here!
Today, 59 years after their training, one of the 'Mercury 13' astronaut-trained women will finally be on a space flight.
National Sewing Machine Day is today (June 13)
A Theater for Dreamers, by Polly Samson
Homemade Sauerkraut
The Alexa series — One room; Two Alexa devices
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Review Fix chats with singer and voice actor Zach Callison, who discusses his up and coming singing career and role as the main character on the hit show, Steven Universe.
Review Fix: How did you get involved in voice acting?
Zach Callison: Kind of by accident, really…I was a theater actor first, then a film/TV actor starting from age 9. Eventually, after I had moved to LA, I started getting auditions for animation and got pretty good responses; eventually I booked a regular part on the long-running radio Adventures in Odyssey. From the get-go I was working with voice actors like Will Ryan, Jim Cummings and Jess Harnell; getting to watch them do their thing at eleven years old was a clinic in the craft. That show was a part of my life for five years, and paved the way for everything else I've done so far in VO.
Review Fix: How do you prepare for your roles?
Callison: It varies quite a bit between on camera and voiceover roles. These days I do the bulk of my voice acting from my home studio…brew up some tea, light some candles, and go crazy behind the mic for a couple hours to knock out auditions. It's a very solitary process; even when I'm asking for notes it's always through email. Voice acting, unless you get the chance to do ensemble records, is a very isolated trade.
On camera auditions, on the other hand, are much more collaborative. They almost always require a second human to read the scene with for proper rehearsal and discussion. I'm always seeking counsel from coaches, friends, and my assistant whether I'm taping the audition at home or I'm preparing to read for casting.
Once the role is booked, it's a matter of re-reviewing everything and getting back into the mindset I had built for the character when I first auditioned. This part can be deceivingly difficult; I'm always trying to put newly-finished auditions out of my mind as soon as possible so I can keep my sanity and work on the next thing. Getting back into that space is super important before the day of shooting comes.
Review Fix: Any special tricks to keep your voice in shape?
Callison: Singing warmups, hot ginger tea with lemon and manuka honey, and constant practice for stamina. Sleep is important too, but I slack on that sometimes.
Review Fix: What is it like to be a part of Steven Universe?
Callison: Fulfilling, engaging, surreal. On the creative side, it's an incredibly fulfilling show to work on as an artist. I'm surrounded by a total all-star team on both the cast and crew, and that pushes me to work as hard as possible from a craft perspective to do their work justice.
Being Steven has also opened my mind up to so many possibilities…it was a gateway to doing far more outlandish character voices, it got me back into singing full time and eventually working on my own music again, and it has given me a whole host of new career opportunities that I would never have had otherwise.
Finally, it's been absolutely surreal to witness the fan response. Our fandom community is so loyal and dedicated; and they really seem to embody the positive values that the show promotes. They're also not just supportive of the show and our characters, but us as creators in the cast and the crew…whether we're working on Steven Universe or something else.
Review Fix: Did you think the show was going to take off the way it did?
Callison: Not at all. I was stoked because it was my biggest role to date, and because the show had cool designs and ideas, but I had no idea the depths that the narrative and the message of the show would dive to until Rebecca started sharing her future plans with us in the cast. Once the show had ramped up and revealed how rich the world and the characters are, the "take-off" was sudden and impossible not to notice. It still feels like a blur; everything was so quick and unexpected that it took years to sink in.
Review Fix: Any advice to people who want to become a voice actor?
Callison: Just start. I have so many people approach me and ask for advice, and there's plenty to give in regards to singing and vocal training, websites and resources as well as good old performance coaching, but the most common thing I see in aspiring actors is the reluctance to just go. The world really is your stage; just because you're performing for your friends, your dog or your local theater doesn't make you any less of an artist than the biggest stars, it just means you're at an earlier stage in the journey. So many people who ask the question are daunted by the enormity of the task ahead of them, when really, it only gets easier the longer you do it.
Review Fix: How do you have the time for your music career?
Callison: The time was always there, but I used to spend more of it on hobbies and fun stuff; once my favorite hobby turned into a career, I could justify spending even more time on it. I still have to force myself to take time off to rest now, but it's a little easier managing two careers when they're both something I love to do.
Review Fix: How do the two intertwine?
Callison: They've always been symbiotic; singing and music got me into acting, and now I've come full circle to make music again as a result of the opportunities my acting career. My day-to-day involves both of them nearly equally these days, and that's a dream come true. Whenever one becomes overwhelming, or burns me out, I shift gears to the other until it passes.
Callison: A new single, new video content, the EP dropping later this year, and new Steven Universe this spring!
Review Fix: Anything you'd like to add?
Callison: Thanks to the fans for supporting me not only as Steven, but as Zach. To the new fans, thank you; let's build something awesome together these next few years!


text:
Research ArticleAPPLIED SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING
Fast-moving soft electronic fish
Tiefeng Li1,2,*,†,
Guorui Li1,*,
Yiming Liang1,
Tingyu Cheng2,
Jing Dai2,
Xuxu Yang1,
Bangyuan Liu2,
Zedong Zeng2,
Zhilong Huang1,2,†,
Yingwu Luo2,3,
Tao Xie3 and
Wei Yang1
1Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
2Key Laboratory of Soft Machines and Smart Devices of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
3State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
↵†Corresponding author. Email: litiefeng{at}zju.edu.cn (T.L.); zlhuang{at}zju.edu.cn (Z.H.)
↵* These authors contributed equally to this work.
Science Advances 05 Apr 2017:
Vol. 3, no. 4, e1602045
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1602045
Tiefeng Li
Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.Key Laboratory of Soft Machines and Smart Devices of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
For correspondence: litiefeng@zju.edu.cn zlhuang@zju.edu.cn
Guorui Li
Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
Yiming Liang
Tingyu Cheng
Key Laboratory of Soft Machines and Smart Devices of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
ORCID record for Tingyu Cheng
Jing Dai
Xuxu Yang
Bangyuan Liu
Zedong Zeng
Zhilong Huang
Yingwu Luo
Key Laboratory of Soft Machines and Smart Devices of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
ORCID record for Yingwu Luo
Tao Xie
State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
Wei Yang
Soft robots driven by stimuli-responsive materials have unique advantages over conventional rigid robots, especially in their high adaptability for field exploration and seamless interaction with humans. The grand challenge lies in achieving self-powered soft robots with high mobility, environmental tolerance, and long endurance. We are able to advance a soft electronic fish with a fully integrated onboard system for power and remote control. Without any motor, the fish is driven solely by a soft electroactive structure made of dielectric elastomer and ionically conductive hydrogel. The electronic fish can swim at a speed of 6.4 cm/s (0.69 body length per second), which is much faster than previously reported untethered soft robotic fish driven by soft responsive materials. The fish shows consistent performance in a wide temperature range and permits stealth sailing due to its nearly transparent nature. Furthermore, the fish is robust, as it uses the surrounding water as the electric ground and can operate for 3 hours with one single charge. The design principle can be potentially extended to a variety of flexible devices and soft robots.
soft robot
dielectric elastomer
aquatic robot
Conventional robots consisting of rigid components play essential roles in the modern time because of their high output force, precision, and controllability. However, these "hard" machines typically present limited adaptability. With the future hinging increasingly on their fusion with the complex operating environments, robots that are soft and deformable have become a necessity (1–6). Soft-bodied animals become important inspiration for designing soft robots that are geometrically adaptable and resilient to environments (7–11), safe to humans (6, 12, 13), and biopowered (14, 15). In particular, mimicking the exceptional agility of insects (16, 17), fish (18), octopuses (19, 20), and snakes (21) has been a longtime pursuit. This task remains challenging given the difficulty in controlling high-performance soft actuators, especially when the device integration is taken into account.
Soft robots can be powered by either rigid electric motors (pumps) or stimuli-responsive soft actuators (1). We herein define them as soft motor-based robots and soft actuator-based robots (SARs). The former takes full advantages of the high energy density and efficiency of the motors. However, the intrinsic limitation of the motors prohibits their integration in a flexible, lightweight, and compact fashion, which is extremely desirable for soft robots. Typical stimuli-responsive actuators include ionic polymer metal composites (IPMCs) (21, 22), dielectric elastomers (DEs) (23–26), shape memory alloys (SMAs) (10), responsive hydrogels (27, 28), pneumatic structures (13), chemical reaction–inflated fluidic networks (20), and living cells (14, 15). Although their power and precision are not comparable to motors, stimuli-responsive actuators offer unique advantages in high deformability and adaptability because of their excellent compliance. The central issue is to create a highly compact system combining actuation, power, and control while maintaining the softness of the entire robot (1, 4, 20). At present, simultaneous achievements of untethered powering and high speed are challenging for SARs. Among the natural inspirations for designing soft robots, aquatic creatures stand out because of their exceptional large fraction of soft body and high agility (20, 21, 29–44). The interest to create aquatic robots is further fueled by the mounting importance of ocean missions. However, aquatic robots present additional challenges in that high adaptability is required for operating in the complex ocean environments. Previous attempts to create aquatic SARs showed promise in their geometrically adaptability yet encountered difficulty in achieving high speed. The reported aquatic SARs can reach speeds up to 0.35 body length per second driven by SMAs (32) and 0.25 body length per second driven by IPMCs (35).
DEs stand out among various soft actuators for their exceptionally fast response and large actuation (26, 45–50). However, the requirements for high voltages and rigid support frames prohibit their use in designing untethered SARs. In particular, achieving high-voltage insulation for a highly compact aqueous SAR appears to be an insurmountable obstacle. Here, we designed a manta ray–inspired DE-driven soft electronic fish. Contrary to the common belief that the entire DE assembly should be fully insulated, our design uses the surrounding open water as the electrode, taking full advantages of its weak yet sufficient electric conductivity. We find that water can function as the electric ground, thus resolving the need for further insulation. In addition, we use a highly compact electronic system for both remote control and the voltage boosting (3.7 V from a small battery to 10 kV). The overall design is compact and robust, achieving a swimming speed of 0.69 body length per second, about twice as fast as previously reported untethered aqueous SARs (32).
Inspired by the structure and propulsion mechanism of flapping pectoral fins, we design the electronic fish with DE membranes (3M VHB) as the muscle, silicone thin film as the fin, and a silicone frame as the elastomeric body. The detailed fabrication process is shown in Fig. 1. The muscle laminate consists of a thin hydrogel film as one electrode encapsulated between the two prestretched DE membranes, along with a small piece of tin foil as the electric feed line. The muscle and fin laminates (Fig. 1, A and B) are stacked together (Fig. 1C), with acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) frames as the mold. The curing of the silicone precursor in the mold forms the body (Fig. 1D) that bonds the muscle and fin together. Upon removing the ABS mold, the prestretched muscle shrinks. Constrained by the silicon body on one side, the muscle and body assembly bends into a buckled shape with a characteristic curvature (Fig. 1E). A silicone steering tail (Fig. 1F) with an embedded electromagnet is installed, which completes the fabrication of the fish. This design allows us to first connect the electronic fish with wired power to evaluate its performance, and then integrate the onboard system for power and remote control. More details of the fabrication and assembly can be found in figs. S1 to S5. All components of the electric fish are soft and transparent, except the tiny electromagnets and the leading edges of the fins. The fabrication process is amendable to use three-dimensional (3D) printing to produce certain components of the soft electronic fish. Preliminary attempts are described in fig. S6.
Fig. 1 Fabrication of electro-ionic fish.
(A) Muscle laminate fabrication: A thin hydrogel film electrode was sandwiched between two biaxially prestretched (3 × 3) DE membranes (VHB membrane; initial thickness, 1.5 mm); the assembly was then fixed within ABS frames. (B) Fin fabrication: Two silicone films (thickness, 0.5 mm) and two rigid "L"-shaped acrylic frames (thickness, 1 mm) were glued together to form two pectoral fins, which were placed between two ABS frames. (C) The fin and muscle laminates were stacked together. The white and brown dashed lines indicate the locations of encapsulated hydrogel and feed line by DE membranes. (D) Liquid silicone precursor was poured into the mold (ABS frames) to fabricate the soft body. (E) The soft body bends after demolding. (F) Installation of the silicone tail and electromagnets.
Figure 2 shows the actuation mechanism of the electronic fish. Whereas the encapsulated hydrogel serves as an ionically conductive electrode (50), an important aspect of the design is to use the surrounding tap water as the other electrode. Despite the low electrical conductivity of the tap water (~50 mS/m), it is sufficient to serve as an effective electrode, as will be evidenced later in the context. The use of open water as the electrode is counterintuitive because the high voltage required to actuate DEs often raises safety concerns even in a dry and isolated environment. Contrary to such a conception, water serves an additional role as an electric ground, which improves the system robustness. Without applying a voltage, the muscle and the body maintain an equilibrium bending state (rest state) (Fig. 2A). When a voltage is applied (Fig. 2B), positive and negative charges accumulate on both sides of the DE, inducing Maxwell stress (48) that deforms the DE membranes. The net effect is a reduction on the body curvature, corresponding to the actuated state. The structural deformations with and without voltage are simulated by a finite element analysis (FEA) (details in the Supplementary Materials). Figure 2 (C to F) illustrates the bending angles corresponding to the rest and the actuated states, respectively. When a cyclic voltage is applied, the fins flap and the electronic fish can operate like a manta ray that generates thrust through periodic flapping pectorals.
Fig. 2 Operation mechanism of electro-ionic fish.
Front view of the actuating mechanisms. (A) In water, the soft body (silicone body) and the muscle laminates (two DE membranes and one hydrogel film) are deformed by the shrinking of the prestretched DE membranes with a bending curvature. (B) When a high voltage (HV) is applied to the muscle laminates, the electric field drives the ions in both the surrounding water and the hydrogel. Positive and negative charges accumulate on both sides of the DE membranes, inducing Maxwell stress and relaxing the DE membranes. The bending of the electro-ionic fish decreases. The surrounding water functions as the electric ground. (C) Front view (FEA) of the robotic fish in the rest state with a large bending angle θ1. (D) Front view (FEA) for the actuated state of the robotic fish with a small bending angle θ2. (E) Tilted view of FEA simulation for the rest state of the robotic fish. (F) Tilted view of FEA simulation for the actuated state of the robotic fish. Red dashed curves indicate the variation of bending. (G) Snapshot (similar tilted view) of a swimming manta ray. The body and fins of the manta ray buckle down with a large bending angle and (H) a small bending angle.
The goal of this study is to achieve an untethered electronic fish with onboard power and control. As a first step, we perform a series of experiments to evaluate its performance under wired power. Here, we focus on how the fish swims at the surface of the water by attaching buoys to the fish (details can be found in fig. S5). Accordingly, the wired fish (dyed in green for contrast) is recorded with live snapshots (Fig. 3), in the act of swimming under a square wave voltage (8 kV and 5 Hz), with the corresponding video in movie S1. Consistent with the simulation results, the fish body deforms between the actuated and the rest states, resulting in a change of bending angles from 16.7° to 26.9° (Fig. 3A), that is, flapping. This flapping motion is similar to that of a manta ray (a detailed comparison can be found in section S3). We emphasize that this simple flapping is not sufficient for the forward motion. In our design, the rigid L-shaped leading edges of the fins are critical. The up-and-down flaps of rigid edges lead to undulatory motions of the soft silicone membrane (Fig. 3B and movie S2), resulting in the forward propulsion. Accordingly, the simple in-plane DE actuation is transformed into the necessary complex motions, similar to the working principle of motor transmission systems for cars, albeit in a compact and soft form. The tail, which remains in the middle position throughout the operation, ensures forward motion without turning (Fig. 3C).
Fig. 3 Live snapshots of the swimming fish with wired power.
t = 0 is defined as the beginning of the cycle with the fin in the actuated state, and T represents the time required for one full flapping cycle. (A) Bending variations of the soft body and fins (front views). (B) Forward motion of the fish and undulatory motion of the fins (side views; the white dashed lines highlight the fin edges). (C) The top views correspond to (B).
With the wired power, an input AC voltage signal is amplified, which then actuates the fish and generates the thrust (Fig. 4A). The swimming speed is determined by the amplitude and frequency of the applied voltage. At any given amplitude, the corresponding speed-frequency curve shows multiple peaks (Fig. 4B). This nonmonotonic correlation is the result of the complex variation of the thrust and the hydrodynamic drag at different frequencies. Qualitatively, the thrust can be treated as the product of the frequency and the flapping amplitude (51). Even if the voltage amplitude is fixed, the flapping amplitude varies with the frequency due to the resonant behavior of the fish body and the nonlinear hydrodynamic drag. The swimming speed increases with the voltage amplitude, reaching the highest value of 13.5 cm/s at 10 kV and 5 Hz. With the fish body length of 9.3 cm, such a speed corresponds to 1.45 body length per second, much higher than previously reported values (<0.8 body length per second) for tethered swimming SARs (51). Besides swimming in a straight line, steering the tail through the electromagnets allows the fish to make turns. We measure the turning radii at various applied voltages and frequencies with the tail at full rudder, and the results are presented in table S1. Overall, the minimum turning radius achieved is 8.5 cm at 7 kV and 8 Hz, illustrating its high agility.
Fig. 4 Quantitative performance evaluation via wired power.
(A) Voltage signal from the signal generator is amplified through a high-voltage amplifier and fed to the soft robotic fish. (B) The speed of robotic fish demonstrates a double peak distribution and reaches a maximum of 13.5 cm/s.
We develop a method to estimate the power and power efficiency of the electronic fish. When it swims at a constant speed v, the thrust force FT equals the drag force FD. The input electrical power Pinput for DE actuation is partly converted into the mechanical power Poutput to maintain the constant speed. Without considering the loss in the voltage amplifier and circuits, Pinput can be estimated as the product between the electrical energy difference and the operating frequency f
(1)Cact and Crest are the capacitances of the DE in the actuated and rest states. Ф is the amplitude of the applied voltage. Poutput can be calculated as
The power efficiency η at a constant swimming speed can be expressed as
All variables and parameters in Eqs. 1 to 3 can be measured experimentally, thus allowing the calculations of power and power efficiency under different operating conditions (see fig. S7 and table S2). For the highest speed (13.5 cm/s) achieved at 10 kV and 5 Hz, the corresponding input power and power efficiency are 0.024 W and 10.25%, respectively. As a reference, a rainbow trout (body length of about 25 cm) has an input power of 0.03 W at a speed of 10 cm/s (52). Thus, both the power and the speed of our electronic fish are comparable to those of the real fish of similar size.
We next address a major challenge for SARs, that is, achieving onboard power and control while maintaining a considerable portion of its performance. We first engineer a lightweight and compact system integrating a high-voltage amplifier, a lithium-ion battery, and infrared (IR) remote control circuits (more details can be found in section S6). The system compactness allows the accommodation within the fish. At a first glance, the rigidity of most components in this system is a drawback. To overcome this, the rigid components are sequentially lined up and encapsulated in silicone rubber. The entire package is defined as the electronic pod (Epod), which is glued under the fish body (Fig. 5A). This design does not compromise the necessary softness in the lateral direction. Its added rigidity in the longitudinal direction consequently restrains the undesirable bending in that direction and enhances the robustness of the flapping motions. Despite the additional drag force and relative low power with the Epod, the untethered fish can reach a maximum forward speed of 6.4 cm/s (9.5 kV and 5 Hz), which is roughly half of the tethered version (13.5 cm/s). The speed reduction is mainly caused by a more than doubled increased total weight (from 42.5 to 90.3 g), as well as the additional drag from the Epod (see the Supplementary Materials for detailed discussions). The soft electronic fish can swim and turn under remote control (Fig. 5B). With one single battery charge (3.7 V, 450 mAh), the fish can continuously swim for 3 hours and 15 min at a speed of 1.1 cm/s. In addition, it can make sharp turns under remote IR control while carrying a video camera (Fig. 6D and movie S3). A live video showing the swimming is provided as movie S4, and detailed discussions on the turning performance and the swimming endurance are provided in the Supplementary Materials.
Fig. 5 Performance of the untethered fish.
(A) Tilted view of the fish showing the onboard system for power and remote control. (B) Live snapshots of the swimming of the robotic fish under remote control (voltage of 8 kV and 5 Hz).
Fig. 6 The thermal tolerance and visual disguise of the fish.
The soft robotic fish can swim in a wide range of water temperatures from (A) 0.4°C to (B) 74.2°C. The stealth sailing of the fish with (C) wired power and (D) onboard power.
Other notable characteristics of the electronic fish include its excellent environmental adaptability and disguising performance. It can swim well in both cold (0.4°C) and hot (74.2°C) water (Fig. 6, A and B, and movie S5) without any delicate thermal insulation. This is a particular advantage over robots driven by thermally responsive actuators, such as SMAs and temperature-responsive hydrogels (27–29). In addition, because of the transparency of the major components (movie S6), the fish can blend into various environmental backgrounds, showing high disguising performance (Fig. 6, C and D).
In summary, we designed a soft electronic fish with DE as the actuator and encapsulated hydrogel and surrounding water as the highly robust electrodes. Counterintuitively, we showed that the high voltage required for actuating the DE is compatible with the aqueous operating environment. The soft body is designed to function as the transmission that converts the simple in-plane DE actuation into the complex motions necessary for propulsion. Overall, the excellent performance of the DE, when combined with integrated compact electronics for power and remote control, results in exceptional mobility for an untethered electronic fish with a swimming speed of 0.69 body length per second. In addition to the wireless mobility, the electronic fish has other notable attributes, including transparency, long endurance, and temperature tolerance. All these performance features are highly desirable for its operation in harsh environments. Overall, the engineering principle behind our robot design can be potentially useful in guiding device designs for demanding applications such as flexible devices and soft robots.
The soft fish body was made of commercial silicone elastomer (SYLGARD 184, heat-cured). The materials used for fabricating hydrogel electrodes are all commercial grades: acrylamide (Sigma-Aldrich), N,N′-methylenebis (acrylamide) (BIS; Sigma-Aldrich), ammonium persulfate (APS; Sigma-Aldrich), N,N,N′,N′-tetramethylethylenediamine (TEMED; Sigma-Aldrich), and lithium chloride (LiCl). For making the hydrogel, acrylamide (2 g) and LiCl (0.1 g) were dissolved in 10 ml of deionized water, and BIS (0.001 g) and APS (0.02 g) were subsequently added into the solution. Next, 20 μl of TEMED was added, and the final solution was poured into a mold and cured for 30 min with ultraviolet light to form the conductive hydrogel membrane. The DE membranes (initial thickness, 1.5 mm) consist of two DE membranes stacked together (3M VHB 4910 and 4905 membranes). Silicone adhesive glue (Dow Corning 734) was used for the sealing and gluing. More details of the fabrication and assembly can be found in figs. S1 to S5.
Performance characterization
When the fish was powered by wired voltage source, a signal generator (Agilent 33220A) and a voltage amplifier (Trek 610E) were combined to generate the high voltage (Fig. 4A). The three-view videos (Fig. 3, A to C) were recorded by high-definition cameras. The thrust of the fish was measured by a force sensor connected behind the fish and analyzed using a data acquisition software (M400). More details on the thrust measurement are provided in the Supplementary Materials.
Onboard system for power and remote control
A diagram of the compact high oscillating voltage generator is shown in fig. S8. The experimental voltage is 100 times of the simulated voltage signal shown in fig. S8B. The system is powered by a low-voltage battery (3.7 V) with flyback topology to achieve small size, high voltage, and isolation. The system is controlled by an eight-pin microcontroller to tune the voltage frequency and amplitude with IR remote control. The high-voltage amplitude is adjusted by pulse width modulation duty cycle. The oscillating frequency is tuned through an on-off control of an S1 gate driver. The high-voltage circuits consist of the discharge circuits and the rail-to-rail amplifiers, with the latter capable of raising the voltage to a high level and dropping it to zero.
FEA simulation
The results presented in Fig. 2 (C to F) and fig. S9 were calculated using Abaqus 6.13. A material model from a previous study (25) was embedded into the software with the user-defined subroutine UMAT. Hybrid, reduced integration elements (C3D8RH) were used in the simulation.
Supplementary material for this article is available at http://advances.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/3/4/e1602045/DC1
section S1. Prestretching of DE membranes
section S2. Hydrogel and muscle laminate
section S3. The fin laminate, soft body, and steering tail
section S4. Preliminary attempt to fabricate a soft fish by 3D printing
section S5. Measurements of speed, turning radius, and thrust
section S6. The onboard power and control system (Epod)
section S7. Von Mises stress contours in FEA simulation
section S8. Water conductivity
section S9. Viscous effect of the DE membranes
fig. S1. The prestretch of the DE membrane.
fig. S2. Fabrication of the muscle laminate.
fig. S3. Fabrication of the fin laminate.
fig. S4. Fabrication of the soft body and steering tail.
fig. S5. Buoys and electromagnetic steering tail.
fig. S6. Soft fish by 3D printing.
fig. S7. Von Measurement of the speed and turning radius.
fig. S8. The Epod.
fig. S9. Von Mises stress distribution by FEA.
table S1. Speed and turning radius.
table S2. Capacitance, thrust, power, and efficiency.
table S3. Dimensions and weight of the soft robot fish.
movie S1. The swimming of the tethered powered fish.
movie S2. The flapping and undulatory motions of the fins of an anchored wired fish at various frequencies (1, 3, and 4 Hz).
movie S3. The swimming and turning of an untethered fish with and without a payload (a video camera).
movie S4. Video record captured by an onboard camera on a swimming fish.
movie S5. The swimming of a transparent tethered fish in cold (0.4°C) and hot (74.2°C) water.
movie S6. The swimming of a transparent tethered fish and partially 3D-printed fish.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
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Acknowledgments: Funding: This work was supported by the following programs: National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 11572280, 11302190, 11321202, 11432012, U1613202, 21636008, and 11532011), China Association for Science and Technology (Young Elite Scientist Sponsorship Program), and the Chinese central government's Recruitment Program of Global Experts. Author contributions: T.L., Z.H., T.X., and W.Y. conceived the concept and wrote the manuscript. G.L., Y.L., T.C., J.D., X.Y., B.L., and Z.Z. carried out the experiments. T.L. and G.L. conducted the mechanical analysis. Y.L. and T.X. guided the material fabrication. T.L., Z.H., T.X., Y.L., and W.Y. directed the project. All authors analyzed and interpreted the data. Competing interests: T.L. is applying for a patent related to the described work (CN 205059975 U, 3/2/2016). W.Y. is the director of the Academic Board of the Key Laboratory of Soft Machines and Smart Devices of Zhejiang Province, is a professor at the Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China), and is the president of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The other authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. Additional data related to this paper may be requested from the authors.
Copyright © 2017, The Authors
You are going to email the following Fast-moving soft electronic fish
By Tiefeng Li, Guorui Li, Yiming Liang, Tingyu Cheng, Jing Dai, Xuxu Yang, Bangyuan Liu, Zedong Zeng, Zhilong Huang, Yingwu Luo, Tao Xie, Wei Yang
Science Advances 05 Apr 2017 : e1602045
A soft robotic fish can quickly swim and turn with a fully integrated onboard system for power and remote control.


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These regulations, 301 CMR 10.00, became effective as of February 20, 1998.


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