My Latest Legos Creation: Harry Potter and Diagon Alley

A week ago my cousin Michael came over and he and I made the most fascinating Legos that was ever seen. We made Diagon Alley, from the Harry Potter books. It took me three days to make these; one for each building. Diagon Alley is a shopping area for wizards. Here's a picture of the completed Diagon Alley:

To the left you can see the store, Borgin and Burkes. This is a shop only for bad wizards. They sell shrunken heads, skeletons, and dark magic books. The Death Eaters, like Lucius Malfoy and Draco Malfoy shopped here. Here's a close-up of this store:

It took me about 50 minutes to put this store together. It was really easy to build Borgin and Burkes.
Here's a picture of the inside of Borgin and Burkes:

To the lower, left side, you can see the Vanishing Cabinet. The Death Eaters used this cabinet for teleportation. It took them to Hogwarts Castle. This set also came with the vanishing cabinet and the sorcerer's stone.

In this picture you can see all the supplies you would need for good wizadry, like cauldrons and wizarding hats.

Ollivander's is a store for supplies for good wizards. They sell wands and pets (owls, rats, cats, toads).
This is the outside of Ollivander's:

The most difficult building I built was the bank called Gringotts. There were a lot of pieces for this building that were hard to find and put together. This bank contains wizarding money called galleons and the special item called "the sorcerer's stone."

Here are pictures of galleons and the sorcerer's stone:

Overall I thought this might all be a bit too complicated to make, but in the end it wasn't. I'm proud of my work and feel it was really good.

Stay tuned for my next blog post where I'm going to show you one of my latest creations called the "Clone Turbo-tank!"

How to Train Your Dragons

Today, I read the book, How to Train your Dragon, adapted by Devan Aptekar. This reminded me of the movie version that I saw last year with my Dad, a week after it opened. The story is about a teenage boy named Hiccup, who wanted to fight dragons like the other Vikings, but he was different. He was different because he made complicated weapons like the Mangler. Both versions take place on the island of Berk. In the book, there are more than the five dragons that we see in the movie, but the movie was better because it went back in time to show what happened in Berk. I liked the action in the movie, especially because it was in 3D. I recommend people to see the movie.

Here's the trailer for the movie:

How to Train Your Dragon Trailer

Good news! The sequel will be coming out in 2013!

Volcanic Eruption

Today I conducted an experiment using vinegar, baking soda, and red food coloring. I was trying to make a real volcano. To make it look like real lava, I used the baking soda and red dye together.

That's me above! I was wearing my shirt to cover my mouth and nose so I won't smell that odor (a.k.a. the vinegar smell). I wore the gloves so I wouldn't get any of the vinegar and baking soda on me.

First, I put the baking soda in the volcano. Then I used a funnel to put the dyed red vinegar into the volcano. Check it out below:

Suddenly, the volcano erupted!!!

I kept adding more baking soda and vinegar so it could sizzle more.

It was a bit smelly, but it took a lot of guts to put it in. Overall, it was a really good experiment and a bit insane.

And, by the way, the "guts" thing is just an expression. I didn't put my actual guts into it, because that would be really disgusting and weird.

Introduction

Hi, I'm Steven Z. and I many legos some extraordinary science experiments. Welcome to my blog! I hope you enjoy my blog!