Thanks Joel's Grandpa!

[Wineaux]

Winner, winner! Chicken dinner!

I just returned home from my son's school where they had allowed me to setup a CPS table at the front entrance to talk to parents about car seats and child passenger safety as they dropped their kids off for the first day of school. The school had a Boo-hoo/Yahoo Breakfast for the parents and kids, so we had a steady stream of parents and grandparents all morning long.

Your video helped me to convince 4 parents of children aged 16-24 months to turn their children BACK to RF'ing! Woo-hoo! I also got numerous parents to keep their kids in a 5-point harness instead of moving them to boosters, and got a number of parents to either put their kids back in boosters, or keep them there for longer. Hooray for Twinkie Physics! Not only did they learn something, but I had a nice snack too...

Overall it was a fantastic event, I kept a lot of kids safe, and even made some of them safer. The school really liked what I did, and they want me to come back again more often. It was a good morning for CPS and made this CPST very happy indeed.

 

[BookMama]

Wow, sounds like a very successful event. Great job, Wineaux! :thumbsup:

 

[MomToEliEm]

Great job!

 

[Judi]

Great job! So, did you have to video playing on a loop? How did you do it? I do tables a lot, doing another in September but haven't incorporated video yet, but want to.

 

[swtgi1982]

Hey would you mind shring what you used to present the info. I got clearance to do an info event at my DD Preschool / Gradeschool (Preschool - 8th grade) Just looking for advice on what you used to help fill in some gaps on mine. Thanks!

 

[Nisha]

Awesome job!!!!!!!!

 

[Wineaux]

I just brought my netbook, hooked into their Internet connection, fired up my web browser, and loaded up all of the Youtube videos I had bookmarked into separate browser windows. I had an external monitor hooked up to the netbook and had it set to show what I was viewing on both my netbook's LCD, and the external monitor. After that, all I did was switch browser tabs to show a different video.

Once I had the video I wanted, I'd just select "full screen" mode in Youtube and let it play. If you're not going to have Internet access, then you could just download the videos you want to your computer, and then pretty much do the same thing I was doing. There are numerous browser extensions for Firefox that will allow you to download content from Flash video players like Youtube.

 

[Judi]

Yeah, DH is working on loading the videos to my laptop. So, I just need another monitor! I can handle that. I could probably use DH's second monitor from the desktop.

 

[monstah]

Sounds like an awesome morning!!

You sir, are the man.

 

[The Bjorns]

Seriously great job!!!

 

[kate4478]

Good Job Wineaux! :thumbsup: BTW, how is that adorable little boy in your avatar?

 

[Wineaux]

It was just an old 15" LCD monitor we had lying around the house. You can find used 15-17" LCD monitors on Craigslist for $25-50 easily.

 

[Wineaux]

Good Job Wineaux! :thumbsup: BTW, how is that adorable little boy in your avatar?

You mean my two year old little chatterbox? He's doing great! He's still as cute and good natured as ever, albeit he's going through the "everything is mine" stage right now...
/sigh

 

[AmandaR]

That's great!!

 

[Mommy0608]

That's great! :thumbsup:

 

[CTPDMom]

Hooray for Twinkie Physics! Not only did they learn something, but I had a nice snack too...

Great job Wineaux! :thumbsup:

But what exactly did you do with the Twinkies??

 

[Judi]

Twinkies and the smaller skeleton? If so, I need to get mine out. If you ever find twinkies with red goo inside, let me know!

 

[jodibug]

I took my laptop with all the video's loaded to my last seat check (8/5). It went over really well. Only downside is that I had to set it inside parents cars so that they could see the screen.

My DH was talking about buying me a TV screen to hook up to it so I could just play them on a loop and people would be able to see them outdoors.

The RF'ing vs FF'ing crash test video that I showed convinced one parent to turn her son back around, and convinced three more who had 11-12 mo. olds to keep them RF'ing.

I think the laptop and crash test video's was a GREAT addition to the seat check and I am hoping to be able to keep using it.

I have a check this Saturday, but it is 9-2 and my battery won't last five hours. I plan to take a 100 ft extension cord but I'm not sure if I will be able to have it plugged in or not. Also, unless we have someone at the table with it all the time, I don't want to leave it out. I would hate for it to walk away, KWIM.

I was thinking about having DH build a box to put it in though, a sun shield of sorts to put over it.

 

[Wineaux]

Great job Wineaux! :thumbsup:

But what exactly did you do with the Twinkies??

You do Twinkie Physics to demonstrate seatbelt syndrome. Make an OK sign with your thumb and forefinger. Now slide the Twinkie into the "O" shape you made. The webbing between your thumb and finger is the child's spine. Your finger and thumb is the seatbelt. Now just contract the "O" and watch all the filling squish out. That's the child's internal organs being compacted by the seatbelt into their spinal column. And yes... The strawberry filled Twinkies are the best for this if you can find them! It's really visual, and parents can quickly grasp the kind of damage that the seatbelt can do if not positioned correctly on the hips. It WILL convince some parents to either put their kids back into BPB's, or to keep them there longer. After they leave, you get to eat the experiment.

 

[Judi]

I was give a skeleton that is the perfect size, fits a twinkie perfectly.