13 Amazing Costume Ideas for Halloween! by Stella Roop, Sarah Tate, and Aubrey Olson

Holy Guacamole

For this amazing costume you will need to get a green or white shirt/dress and some felt (dark green, lime green, and a brown). After this step, you’ll want to cut out a dark green avocado shaped piece of felt, then cut out a smaller lime green piece, then cut out a small brown circle as the ‘pit’ of the avocado, then sew/hot glue the felt pieces together (I would recommend looking up an avocado picture as a reference). Then sew on as many avocados as you would like to the green/white shirt/dress! Pair the costume with an angel halo and wings that you can find at any party store! And there you have a Holy Guacamole costume!

Jellybean Bag.

For this sweet costume you will need to get a CLEAR trash bag and cut holes for your arms and legs (make sure that it is not loose but not too tight either). Next, tape jelly belly logo to the inside of the bag facing out using clear tape. Then get a pack of small colorful balloons and fill the bag up with them. Finally tie up the bag with a ribbon. DO NOT tie it tight just tight enough that it will not fall down. Enjoy your jellybean bag costume!

Stick Man

All you need for this costume is white pants, white jacket, any color electric tape, sharpie, string, and a plate! So you want to put the tape on to where a stick mans legs and arms would be, and then take a plate and a sharpie and draw a smiley face on it. After that you would put to holes through the plate so you can thread string and tie the string so it fits on your head. Then cut out eye holes and you’re done! The good thing about this costume is that you can take off the tape when you are done so you can wear the jacket and pants after Halloween!

Pig in a Blanket

All you need for this is a blanket,cardboard, safety pins, and some pink paint or markers. First you want to cut out a circle from cardboard, Then you want to paint/color the nose pink but leave 2 holes for the nostrils  After that tape it or string it to your nose. You can buy the ears at a party store or get them online for a couple of dollars, same with the nose but it is completely optional. After all of that you want to rap a blanket (preferably pink or around that color) around you and pin it up. This is optional but pare it with black leggings. Enjoy your time trick or treating with this easy halloween costume!!

Jack in the box

All you need for this costume is a box, print out a big name tag, string (optional). After that you will want to write Jack where you’re supposed to write name and then cut leg holes in the box and you’re set, Jack.   

Hawaiian Punch

For this tropical costume, you will need a tropical shirt, swim trunks/tropical pants, and boxing gloves. You could also get a lei and straw hat and that’s it! Just put it all on and enjoy!

Air Dancer

For this costume you’ll need a t-shirt and pants of the same color, headband and ribbon of the same color and face paint of the same color. Start by putting on your shirts and pants. Then tie your matching ribbon to your matching headband and leave a little string hanging. Then face paint your face the matching color. Smile big. Everyone is going to love your costume.

Candy Rapper

For this awesome costume you will need 15-30 pieces of candy, a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and strong glue. You can also get a cool hat and sunglasses. This costume is pretty straight forward, first you need to eat the candy but save the wrappers, then glue the wrappers on to the sweatshirt and sweatpants and you’re done. And if you want to go all out, get a “gold” chain and enjoy!

Deviled Egg

For this dreadful Deviled Egg you’ll need a white t-shirt, yellow paper, and devil horns. Just cut out a big oval from the yellow paper and tape it or iron it to your shirt. You can get the devil horns at any party store. You can also get a tail at a store. Then put on the shirt and the devil horns on and you are set!

French Toast

For this delicious costume you’ll need a black and white striped shirt, brown and yellow paper, beret, and a string is optional. First cut the yellow paper to look like butter. Then cut the brown paper to look like bread. Glue the butter to the bread then hole punch the bread at the top. After that you should Tie the string through the holes. Put the string around your neck like a necklace. Then put on the beret and you’re set.

Bee-yonce

For this buzzing costume you’ll need a black and yellow striped shirt, antennas, wings, and gold paper. First cut out the gold paper to make them say the letters y-o-n-c-e. Iron them or tape them to your shirt. Then put on your shirt, wings and antennas and your Bee-yonce.

Identity Thief

All you’ll need for this costume is a lot of nametags and a black shirt. Write a bunch of names on the nametags and then stick them all over your shirt. To make this costume a little more mysterious you can get a detective’s coat and then put the names in the inside of your coat so when you open it you can see all of the identities you stole.

Holy Cow

All you need for this costume is a white shirt/ dress, black felt, scissors, and angel halo. First you want to cut out the black felt in different shapes and hot glue, or fabric glue it onto the white t-shirt/dress. Now you want to put on the halo ( that you can find online or in store). This goes with the holy guacamole costume and enjoy your night out with your friends.

Works Cited

Britannica ImageQuest, quest.eb.com/search/halloween/1/142_2299456/Halloween.

Escobar, Sam. “35 Pun Halloween Costumes That Are Too Good to Pass Up.” Good Housekeeping, Good Housekeeping, 10 Sept. 2018, www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/halloween-ideas/g3848/pun-halloween-costume-ideas/?slide=14.

Music Review by Sam Wrbican

Earlier this year, Canadian Rock band Palaye Royale released five tracks in their second studio album. The album, titled Boom Boom Room Side B, comes out in its entirety on September 28th of this year. Singles such as “Death Dance”, “You’ll Be Fine”, and “Dying In A Hot Tub”  are to be featured on the album. Three additional songs are set to be put out with the album.

Palaye Royale was formed in 2008 in Toronto, Canada by brothers Remington Leith, Emerson Barrett, and Sebastian Danzig. Originally, the trio went under the name Kropp Circle, but changed their name during the summer of 2011. They released their first single, “Morning Light”, independently 2012. Later that same year, their first EP also came out. In 2015, Palaye was signed to Sumerian Records, who later produced their first studio album, Boom Boom Room Side A.

The sound of Palaye Royale’s work is very reminiscent of 2000’s rock and pop-punk, both of which they take inspiration from. The drums, done by Emerson, are loud and pounding, bringing the tracks together. The guitar riffs never disappoint and the bassline is always prominent and keeps everything on track.

Mark your calendars for September 28th, Boom Boom Room Side B is coming out! Many of the tracks are already out and available to be heard on YouTube and Spotify. If you enjoy listening to 2000’s rock or pop-punk, this is an album not to miss!

Lil Tay causes a Storm by Sigurdur Ragan

Lil Tay, “the youngest flexer of the century” is a rising “star” on Youtube and Instagram that has caused many reactions. Having 2 million followers while only uploading 20 videos. To put that in perspective, Pewdiepie has 14.2 million followers with 709 posts. Despite being 9 years old she has collabed with many other people you may recognize such as Jake Paul and is similar to last years infamous Danielle Bregoli or the “Cash me outside” girl.

If you haven’t heard of Lil Tay you are lucky. At allegedly 9 years of age Lil Tay is “The youngest flexer of the century,” and has repeatedly flashed “her” material wealth such as Ferraris and throwing hundreds of dollars in the air. This “flexing” just got her mom fired. Started from the bottom now you got your mom fired, nice Lil Tay. If you do not understand, Lil Tay has lots of swearing in her videos and is not the nicest kid on the block constantly saying things like “I’m richer than all y’all broke (bleep) haters.” While she is growing in fame, her mother was released from a Vancouver real estate agency that did not want a part of this craziness. In response her Lil Tay’s “momager” responded to them saying the critics “didn’t understand the joke” and that Lil Tay’s videos are “joking” and “acting”.  Be careful world looks like the next fake Kardashian is rising up.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/14/17340682/who-is-lil-tay-mom-fired-child-stars-instagram

Solar Powered iPhone X by Marcus Henry

The Phone You Use Outside (or, the Solar-Powered iPhone X)

I’m certain you’ve heard of the iPhone X. The thousand dollar “phone of the century” or something like that. You must have also heard of Tesla, the electric car company. But have you heard of the iPhone X Tesla? It was made by Caviar, neither of those companies. And it’s not even a phone! The iPhone X costs about $1,000, but the iPhone X Tesla is about $4,500. It comes with the iPhone X and a thick, bulky case. If you strap the case on the phone, it has some solar panels that charge a “secondary battery” that gives the phone extra power. Is $3K worth it for a solar-powered phone case? Probably not. But it would be cool!

Source: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/5/16/17362546/caviar-4500-iphone-x-tesla-solar-charger

Replacement Skin by Marcus Henry

I’m sure many of you have heard of genetic engineering, and especially CRISPR. If you haven’t, then read my other articles. Anyway, you may have heard of heart transplants. Lung transplants. Even brain transplants! But what happens when you need new skin?

A young boy named Hassan had a horrible disease that caused weak skin, which made it easy to get blisters. He needed nine feet of new skin and was dying. Hassan’s disease was called Junctional Epidermolysis Bullosa, and he is not the only one with it. Doctors used gene therapy to grow him new skin. That’s right. They grew him new skin! Now Hassan is perfectly free to live his life as he wishes, thanks to gene therapy.

How did they do this, you might ask? We don’t really know. There are many different ways to do this. For example, one young boy had the same disease. Doctors took away a small amount of his skin, and then modified it with genetic engineering. They then grew it and used it as a transplant. They could have done this, or many other things. All thanks to genetic engineering!

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/health/gene-therapy-skin-graft.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FGenetic%20Engineering&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=collection

The Bodybuilder of Game Development- Unreal Engine 4 by Marcus Henry

The Bodybuilder of Game Development- Unreal Engine 4

When I say Epic Games, what do you think of? Probably Fortnite, one of the most popular games in Pennsylvania, if not the United States. But that’s not all they’re known for. Epic Games also developed Unreal Engine 4, an amazing coding program. This powerful game engine uses C++ as its coding language. And guess what? Epic Games uses it themselves. That’s right. This very game development software created Fortnite. Not hooked yet?

While it may be difficult to develop your own game, Unreal Engine 4 comes with tutorials. Also, if you have Fortnite, you can download it from the same Epic Games Launcher, and it is completely free, except for a 5% royalty fee if you sell the game. Can’t run Fortnite? Develop your own shooter game! You can get a massive amount of money from developing games. Still not hooked? Well, you should be!

Read more at: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog

VPN-Tunnel of Safety by Marcus Henry

VPN- Tunnel of Safety

For most, if not all of you reading this article, the word VPN means nothing to you. What if I told you that it related to computers? Still nothing. That’s why I’m here to  introduce these wonderful creations to you.

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. A VPN basically provides an encrypted tunnel to someplace far away. Your data gets sent down the encrypted tunnel, so that nobody can see it. But you have to trust your VPN service company a whole lot, because they can see all of your data. For example, if you’re using an unprotected network, like at a café, you can be hacked easily through the network. But if you fire up your VPN, then your data goes somewhere safe far away and you are protected. It’s kind of like putting your gold in a bank vault instead of just letting it sit out in the open, waiting to be stolen!

Now here’s another cool thing. Ever been on a road trip and wish you could access your own home network? Guess what ...you can! If you build a special VPN to hook up to your home router or buy a special router with a pre-installed VPN, then you actually can! This would free up a lot of possibilities.

So, those are just two of the amazing powers of VPNs. Now you know what they are!

Flaming Wall Protection, Inc. (or, How Firewalls Work and What They Do.) by Marcus Henry

Many of you, I’m sure, have heard of firewalls. For those of you that haven’t, I am not talking about an actual flaming wall. Firewalls are protection devices that filters information from the Internet.

You see, the internet is just a ton of computers linked together. Computers can be linked to the Internet through phone-line modems, DSLs, or cable modems. These connect to an Internet Service Provider, or ISP. There are network interface cards in computers, and these connect to a local area network, or LAN. You can then connect the LAN to an ISP with a fast phone line like a T1. ISPs then connect to other ISPs, and everything is linked. And that’s where firewalls come in.

If there’s a business that has a ton of computers, all with an NIC (network interface card) connected to a LAN, and then connected to an ISP, anyone could access the company’s computers, because they would be directly connected to the Internet. Firewalls use one out of three different methods to block unwanted information. Packet filtering involves looking at little pieces of information at a time, then filtering. Proxy service is that the firewall retrieves information from the Internet. Stateful Inspection involves looking at key parts of a small packet of info, then comparing it to trusted information. So, now you know what firewalls are and what they do!

Read here for more:

How Web Servers Work

How Firewalls Work

Taking the Magic Leap by Marcus Henry

If you’ve been keeping up with modern technology, you know about the new Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality devices, or platforms, whatever you want to call them. Augmented Reality (AR)  involves putting cartoonish or created images in the “real world,” using your camera.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to develop your own AR app? Guess what- you can! Using Magic Leap, just create an account and you’re all set. Need some money, and have plenty of time on your hands? Develop an app and sell it in their marketplace. Magic Leap is the perfect go-to place for current and future AR developers.

Source: The Verge

Try, Don’t Cry (or why you should check out Google Play) By: Marcus Henry

Do you ever check out a cool game on Google Play or the App Store, and have to wait for the video to load? It is so annoying, right? Well, Google Play has solved that. Why have boring videos that hardly simulate the game when you can actually play the game! That’s right. Google Play has put in links for some games. It’s kind of like test-driving a car before you buy it! With these links, you can actually try out the game before deciding whether or not you want to purchase the app.  How cool is that? So get on down to the Google Play App Store and try out some games!

Source: The Verge

The Mercedes-AMG Cigarette Racing 515 Project One Racing Boat by Marcus Henry

The Mercedes-AMG Cigarette Racing 515 Project One is fast. REALLY FAST. Despite its long name, it can hit a top speed of 140 mph! This small boat delivers, with 3100 horsepower. The boat was created by Cigarette Racing, It is, of course, a cigarette boat. This style is long, skinny, and fast. It has no seat belts, either. The boat even has a 12-inch screen that tells you the speed, engine temperature, and stuff like that. Unfortunately, it costs $2,000,000 to get your hands on one of these bad boys. So unless you strike gold in your backyard, just keep dreaming.

Amazon Echo by Marcus Henry

Many people believe that the Amazon Echo has no worth. Why spend over $100 on something that just plays music? But these hidden jewels will make you scramble to get one.

Jeopardy: That’s right. Even the Echo Dot can play this game. Test your skills on Jeopardy, Teen Jeopardy, and even Sports Jeopardy.

Song Quiz: Just what the name entitles. Guess the song that Alexa plays!

Spelling Bee: Once again, just what the name is. Alexa will give you a word, and you will spell it. Normally, it is easier words.

The Wayne Investigation: A REALLY cool one. This is a choose-your-own-adventure game. You take on the role of an investigator researching the death of Batman’s parents.

And even better: You can play even more games with Echo Buttons. Just say, “Alexa, connect to my Echo Buttons,” and you’re ready to go. Even more games are available with these.

Trivial Pursuit Tap: Normal trivial pursuit, with your Echo device.

Don’t Cut That Wire: Repeat a sequence of button taps to defuse a bomb.

Party Foul: Try to predict how your friends will answer a question.

Hanagram: Try to solve anagrams.

Button Monte: The classic game, try to keep up with the trickster.

Rush Order: Try to deliver smoothies by combining the right ingredients.

Be Together More: The Amazon Echo Spot by Marcus Henry

You’ve probably heard of the Amazon Echo, and the Echo Dot. Amazon’s making another one: the Echo Spot!

Very recently, Amazon released a video trailer for it, entitled “Be Together More.” In it, an old grandma is saddened terribly by her family leaving her after a visit. Soon, she receives an Amazon package containing the Echo Spot. At first, she thinks it’s just a high-tech alarm clock. But she finds out she can actually video call her family members, who reply to her call with a joyful, “SURPRISE!”

Not much is known about the Echo Spot itself, but one thing is for sure. Families will be able to Be Together More.

The Echo Spot costs $129.99 and is available at www.amazon.com now.

Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMA4Rr9Tb-4

App Review: Die With Me by Marcus Henry

Just thinking about the name sends a shudder down your spine. Die with Me. Super dark. But it’s really not. The app is like another social media app or chat room except for one thing: you had better chat fast, because you can only get on the app when your battery level hits 5%. This way, all of the chats are fast and rushed, very stressful messages. Each message you post displays your battery level. As I noticed in some images, many posts have charger jokes. And if you try to charge your phone after you’re below 5%, the app will kick you out!

Watch the video here: https://vimeo.com/251322259

Anatomy of a Computer by Jayden Kelly

Have you ever wondered about the pieces in your Computer?  Laptop or Desktop, they all have similar components. There is a slight difference between the two, yet when talking about them you can talk about one part for both types of computer.  By reading this series of articles, I will hopefully inform you all of what is really going on in that little machine you’re reading this from, unless of course you reading this from the paper copy, but that’s beside the point.

Computers are wild pieces of machinery.  You may not think about it, but 4K displays actually have over 8.2 Million pixels per square inch:  imagine that, 8.2 million little lights able to flash a different color.  Oh, and another thing that might interest you is that a normal monitor has a Refresh Rate of 30.  You might be asking yourself, “what does this number mean?” Well, 30 is the number of times the pixels on your monitor will change a color per second, so if you are watching a fast-moving video where each pixel changes on the screen  for 1 second,  you have 248.8 Million different colored pixels per inch.  Think about that!

Let’s scale that back a little bit more.  The resolution of a chromebook screen, like the one you are given, is 1366 by  768, so if we do a little math, we can figure out that on your whole Chromebook screen there are 1,049,088 pixels, with a Refresh Rate of 30 (also known as 30 FPS).  So after some calculations, you could figure out that the pixels on your screen have refreshed or changed around 3.7 billion times since you started reading this article.  

So,  I hope you have learned something.  Future articles in this series will allow you to learn something like in this one. This is just an inkling into the great world of computers…

Solo: A Star Wars Story by Roman Corl

Since we just hit 2018 more and more new movies will be coming out including, Ready Player One, Wreck It Ralph 2, the Incredibles 2, and my favorite, Solo: A Star Wars Story. That will be our topic for today. Solo will be the second stand alone Star Wars film following Rogue One which is basically episode 3 ½.

Solo will following a very well known character in the Star Wars franchise, Han Solo. Han Solo was first introduced in the original 1977 Star Wars movie acted by Harrison Ford.  Solo is set prior to the original including the various things that young Han and Chewbacca did like meeting Lando Calrissian and probably will be going on various adventures throughout the movie. But the real question is, should we be excited or not? In my opinion the new movie is not going to be bad but not as good as the Last Jedi (in my opinion)

Weezer: A History by Angela Gorton

In 1992, Weezer released their first album, which did great at the time. After that they decided to make a Rock Opera which would have been the first of its kind, but the band’s Lead singer, Rivers Cuomo, went to study at Harvard, and Matt Sharp was busy with his other band called The Rentals.

When they all came back together in ‘94, they started recording. Their producer felt like the music wasn’t good and needed changes, and although Cuomo didn’t feel the same way, he tried to rewrite, but was not happy with that either. He ended up making the raw, uncut album Pinkerton, which flopped when it came out in 96. Nobody liked it, not even Rivers himself. So with that flop of an album they went back to their roots and released the Green album in 2001. It was successful, although, not as much as Blue, but it still did very well.

Three years before the Green album came out, Rivers kicked Matt Sharp out of the band for having a mental breakdown while recording.  Scott Shriner was also kicked out, but this left room for the addition of Mikey Welsh. While all this was happening, they were still working on their fourth album Maldroit, which wasn’t their worst album, but wasn’t their best either. Not much happened in the next few years, but people did begin to enjoy Pinkerton for its raw, uncut taste that nobody has or will do ever again because it is so hard to replicate.

The next album to be released was Ratitude, which was the band’s first tacky album, but it was well received by fans. At this point, Weezer was well known for their 90’s rock in a 2010’s rock world. Their next few albums were pretty good and well received, but then, Weezer took a turn, the radio friendly, pop heavy, White album was released, and was different than the bands usual style, but it still had some of their usual 90’s elements.

Their most recent album, Pacific Daydream, was released just a few months ago, and failed. It was nothing like Weezer.  Rivers liked the album but very few people agreed with him. They will be releasing a new album in May, called the Black album, through which many fans are hoping they will redeem themselves, but only time will tell.

Laser Weapons by Marcus Henry

Soon enough, laser weapons will be a reality. Imagine being able to instantly disable enemy fighter jets with an invisible blast! The U.S. would be a massive world superpower. On November 6, the Air Force signed an agreement with Lockheed Martin, a defense technology company, to build laser weapons that are light enough to be carried by planes. Apparently, lasers have been used before, but never light enough to use on a plane. The lasers will be invisible and travel at the speed of light. By 2021, the laser will be ready to test. So, a while to wait. This could potentially change modern warfare entirely. With ships flying all over targeting each other with advancing laser technology, the world could change. And not for the better.

Source: Pew-Pew! Laser Weapons May Arm Air Force Fighter Jets - Live Science

Most Haunted Place in the World? Or Biggest Rip-Off? by Delaney Dixon

Ever wanted a good scare once in awhile? Well, if you do, then you should visit Moundsville Penitentiary located in West Virginia, or should you?

Let’s start with the history, originally opening in 1877 as a small quickly made prison. It closed in 1995 as there was to many escapees and riots. At first glance you may feel that this sounds like an awesome haunted place to visit and it makes sense paying 200 dollars to explore, but if you dig a bit deeper, you notice something else.

Go to the prison’s main page for example; you can see they feature a lot of events that they do, for ex: Zombie Walk, Sip and Seek, Family night, and to top it all off, princess tea. There are many other events they do, but that’s not the point: the point is for an “extremely” haunted place, family game night might not be smart. Bringing you to another question, What if the prison is not extremely haunted, rather it’s just an extremely easy way to make easy money?

Let’s use their Superhero party as an example. On their page it says, “Come join your favorite Superheroes for a day of fun, games, snacks, and more- you can even DRESS LIKE A SUPERHERO!! Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America, Superman, and The Incredible Hulk will ALL be here. You can’t miss this event!!!” Sounds fun! Though the fact is, its $20/child charge kind of brings the fun aspect down - at least for the parents. Also the fact they invite 7-12-year-olds to one of the “most haunted places” makes you question, is it even haunted? or is that just a way to make more people wanna come? Let’s go to paranormal investigators who have gone and hear what they think.

If you are wondering what a paranormal investigator is, they are someone that looks for ghosts and tries to communicate with them. In most of the videos filmed, it’s only people saying they feel a presence. Some people say they felt a tug or saw something, but all of those things might have been in their heads or they could’ve said it to get views on YouTube.

Moundsville Penitentiary sounds like a fun place to go to for an exciting Halloween trip. If you’re looking for full-on ghost talk, you may want to go somewhere else. This place could be a nice start to your paranormal career, but maybe not a place to go to make ghost friends.

What do you think? Would you go here? Is this place really haunted?

Smart Fork by Marcus Henry

Personally, I LOVE Chinese food. Especially noodles. Anyone who loves Chinese noodles knows that sometimes you end up slurping them. It just happens. Not anymore. A company named Nissin invented a smart fork called Otohiko. The fork listens to you eat, and if it detects a slurp, it sends a quick signal to your smartphone, which plays a noise so no one can hear you slurp.

Here’s my opinion: I don’t like this idea. First of all, you need to have the app, and have your phone on. You could easily damage your phone by having it where there is food. Sauce could get on it and ruin it! Secondly, the fork is massive and bulky, making it hard to actually use to eat. Third and finally, the main reason people would need this fork is because they slurp too loud and people don’t like that. But the phone would be louder, so people would like that even less, and that defeats the point.

If you find this interesting, it is being sold only in Japan, and for a price of about $130.

See the video here

Source: The Verge