Page 12 December 10, 2015 TORRANCE TRIBUNE ExxonMobil from page 3 School Board from front page Conquer The Last DIY Craft Frontier: Concrete Our Family Would Love to Help Yours! Roger Hart Broker with 35 years of experience BRE# 00625505 Kevin Hart Bank Owned Specialist Realtor BRE# 01417844 Stephanie Hart Short Sale Specialist with 100% close rate last 4 years. Broker Associate BRE# 01338444 Jeremy Hart Network Marketing Specialist Realtor BRE# 01806300 Alannah Hart Office Manager Realtor BRE# 01812107 Brad Hart Online Advertising Specialist Roger Hart (left) with sons: Kevin; Jeremy and his wife Stephanie; and Bradley with his wife Realtor BRE# 01722842 Alannah. The Hart family has used its successful business to promote and preserve pride in the Torrance community through responsible real estate transactions and homeownership. www.ForecastRealty.com (310) 781-2000 BRE# 00931272 (BPT) - You’ve made furniture out of tree stumps and wind chimes from buttons, bottle caps and old tin cans. You are the queen (or king) of Pinterest projects, and you’ve DIYed your way to decorative splendor with just about every material imaginable. What’s left if you want to take your interior and exterior decorating projects up a notch? One word: concrete. “Concrete is an exciting, creativity-inspiring design material,” says Fu-Tung Cheng, a pioneer in the integration of concrete into exterior and interior design applications, from outdoor water features to sculptural countertops. “Hobbyists and do-it-yourself decorators, however, may not realize the full potential of concrete.” Cheng, president of CHENG Concrete, partnered with concrete products maker Sakrete to create a new type of concrete that puts the full creative power of the material in the hands of virtually any DIYer. “Sure, concrete responds to any form you pour it into, but we wanted to create a material that can do that and respond to how you shape it with your hands, tooling or even found objects,” Cheng says of the new product, ShapeCrete, which can be poured, rolled, pushed or molded to create custom concrete designs. “We like to say ShapeCrete ‘plays like clay and works like concrete’,” says Eric Peterson, president of Sakrete of North America. ShapeCrete won Best Design Material honors during Dwell on Design 2015, an annual exhibit of current and future trends in architecture, interior design and landscaping. More than 32,000 people - including DIY designers and crafters - attended this year’s event in Los Angeles. If you’re thinking about trying your hand at concrete design, here are five projects to liven up the interior and exterior of your home: • Create a doorstop that will make visitors stop and stare. A 3/4-inch piece of Melaminecoated particle board, 2-inch thick piece of insulating foam or Styrofoam, some spray adhesive, a cutting tool and ShapeCrete are all you need to create an eye-catching, one-of-a-kind doorstop. Simply print out or draw the word “STOP” in large, bold letters, transfer to the foam, cut it out to create a mold, and pour the ShapeCrete into the mold. • Concrete planters can be expensive if you buy them from a home and garden store. Making your own not only saves you money, but allows you to unleash your creativity and make planters in a variety of sizes, shapes and even colors. All you need to start are some plastic planters in the size of your choice. Add water to the concrete powder to achieve a claylike consistency and press the concrete into the container to create the form. Or, you can create a unique draped planter by rolling out the concrete on a piece of round fabric and then draping the fabric inside a bowl, plastic planter or other container. • Turn a large, fresh leaf into a one-of-akind dish. Simply create a bed of sand on a piece of cardboard or sheet of plastic, cover the sand with a plastic bag to keep the grains from sticking to the leaf, and lay the leaf on top of the plastic with the vein side up. Mix the concrete to a clay-like consistency and begin packing it onto the leaf, starting at the center and working your way out. During the mixing process, you can add color to the concrete. You’ll have 30 to 60 minutes of working time before the concrete begins to harden, and it will cure completely after 24 hours. You can find detailed instructions for these concrete projects and many more online at www.shapecrete.com. “You don’t have to have a shop or garage, or be a concrete expert to work with this product,” Cheng says. “You can work off your kitchen table, depending on the project size. The grand reveal of what you’re able to create after about a day or so is exhilarating. It doesn’t matter what your skill set is, you’ll surprise yourself every time, and that’s really the best part.” • Gayle Bond, “Me Do Science---NO WAY (Hands-on Experiments for All);” Heather Fitzgerald, “Solar Powered Motor;” Leah Legaspi, “The Shocking Truth About Electricity;” Lindsay Cruz and Jennifer Watanuki, “Building Mathematicians, Engineers and Scientists Across the Curriculum;” and Melissa Davis, “Reach for the SKY-Give Programming a Try! [Cubelets].” From Torrance Elementary, the lone winner was Ann-Marie Frank for “Civil Engineering: The Engineering Process,” while Walteria’s winner was Tracy Bergen for “Magnets, Movement and Machines.” Winners from Towers Elementary included Danica Burgner and Candy Moreno for “Energy by Design” and Sabrina Holdsworth who won for “Idita-what?” Lastly, from Victor Elementary the winners were Denice Gaunt and Carol Tokunaga, “Introducing OSMO… extending Learning Opportunities to our Youngest Students;” and Michael Atkinson, Katharina Blevins, Tara Fink, Steve Jennewin, Tim Magnus, April Pages and Paula Paulson for “Keep Your Hands, Arms and Feet Inside the Ride at all Times, Here We Go…(If we can dream it, we can built it). The district’s middle school’s grant winners included: Kevin Tambara from Bert Lynn for “Let’s make Music-Uke Can Do It!” and Patrick Donahue for “From Dream to Screen to Reality: Fabricating Computer Designs with a Laser Engraver/Cutter.” Winners from Calle Mayor were Ahbra Sargent and Ruth Tanouye for “Making Life Happen- Practicing the Skills.” Robert Medrano was the winner from Richardson for his proposal “Exploring Ancient Civilizations through Augmented Reality.” In the high schools there were eight winners, including South High School’s Trisha Minahan for her proposal “If the Worlds Were a Fishbowl: A Project On Sustainability;” Christopher Cunningham for his proposal “Vernier Probes used in AP Chemistry Inquiry Based Labs;” and Luminita Denisiu for “Energy Management-a 21st Century Global Challenge.” North High School winners included Katie Doupé for her proposal “Energizing Learning: Investigating Conductivity in Chemistry and Biology;” as well as Greg Wheeler, Stanley Masaoka, James Estabrook and Katie Doupé for the proposal “Chemical Detectives: The Determination of a Solution’s Concentration via Light Absorption Data with the Application of Beer’s Law.” Lastly, Torrance High School had two winners: Dana Hagen for “Pneumatics and Hydraulics for Engineers” and Paul Nitake for “Technology Blended with Science-Vernier Probeware.”• Ragins, who was sworn in by former Torrance City Clerk Sue Herbers, also expressed her desire to see young people become actively engaged in issues concerning the city, in any capacity. “I actually want to go a step further and say that I would actually like to see more women get involved,” Ragins said. “I sat on this panel when it was four-to-one [men-to-women] for a fairly long period of time and it is nice to see another woman join me. This is my last term, also so it would be wonderful to see some other women step forward.” The evening’s meeting also hosted the board’s annual reorganization. Based on the board’s rules, the reorganization meeting requires that board members elect a president, vice president and clerk from its members. Martha Deutsch was nominated and unanimously approved as the new Board President, while Ragins was nominated and unanimously approved to be the board’s Vice president. Lee, former board president, was nominated and approved as the board’s clerk. With the swearing in ceremonies having been conducted, Lee shared his desire to see the city’s current leaders play an active role in engaging the community in city affairs. “To the average citizen who is somewhat interested, it looks a little more complicated sometimes than it really is to get elected,” Lee said. “If we can show and get people involved in the process, I think that it makes Torrance stronger, and it makes the community stronger.” For Ragins, serving as an elected official is more than an opportunity to help make one’s city a better place. “Something that changed for me about twelve years ago was when I did the Pledge of Allegiance after I got sworn in,” Ragins said. “I never really gave much attention to government before that. I clearly remember that first evening after having been sworn in, standing there shaking, saying the pledge and thinking ‘Wow, this really means something to me now. I have to say that every time that I have said the Pledge of Allegiance since then, it has been different for me.” Part of the challenge in convincing community members to seek public office, or to become more engaged in civic life, is a general lack of knowledge about the process and avenues to become involved. Lee hopes that the public can overcome those uncertainties and just ask city leaders questions about ways to become involved. “I want the community to start to look and use us as a resource and if you’ve ever thought about running for office, grab one of us and we’ll talk about it; grab one of the city council people, they’ll talk about it,” Lee said •.
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