Saturnalia statue by Ernesto Biondi located in the Buenos Aires Botanical Gardens
Did you know, that prior to the celebration of Christmas, the ancient Romans held a festival from the 17th to 23rd of December in honour of their agricultural deity, Saturn?
Every morning, millions of people fight a battle with themselves and their alarm clock snooze button. The buzzer goes off, you quickly silence the annoying machine with a slap of your palm then roll over and have “just a few more minutes”.
But hitting the snooze button is a bad idea.
The sleep you manage to get between snooze alarms is very low quality, leaving you feeling groggy and more tired. Also, the snooze button really tests your limited willpower – which you could be using more constructively.
Here are some ideas to help you kick your addictive snooze button habit!
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On the 12th of November 1980, NASA’s Voyager 1 probe had it’s closest encounter of Saturn, passing within 124,000 kilometres of the planet. Earlier during the same day, Voyager had also come within an incredible 4,000 kilometres of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.
Today, we’ll celebrate one of modern times most historic explorers – Voyager 1 – that 23 years ago helped reveal so much about the planet Saturn and its many moons.
Spring forward, fall back
It’s that time of year when we gain an extra hour here in the UK. On Sunday 27th October 2013, British Summer Time (BST) ends and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) – perhaps more commonly known in this country as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) begins.
But why do we change the clocks forward and back each year? Today we’ll take a trip through time and look at the history of daylight savings.
Used for time management during lessons and exams or cross curricular activities such as Science, Maths and PE, stopwatches are a vital tool for education.
They’re also useful for maintaining pace in lessons, helping your students stay focused and developing time management skills. Lessons of any length can be divided up into shorter sections or tasks. If your students are aware of the timing, they can often work towards a goal and focus their attentions on a specific project. You can also keep track of the time you’re spending on actual lessons or helping students on a one-to-one basis.
Great news!
You can now order professional Seiko sports stopwatches via our website!
Seiko are one of the world’s leading names in sports timing. Having produced their first mechanical watch more than 110 years ago, Seiko have a long history and an excellent track record for producing top quality, precision timepieces and timing systems.
Fastime 22 – solar assisted stopwatch
Features
Introduction
The Fastime 22 is unique to our line up of stopwatches. At the time of writing this ‘hands on’, it is the only stopwatch currently available from our online store that boasts a solar panel.
This zero memory, single display stopwatch offers timing up to 12 hours (1/100th second for the first 30 minutes, then in one second increments thereafter) and a One/Two Fast Finish function. Other features include time (12 hour or 24 hour), day, date and an alarm.
July 2013 has been super-summery so far, with many parts of the UK basking in the hottest weather in recent memory. After enduring many long, cold winters and wet summers over the last few years, the overwhelming urge to venture outdoors during a rare prolonged heatwave is understandable.
A common feature on more advanced stopwatches is the “pacer mode”, but just what is the pacer function and why would you need this type of capability on a stopwatch?
Running time, count of paces, and the current pace rate (10 beeps per min)
The pacer function is used to help regulate the speed of an activity. Using a regular audible beep at a preset interval, the pacer helps the user to maintain a consistent rhythm and can be used to help increase their performance or strengthen stamina.
The pacer mode is useful training aid used across a wide variety of sports. A cyclist may wish to target the number of pedal revolutions per minute, a rower the number of strokes per minute or help a runner set their pace.
Pacers can often be set to beep between 5 times a minute, right up to 320 times a minute, with varying increments in between, depending on the stopwatch. Many stopwatches will also keep a running total of the number of beeps or ‘paces’ that have occurred in the current timing session.
You can view our range of pacer stopwatches on our website at Saturn Stopwatches.
Quantum 866 Mechanical Stopwatch
Features
Introduction
The Quantum 866 is the first mechanical stopwatch available from our store, Saturn Stopwatches. The 866 is supplied in a nice presentation box that can be used to store the stopwatch when not in use. The stopwatch itself offers timing to 1/5th of a second, with a large 60 second dial and a smaller 60 minute dial inset on its face.