The first station we decided to do was riding a bike suspended on a wire 3 stories up. The science behind the riding the bike was the center of gravity was below the wire, so you couldn't tip. We all gave it a try. Here, Brandon is riding the bike. It isn't the best picture, but hopefully it gives you an idea of how it was to ride the bike.
Keith is being silly, trying to tip the bike, but that would be impossible unless he weighed around 300lbs.!
We went to 'Disasterville'. This interactive station was set up to show the different natural disasters that can be encountered through out the US. I'm not sure we learned anything new, but it was interesting to try the different stations out. One station that we tried was the hurricane wind capsule. Amy, Brandon and Keith went inside. Once the door closes the wind whips up to hurricane strength which would be about 80 MPH. Since it is unlikely we'll ever experience a hurricane were we live it was fun for them to be inside the capsule. The pictures did not turn out :(.
The people who respond after a disaster.
Amy's favorite exhibit was one of the human body. It takes you on a tour from conception to death. It took a long time to go through this one. They had different video's to watch, many displays you could try, but unfortunately a lot weren't working. However, we all found something interesting to do at this station and we all learned something new on how the body works.
MOSI holds a 5 story tall IMAX Dome. We had the opportunity to watch an IMAX presentation called 'Rescue'. This short movie looks at what it takes to respond to disasters in different parts of the world. There was footage of the rescuers going into Haiti right after the earthquake in 2010. They showed hundreds of people responding to the disaster, people being pulled from the rubble, kids getting medical attention and food being distributed by different nations. Amy found the movie fascinating. She wants to travel the world, as a Trauma ER Dr. responding to the most critical and most needy of people. This movie only added to her desire, seeing what the Dr.'s did and who they cared for.
Finally, we watched a science demonstration of electricity and chemical reactions. Ethan was in his element for this, as he is presently into different chemical reactions, wanting to know if it is an alkaline or acid based. Surprisingly, he wasn't eager to volunteer for the demonstrations involving a Tesla coil! Brandon volunteered for those experiments. Ethan was a bit concerned he might be zapped with the volt of electricity from the Tesla Coil because you had to keep the rod pointed at the top and never below on the copper part of the coil. A Tesla Coil amplifies electricity and concentrates it to one spot. This particular Tesla Coil took 120 volts of electricity and revved it up to over 5000. (I don't understand all the in and outs of electricity, but it was a neat demonstration.)
We finished our time off in a Hurricane Tunnel. I'll leave you with a picture of Keith. We had fun in there and I'm not sure what the difference was between the capsule and this wind tunnel other than size. We all had to wear goggles and headphones to block the wind. It was pretty fierce in there, but it didn't last too long.
All and all, we had a good time at the MOSI. We did learn a few things and the displays that were working were fun to use and learn from. Ethan had a great time. He didn't notice things not working, he was more focused on certain topics rather than the big picture of the museum. This was most definitely a Ethan day.
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