Location: Adler Planetarium
Date: Thursday, August 20, 2015; 6:00-10:00
pm
 |
| There would be a lot of 'Lego's' tonight |
Michael had sent some reading material and the most
prominent activity was "Makey
Makey", something that I had never heard of. The theme for this evening was "Build It" with ‘Legos’ being a prominent component. I was a bit late getting in, with the bus
stuck in traffic, and so missed the pizza. In fact, I just made it as Michael was about
to take everyone on the tour. There were
several activities on offer tonight and the first stop was to see the “Lego Zipline”, where the guests would
be encouraged to build a “Zipline” to
transport mini ‘Lego’ figures from
one end to another. They would have to
use whatever materials we provided to them.
Next, we stopped in the “PXP
Classroom” where an activity called “Minifigs”
was being conducted. Teams of 4 would be
encouraged to assemble as many mini ‘Lego’
figurines as possible in 2 minutes. Looking
the earlier activity and this one, I asked Michael if we were going to do
science this evening! I mean this is
supposed to be Astronomy related isn’t it?
Next up was
“BattleBots”
where users would have robots, well just bash each other through remote
control operation. Next, we went downstairs to see
the same telescope mount for
“Smartphones”
as before and across the room in another classroom was an activity with
"3-D Printers". We saw that a few printers were already in
action, and also a
“3-D Pen” where
people were encouraged to design things. Michael said that he wanted someone to build the
‘Hancock Tower’. Well, I would love to see that as well. Next stop was the
“Makey Makey” station where common objects like fruits, veggies and
“silly putty”; as well as humans,
could be connected to a prototype circuit and a computer to develop controllers
for games, play music etc. This
sounded like an interesting station for sure.
Next was a stop at
“Airship
Challenge”, where
“Far Horizons” program
balloon team was demonstrating a prototype of their balloon, mounted with 3
propellers, and asking visitors to manipulate the balloon using a controller and eventually land in a square a few feet away. It was
more difficult that people would think. Our
final stop was at an activity called
"Comic
Book", where people were encouraged to build
‘Lego’ prototypes which would be photographed and imported into a
computer, and then made into pictures.
My shifts were at “Airship
Challenge”, “3-D Printers”, “Minifigs” and finally “Makey Makey”. I went to “Airship
Challenge” and the staff instructor was already coaching one couple. The main thing was to get the balloon buoyant while
maintaining the weight through the use of “washers”
inside a cup that had been tied to the balloon. The 3 propellers had different designs with 3
blades for one and 2 blades for the other two. They were also different in design, with one
of them actually looking like a propeller on a boat. The controller had 6 buttons, 2 each for the
3 propellers, moving “Clockwise” and “Counter”. The apparatus wasn't the easiest to control
and the couple was struggling. The staff
member Ken, was eating a carrot that he used for weight balancing in the cup,
eating it as required! Bouncing off the
walls and other things was beneficial towards course correction and we were
telling that to the participants. After
some trying, they managed to land the balloon in the square. We were also asking the people to write down
lessons learnt on a board and people were being witty with it. For example, the first lesson that was
written down was “Don’t overthink”.
Before the next group came in, I told Ken that I wanted to try
and I succeeded! I asked him about the “Far Horizons” project, where they send
balloons up to 100,000 feet and gather weather data. A lot of high school kids are involved in
this, and I am sure learning a lot in the process. I said that I hoped the
balloons avoided the air traffic zones!
I had given my staff tickets to a colleague and she came over with a
friend and they tried their hand at landing the balloon. Ken had left and another staff member Sylvia
had taken over as the main facilitator.
People were really trying hard and now a crowd was gathering. I was helping adjust the buoyancy of the
balloon by removing and adding weight, as well as general encouragement and
coaching. For example, I was telling
them about the different propellers and pointing out the propeller that looked like the one on ships, and asking them to think about density of water vs air and how they could use that knowledge. One couple asked me what would happen if the
balloon burst. Considering that it was filled
with Helium, I said that we would all be speaking in high pitched voices.
My next shift was at the “3-D
Printer” station and I arrived to see that the room was crowded. My new buddy Ken was holding court with
several people and some plastic objects that looked like meteorites. The printers were operating, making some
random things. My task here was to facilitate
the “3-D Pen” sketching. There were 2 pens which reminded me of “soldering iron”, something that I had
used a lot during graduate school. There
were colored ink cartridges which needed to be shoved inside the pen and then
it took a good 5-10 minutes for the material to melt and plastic to emerge from
the other end. Lot of words like “Push hard till it comes out” were being
said. “That’s what she said”, I muttered.
I was conversing with the guests and challenging them to
make complex patterns. I told one lady
to make ‘Hancock Tower’ as Michael
had indicated. In fact, Michael had just
walked in and he said that she had to make it as tall as me. The lady was quite enthusiastic and was
assembling using an orange colored stick.
She actually did a great job, making 4 patterns and then “welding” them together to form a "building". Earlier, when we had changed
her ink cartridge it had taken a long time to work. She had asked me to check and by coincidence
it started working when I pressed a few buttons. She started calling me “one with the magic touch” and I said that it was indeed my “street name”! Another girl was making red glasses and I
insisted she make holders to go around her ears, which she did. While not exactly “Elton John”, they were still good.
Two girls and a guy came and one of the girls was wearing an
elaborate bracelet. I said that she
should make a bracelet and her friend said that she could then give the other
one to me. It became a running joke
where I would insist on taking her bracelet and she said no since she had it for 6
years. We talked about it and she said
that it was from Florida, she being from near Orlando. We talked about ‘Disneyworld’ and how I had sent kids there through ‘MAW’, but never been there myself. In the meanwhile she was still working and
had made something that looked like a “Dreamcatcher”. Some others were coming in and it was taking
time for their pens to get going. One
guy had been waiting patiently for over 5 minutes, but my time over here was
almost up. I wished him luck and said
that at least he was better off than another girl who had just inserted her
stick inside. Well then, once more, “That’s what she said”.
My next stop was at “Minifigs”
in the “PXP Classroom”. There were 3 tables with buckets of mini ‘Lego’ figurines and the challenge to
teams of 4 was to assemble them as heads, hats, bodies and legs and then stand
them up – in 2 minutes. Just outside the
classroom, the “zip lining” activity
was going on and they had taken a lot of the figurines from our room. Teams of 3 or 2 would come in and I would
time them and then scale-up their count of figures made to 4 participants and
then post their score on the wall. If
they ran out of parts or figures, I would ask them to round off the score to 2
minutes and scale accordingly. This was
proving to be a challenge for several folks and they were really struggling
with basic math when all they had to do was convert everything to seconds and
multiply. But alas, our education system
was letting everyone down. However,
people were really in to it and even strategizing before commencing. Many were forming an “assembly line”, with different people assembling different parts
and then the last one standing the figures up.
I found that it was more efficient for each to be assembling their own
figure and said to them that while assembly line may have worked for Henry
Ford, it wasn’t really true in this case.
People were competitive and some even came back to check if their score
was surpassed. One couple did it twice to
ensure that they finished on top.
My final stop of the evening was at “Makey Makey” and I arrived to see a flurry of activity. Different demo’s had been set-up, including
drums using carrots and bananas; piano with “silly
putty”; and “Super Mario” and “Whack-a-Mole” games with other veggies. It really was good technology and all you
needed was one person to hold the ground wire.
Furthermore, by forming the right series connections, one could get
other people to hold hands, and then by giving each other “Hi-fives” you could reproduce the sound of drums. Three girls came and I explained this series
method to them. They did that and
instead of “High-fives”, started
slapping each other gleefully. I have
never seen anyone be so happy to be slapped!
I played with it as well - without slapping anyone - and then we wrapped up, making sure that we had
accounted for all of the precious circuit boards. I came down to the volunteer room and scarfed
down 3 slices of pizza before heading out.
It had been another fun evening, though with very little science,
especially related to astronomy.
