Adler After Dark

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.