Adler After Dark

Location: Adler Planetarium

Date: Thursday, September 17, 2015; 5:30-10:00 pm

Tonight’s theme was “Game On” and as can be deduced, it was all about Video Games. Plus, it was the end of the “Summer Hours”, meaning the doors would open at 6 pm instead of 6:30.  I arrived and went to the pizza classroom after checking in.  The usual suspects were there and I caught up with them till Michael came in.  We went on the tour and many activities were from last month were being repeated, including “Makey Makey”, “Zip Line Racer” and “Air Ship Challenge”.  Besides that, there was a 3-D “Virtual Reality” game; including something called “Google Cardboard”, and in the ‘Johnson Theatre’ there were video game consoles with the display on the big screen!  I could immediately tell that the “Virtual Reality” game would draw huge lines and that could be an issue.  The “Airship Challenge” had been tweaked to be a timed game and the fastest time to land the balloon in the square would win 4 tickets to a future event.

Aah, Video Games night

I had “Zip Line Racer” from 6-7, “Virtual Reality” from 7-8, “Pocket Science” - where I said that I would do “Smelly Space” - from 8-9 and finally “Airship Challenge” from 9-10.  I arrived at the “Community Design Lab” for my first shift and was paired with another volunteer.  The buckets with all ‘Lego’ pieces were there, as were the 3 “Ziplines” with different slopes.  Even though we had been open for some time, no one was coming in and so I went out to recruit people.  I convinced 2 guys to come in and they were totally engaged in the activity.  The trick was to ensure that not only did the contraption they built reach the other end, but the ‘Lego’ figure inside “survived” at the end.  Soon other people came in and the place was buzzing, with every one totally immersed in the activity and were using different designs in order to get their figure across. It was fun to see people’s choice of the figurine.  Some chose pirates - whom they didn’t mind killing off - a well-dressed man in tuxedo, “Gandalf”, and a man in moustache which one girl named “François”!  I was walking about, chatting with the people and commenting on designs.  Some of them were really cool and people had put a lot of thought into them, having something like a parachute to create drag, and even longer vehicles to protect the figure from a crash. 

At 7 pm I left the enthusiastic crowd to go over to the “Virtual Reality” station.  There was a huge line waiting to try this and so we had some “Google Cardboard” things for them to play with while they waited.  The idea was to put your “smart phone” in it and either download an app or go to ‘YouTube’ and enter “#360”.  Then as you look through the viewfinder, you get a feeling like you are in a virtual setting.  I was explaining this to the guests and quickly realized that the ‘YouTube’ concept wasn’t working on ‘iPhone’ but only on ‘Android’ devices.  For those people I was telling them to download the app.  People loved this and I had to give out the ‘Wi-Fi’ name since there was no signal downstairs.  Once all of them got on the network, the bandwidth choked as expected and I was requesting them to get off the network once they had finished downloading.  It was fun activity for the crowd as they waited, and for some it would be as long as 30-40 minutes.  The funniest moment however was for a guy who stood in the line for 5 minutes before asking what the line was for!

At 8 pm I went down to the staff area and collected “Smelly Space”.  Considering there was already a big line at “Virtual Reality”, I started by engaging people there - though the machine had given up and so the line was dwindling.  As usual people were amazed at the premise of “Smelly Space”, but would also get to the right answer by saying things like “spectroscopy” or “light” or “chemicals”.  I went upstairs and saw that a girl was solving the “Rubik’s Cube” and with a lot of flair.  I told her friends that it was time to check if she really was that smart.  Well, she was since I did the routine with them and not only did she get the smells, but also was closest to the real answer.  I engaged few other people including a group of 4 who were trying to be obnoxiously funny but listened to the explanation anyways.

My last shift was at “Air Ship Challenge”, but as I got there, the facilitator told me that he was shutting it down soon.  The volunteers were maintaining a clipboard with names of all the people who had signed up to participate and I inherited that.  I saw that there was only one team left since we had stopped taking down names.  That team tried but couldn’t land the balloon in the allocated time of 2 minutes.  That was true of many others who showed up as “DNF”, though there were several who had managed to land.  In fact, the fastest time was 21 seconds, which was quite impressive.  I helped the facilitator break-down the apparatus, as he let Helium out of the balloon, taking an occasional “hit” in order to amuse the crowd - many of the crowd members also doing the same. 

I handed the clipboard to Michael and then continued with my “Smelly Space” for a few more people. Then Michael asked me to go back to “Zipline Racer” room to help clean.  The room was like a warzone with tiny pieces everywhere.  I started the clean-up with another volunteer and it almost took us 30 minutes.  We weren’t separating the pieces into the components and a staff member said that it would be for an intern to do that.  I came down, logged off, and chatted with a telescope operator before leaving; another one in the books.