Cylon Paper Circuit
Every time I sit down to create a paper circuit I want to try something different. The past few times I made 3-dimensional circuits but they seemed to go against the spirit of these paper cards we've all been making.
Light Play Moments
Lately, I've been thinking about an activity we used to do called Light Play, an exploration of light and its interactions with material, motion, and color. The explorations were always reflective (pun intended), patient, full of humor, and deeply satisfying to both the participants and facilitators.
Messing about with trash, cardboard, and linkages
With OpenMake Trash coming up, I thought I'd explore ways of animating objects/trash through our longstanding love of automata. I saw Keith Newstead's piece called "The Ghost of a Bird" and was inspired.
Beyond the Museum: Tinkering with Marble Machines
Lately in the Tinkering Studio we’ve been thinking about how to translate the work that we do in the museum to settings like after school programs and community centers. Marble Machines is an open-ended, immersive activity that frustrates and delights in equal measure.
Phone Drop
Preparing for OpenMake: Time we needed to test the buckets that people will use to explore how things fall. They automatically drop their contents once they reach 23 feet in the air. What better way to test them than by putting one of our phones at risk.
Anti-Gravity Mirror
Here’s an exhibit where watching is at least half the fun. You can create any number of gravity-defying illusions that will amaze you and your friends: Levitate, fly, swim though the air, grow limbs (and dissolve them), crawl straight up the wall like a lizard—the sky’s the limit.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
Piezo Goodness
I think we should try using more natural elements in our piezo experimentation. I especially like the idea of finding many different sounds from the same object. The leaf flick kills me!
Cloud Chamber
Look down into the chamber and you’ll see an ongoing cascade of thin white trails appearing and disappearing. These are cosmic ray tracks, created by high-energy subatomic particles from space.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
Coupled Pendulums
Start one of these two pendulums swinging and soon you’ll see the other pendulum start swinging, too. Keep watching and you’ll see the two pendulums take turns, alternately swinging energetically and coming to a near standstill.
Downhill Race
Believe it or not, when objects roll downhill, it’s not their weight or size that determines their speed—it’s how their weight is distributed.
Everyone Is You and Me
By adjusting the light levels on either side of this half-silvered glass, you and a friend can merge your faces into a single composite face.
Icy Bodies
Like comets, these chunks of dry ice slowly disintegrate as they move, leaving a visible trail of condensed water vapor.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
About
The Learning Studio is a workshop in the Exploratorium dedicated to experimentation with ideas, tools, technologies, and new concepts in science, art, and learning. Folks from the Learning Studio created and run a dedicated space on the museum floor where that experimentation turns public: we are interested in offering opportunities for people to engage in making, tinkering, delightful explorations of concepts and materials, and a playful atmosphere in which to actually be thoughtful about the world around us.
Liquid Litmus
See the chemical reactions taking place in an electrolytic cell, as electricity flowing through a tank of salt water and pH-indicating dye creates zones of acidic (yellow) and basic (blue) solutions.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
Balloon bass exploration
This video showing an awesome balloon bass was the starting point of our own exploration yesterday afternoon: Before going home I decided I would quickly try to make my own balloon bass, and pulled out some balloons we conveniently had in the Learning Studio. Ryan and Ann where in the room, and as often happens, they were sucked into "play" mode with me.
Pendulum Snake
Lift the handle to start this row of pendulums swinging, and then watch as they move in and out of a repeating series of mesmerizing patterns.
Time to Think
At this exhibit, you can test your reaction time in three different scenarios—each requiring an increasing amount of thought. In the process, you can actually measure the time it takes your brain to accomplish the extra work of making a (fast) decision.
He's outdone himself (again)
Automata artist and longtime Learning Studio friend, Keith Newstead, has done it again. This time, he's experimenting with soft mechanical elements and water, all in the same piece.
Vortex
A twist of a knob sets water jets in motion, causing water in this giant cylindrical tank to spin. Soon, a tiny vortex appears at the surface, gradually swelling in size as it snakes downward.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
Aeolian Landscape
Aeolian Landscape presents a swirling storm of sand inside a large chamber covered by a plexiglass top. A knob on the top of the exhibit rotates a sturdy fan set in the base of the chamber.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
Braided Stream
This artwork features air bubbling up through a fine powder constrained between two glass plates tilted at a 45 degree angle. The tilting creates a continually changing landscape evocative of aerial photographs of river drainage networks on Earth and on Mars.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
Chaotic Pendulum
The visitor gives an initial twist to the pendulums with a protruding knob. Intuition says that the resulting motion of this system should be, if not simple, at least predictable. Intuition, however, does not work with this device since its motion is chaotic, extremely complicated and long-lived.
Where: Ray and Dagmar Dolby Atrium
Circling Wave Umbrella
Fluttering waves whirl around the edge, creating patterns of evenly spaced ripples.
Confused Sea
Air blowing over the surface of water inside a large Plexiglas hemisphere mimics the action of the wind over the ocean by generating waves. The waves slowly change and build until the entire volume of water is circulating as one wave. Viewers can adjust the speed of the air blower and influence the building of the waves.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
Disappearing Glass Rods
When light passes from one clear medium into another, it (usually) bends—a phenomenon called refraction. Distortions caused by refraction are part of why you can see objects that are clear.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
Disappearing Rings
Lower these rings into the Bay and see just how far you can see into the water. One of the San Francisco Bay’s defining features, sediment flows from the delta change with the seasons. This exhibit is based on a scientific observational instrument called a “secchi disk,” which scientists use to determine water clarity.
Where: Gallery 5: Outdoor Exhibits
Flock
Experiment with a mathematical model of birds in flight
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Fluttering
A constant stream of air forces a lightweight piece of free-flowing fabric up into the air. The normally invisible air current is suddenly transformed into a colorful visualization of the complexity of the air stream.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
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