WOW Science Museum

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WOW Science Museum

• Initial Exhibits

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• Relief map linked to push-button to illuminate a
  select selection. Might be a good project to tie
  into faults lines.

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• Very simple, consistently a favorite. Blower with
  traffic cone acting as concentrator.

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• This is a shallow tank of water. There are two
  timers, each timer has a string attached. Pulling
  a string out resets its timer, letting go start
  the timer. Participants try different boat
  shapes, testing to see which shapes move best
  through the water.

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• Cup Copter. Large fan facing up. Paper cup cut
  and spun over fan. Object is to see how long it
  will fly and what effects flight.

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• Simple tool and materials. Paper cups, safety
  scissors and instructions.

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• Innovation is everywhere. Here the Denver museum
  put a window in the side of their escalator and
  added how it works instruction. Everyone stops to
  look.

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• The ever popular magnetic sand table.

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• Derivation of the magnetic sand table using
  washers. Very popular.

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• Liquid Mirror
• Place your hand in the water and see a reflection
  in the underlying mirrors.

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• Catch air bubbles as they rise through the water.
  Reflecting light and surface tension make the air
  bubbles appear to be drops of mercury.

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• Mirrored table allows shapes pushed against the
  mirrored walls to make larger geometric shapes.

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• Paper airplanes.
• Two person station with dual computer interface.

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• The visitor follows the direction on the monitor
  to fold a paper airplane.

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• Paper Plane software, Word Perfect Main Street.

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• Paper Plane targets, one high, one low.

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• Lego earth quake shake table.

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• Lincoln log shake table.

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• Cross Bracing earthquake table uses board with
  holes trimmed in velcro, pvc pipe and velcro
  straps.

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• Vibrating sand table.

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• Build your own rocket.
• Very popular exhibit. Several construction tables.

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• Materials include sheet paper, sheet card stock
  and 35 mm film canisters. Canisters are the
  engine section, sheet paper is the rocket body,
  card stock is used for nose cones and fins.

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• Rockets are place on machined tubes, pressure
  button charges launcher, launch button dumps air
  into rocket (inverted film canister) and off it
  flys.

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• Sailboats has left and right material tables,
  grilled fan output and a shallow water tank.

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• The visitor select a boat, sails and keel. Then
  test their choice in the tank.

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• Very basic graphical instructions. Large letters.
  Lots of drawings.

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• Masts, hulls, sails and keels.

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• Wind sailing.
• Uses three wheeled carts, different sail designs
  and fans.

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• Wheels with equal distributed weights. One wheel
  has its weights close to the axis of rotation
  and its mate is farther from the axis. Visitors
  see the effect as it rolls down hill.

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Large Exhibits

• These may be candidates for funded construction.

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• Fuel cell demonstrator. Object is to demonstrate
  energy storage. Solar, bright overhead lamp,
  breaks down water into oxygen and hydrogen which
  are then used to create electricity for the fan.

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• Icy Bodies
• Thin shavings of dry ice are injected onto the
  surface of a shallow pool of water where they
  careen around like comets.

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• Tiny jets of gas shoot out from the individual
  ice fragments causing them to spin and tumble as
  they drift about. Side-lighting brings out the
  detailed structure of the out-gassing jets.

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• Cloud Rings uses a mist generator and a large
  rubber membrane with a hole in the middle to
  launch a ring of vapor up to the ceiling.

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• The ring is generated by the friction between the
  hole's edge and the vapor flowing through the
  hole, which forms a swirling pattern known as a
  vortex.

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• Trinocular microscope with video camera. Large
  and small LCD display. Stage steer-able with
  remote focus.

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• Giant Microscope is a projecting microscope with
  which the public can view tiny plants and
  animals, such as paramecium, baby brine shrimp,
  tunicate eggs, algae, and hydra, which would be
  difficult or impossible to see with the naked
  eye.

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• This seismograph is an earthquake detector that
  records up and down motions of the ground.

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• The half size version of the Tornado uses a large
  mist generator, fans and a care fully-shaped
  structure to produce a large tornado.

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• Large phosphor screens store light from a strobe
  flash, temporarily freezing the visitors shadow.
  A warning sounds just a few seconds before the
  strobe flashes so visitors can jump, stretch,
  pose and catch a good look at their acrobatic
  shadow.

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• A pinhole aperture place in a beam of sunlight
  casts an image of the sun onto a screen,
  revealing solar features including sunspots.

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• Listening Vessels consists of two large parabolic
  reflectors set at least 50 feet apart which act
  as mirrors to reflect sound from one to the
  other.

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• The Jacob's Ladder is familiar equipment to all
  science fiction fans, being standard laboratory
  apparatus for all mad scientists.

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• The Geochron is an instrument which displays the
  extent of the earth that is covered in sunlight
  on the current day at the current time.

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• Overhead crane. One wheel lifts, one wheel moves
  the lifting mechanism in and out. Object is to
  put a box on the converyor.