Field trip - The Tech

Mark had to take some vacation hours or loose them, so we decided to take the kids to the Tech Museum this morning. Sayer was eager to go chase the spotlight again, and Duncan talked about the magna-tiles he played with on our last trip.

When we got there we went downstairs and Sayer went right over to try to jump on the spotlight. Duncan went right back to the magna-tiles. :)

After a bit, Sayer came into the room where Duncan was playing and had fun with a crank that turned a giant screw so that plastic balls were moved up a tube to a hole. When the balls came out the hole they had a tendency to bounce down onto the head of the person doing the cranking. Sayer got a couple bonks :) I chased the balls for her for several minutes while she stayed there and cranked away. Eventually I pointed out that others would like a turn, and she gracefully moved away. We tried to use the bug display, where the camera takes your pic and puts it on a digital bug and you move around a toy bug to make the digital version with your face zoom around the screen and interact with other bugs. The butterfly didn't respond well, and the other bugs were taken by other kids, so we wandered away. Mark stayed with Duncan, still happily engrossed with the magna-tiles.

Sayer wandered into a room where they had an earthquake simulator. We got on. Sayer built a building with foam blocks on a shelf in the simulator, then we got to experience the Loma Prieta earthquake. Her building did not survive. She built another one for an earthquake in Turkey, which also did not survive. We wandered away from the exhibit, though we did return to it later to re-experience Loma Prieta. This time, the bottom 3 floors of her 5 or 6 story building survived, and the 4th floor was close.

From the earthquake exhibit we went to a display where Sayer used buttons to control water jets on an underwater rover. Then we moved from under the sea to outer space. We walked past a volunteer who was staffing a station where air jets could make a chair hover so that astronauts could train on how to manipulate controls to maneuver in space. Sayer was short for the chair, but she still got in and drove it (with surprising skill and ease!) in order to point a red light coming up from the head of the chair at a green blinking target on the ceiling. She did it a couple times. The volunteer and I both watched with amazement as she did it so easily. And it wasn't really as easy for her as it would have been if she were taller. Because she is small, in order for her hands to reach the controls she had to sit forward, rather than recline, which meant that she had to crane her head back to see where the red light was in relation to the green target. If she'd been able to lay back ...

About then Mark and Duncan joined us. Duncan had voluntarily left the magna-tiles and asked to see other things. Mark pointed out that what he'd mostly wanted to see was Mommy :)

Sayer and I sat in an interactive display about the planets for a while, and Duncan and Mark wandered off. Later, when we found them, Duncan showed Sayer how he was controlling a rover like the one sent to Mars.

We all wandered over to an area where they have interactive displays on solar, wind, and water energy. The kids could aim reflectors from a bright lamp to try to hit solar panels to light up various things on a 'city' board. They could use tinker-toy-esque pieces to build water wheels or windmills to see what shapes and angles work best.

It was a short visit, because we had to take Mark to work for the afternoon, but we had fun. Sayer had wanted to see one of the movies in their IMAX dome theater, but when we got there the place was swamped with school groups and they were all headed into the theater. I'm going to ask the museum what times/days are their least busy, and we'll head there then.

After we took Mark to work we went to a favorite Chinese restaurant for lunch, then to the bookstore next door to it. While in the bookstore Sayer turned around and saw the back of one of the books in my arm for purchase. Her face fell. She said 'why do you always get more school books?' I turned it around and showed it to her. It's a Kumon Maze book. She likes mazes. A lot. She went from looking crestfallen at having another boring school book to being excited and happy. I offered to put it back if she really didn't want me to get it, but she demurred. :)