Chicago Day 3: Museum of Science and Industry

We six agreed that of all the items in our CityPass booklet, the Museum of Science and Industry was what we were most eager to see. It was a RED line subway and a bus ride away, south of us. The bus route took us along the coast of Lake Michigan

So on the morning of Wednesday, September 27th we took the subway and are here at the metro stop waiting for our bus, the No. 6. We had planned to take the No. 2 but we learned after the fact that it was an express and only ran during rush hours. Our casual awakening and departure placed us too late for that.

You know the saying it takes a village to raise a child? We must have appeared anxious about missing our stop. All right, correction, I appeared anxious about missing our stop. We were passing a different museum, the Field Museum, and I was convinced that it had been our destination. We had the front half of the bus watching out for and reassuring us and saying: "Not yet", "Just a few more stops", "Almost ",  "Just chill. We'll let you know", "There! The next stop is yours". Chicagoans are very friendly and helpful.

Upon debarking from the bus we walked across the street and into the the entry level of the Museum of Science and Industry, a huge lobby which housed mainly the ticket counters and the museum store. We traded in our City Pass coupons for museum tickets and found we could add on one extra feature. John & Sue and Joe & Margaret chose the Robot Revolution; Frank and I picked the behind the scenes WOW! Tour.

The exhibits were on Balcony Level 3, Main Level 2, and Lower Level 1. We were advised to start at the top and explore our way down. An extensive collection of interactive activities on the Balcony Level was titled YOU! The Experience. I remember Margaret and I doing one on emotions where a participant was presented a phrase and the word for emotion. You were to say the phrase but assume a facial expression so the other participant could guess the emotion. We had fun with that. One even more interesting activity was where you sat at a long table (maybe 12 feet or so?) opposite a partner. In between you was a trough with a marble in it. You wore a band around your head that read some brain activity. The goal was to consciously relax your mind and then the marble would roll to the person with the more restful mind/brain waves. I could control myself to have a calmer mind than Margaret. When I played against Frank I initially was calmer, but when I saw that I was about to win, my mind betrayed me and became excited, thus losing. Drats!

A full size 727 aircraft hung in the open area of Balcony Level 3. A portion of one of its wings is visible in the far right edge of the following photo. Looking down from the balcony at the train layout below on Main Level 2, the extent of it was impressive. The scale model buildings of downtown Chicago echoed what we had just seen the day before on our river cruise. 

 I zoomed in for a closer look.

Seeing it with night lighting as well as in daylight gave us another perspective. We generally were snugly ensconced in our home base by night so did not see the downtown area in that illuminated scenario. Also, although these buildings are the on train layout, there are no trains among them. Of course not! In this part of town all the trains are underground. 

As we made our way down to Main Level 2. I snapped a few photos of items that although they were non-exhibits, I found them of interest none the less. There were green metal benches throughout, custom made with the museum name cut out in the back.

The elevator was lit up like an opening night at a Hollywood event gala and side windows allow watching progress between the floors.

 

I stared at this next photo for a while. Why on earth did I take this? If it was a selfie, why did I position myself on the seam of the mirror? Aha! Then the lightbulb moment went off in my head and I remembered. Immediately coming out of a bathroom stall you go to wash your hands, right? Where are the faucets? Where are the sinks? Note those three half-circle labels for DRYER, WATER, and SOAP. More than the streamline of modern design, they are so very well hidden.

We were on our way to Lower Level 1 to catch lunch before our 1:30 pm WOW Tour but we stopped at the  Main Level 2 to view the train layout at eye level.

From the balcony you can see a TV monitor mounted on the wall at the far end of the train layout. It displayed a video as captured by a camera mounted on the train so you could ride through the layout and see the scenery an engineer in the locomotive of the train would view.

Taking camera photos of a TV screen does not lead to great resolution, but I did put together the following views taken from the vantage point of the train engineer. The route was modeled to be from Chicago to Seattle; the railcars were to scale but the linear track length was not. The footprint of the museum would not have been large enough to accommodate it.

We parted with John & Sue and Joe & Margaret as they went off to their Robot Revolution while Frank and I went off to our WOW Tour. We lucked out. The tour was undersubscribed and Frank and I had the tour guide all to ourselves. We had a blast, he was great – knowledgable, personable and fun. And his name was Alex; how much better can you get?

We visited a display of mining equipment. I got to blow the elevator signal whistle heard loud and clear throughout the entire museum. I did not play it safe with the mine elevator signal code displayed on the sign. I tooted "shave and a haircut, two bits". Hmmm. Does that mean the miners would surface to get their hair trimmed?

Then we walked under the 727 suspended from the third level ceiling. We were handed a remote signaling device and Frank and I took turns powering up the controls on a 727 prior to landing. I lowered the landing gear and in the photo below Frank is shown positioning the reverse thruster to slow the plane for landing.

Other components that we engaged to move were the leading edge flaps, the ground spoilers, the lower and upper rudders, and the ailerons.

We moved on to see a replica of the Mars Rover Curiosity built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We learned that a government contract prohibits advertising or commercial display on the vehicle and so the vehicle does not anywhere display the company name or logo of its designer. 

 

It was called to our attention, however, that the wheels have "calibration markers" to calculate travel distances. Is it purely coincidence that those wheels bear a series of dot and dash markings that represent the letters JPL in Morse code? Those initials are left in the dust as track marks that the rover leaves as it travels over the Martian surface.

I think I can barely discern an "L" as the rightmost line of dots and dashes.

We went to the chick hatchery and saw two coming out of their shell as we watched. These chicks are used for genetic studies. In fact the color also denotes their gender.

As we were headed toward the final stops on our tour our guide handed us a tablet containing a  substance from a miracle berry. A miracle berry, unlike other plant material contains a glycoprotein. This protein alters the way the taste buds process and detect flavors. After letting this tablet dissolve on our tongue, we sucked on a section of lemon. It was as sweet as sweet can be!

Our final stop was behind the huge screen of Giant Dome Theatre. The photo I took appears to be just black but you can see traces of light from the audience area. The screen is filled with pinholes to allow for ventilation and temperature control. Being back there made me feel a bit sneaky, like I was getting away with something. Here we were, right there behind the screen and not a soul in the audience could detect our presence. Next time I am in a big screen theater I may fleetingly wonder if someone is behind the screen watching me. It made me think of the 1983 song Every Breath You Take by English rock band Police. Here is a YouTube link to it in case you have never heard it or have forgotten it and its haunting phrase I'll be watching you... in the lyrics.

After parting with our tour guide, Frank and I went through the LEGO exhibit, called Brick by Brick, on Main Level 2. I took pictures of what I thought were the most impressive recreations. The first, as soon as we entered the exhibit, was the Golden Gate Bridge.

A poster gave some facts about legos. Invented in Denmark in the 1950's the name is derived from the Danish words leg and godt which translates as "play well".

Although I am not quite sure of the significance in a LEGO exhibit – other than to display the value of pulleys – there was an interactive scale in which you could sit and lift your own weight.  I tried it out in the 6:1 ratio configuration. Piece a cake. Much better than that futile rope climbing in gym class as a child with a 1:1 ratio. I never could do that.

I thought the Roman Colosseum was very precisely assembled, also. On second thought, although it seemed very precise to me but I have never seen the real thing to validate that it is. I have seen the Golden Gate Bridge but never the Colosseum. I learned the Colosseum had eighty entrances installed so people could evacuate quickly in an emergency. These passageways were called vomitoria. Seriously, I kid you not. If you thought a vomitorium applied to a room where people over indulged in food as in times of Roman debauchery, you'd be wrong; though that definition does seem to fit better.

On a more pleasant note, the final structure I photographed was Cinderella's Castle of Walt Disney World fame. In the full scale structure the design calls for forced perspective. Bricks and windows in the high towers are actually smaller that the ones at the lower level so the castle, when viewed from ground level, appears taller than it really is. The bricks in Cinderella's Castle at the museum were of uniform size. By the way, the castle in Disneyland is Sleeping Beauty's, not Cinderella's. Inside it is a a series of dioramas telling the story of Sleeping Beauty.

Exiting the Brick by Brick attraction Frank and I took a brief stroll through the adjacent attraction Yesterday's Main Street of Chicago, tucked away in a back corner of Main level 2. The Jewel Tea Company was another example of forced perspective. The shop was not nearly as deep as it initially appears to be. 

I took a photo of the post office because of Frank's love of philately.

Here I am in front peeking over an old fashioned red mail box. The display was unique to Chicago and so I glad we spent a few minutes there. But I must admit, as someone from California, Disney's Main Street USA has this mini-stroll beat by a mile.

Having a daughter who lives in Oklahoma, we had to visit the Science Storms display. We did that while our friends were checking out the flight simulators one level up on the Balcony Level 3. I had no desire to flip flop my stomach. Tornados had more interest. Think big. Why settle for upsetting only a stomach when you could learn about overturning a whole house. There were interactive controls to create and tweak your own vortex such as the tornadoes that form across the plains. Franks's silhouette in the foreground is about six feet tall so that impressive vortex rose over 20 feet up toward the ceiling.

Time was growing short and we all still wanted to see the Numbers in Nature exhibit and the Mirror Maze tucked in another back corner of Main Level 2. The numbers exhibit addressed four patterns in nature: the spiral, the golden ratio, fractal branching, and voronoi patterns. I'd heard of the first three but not Voronoi patterns.

It is odd that voronoi was so foreign to me because these patterns are so prevalent in nature and the associated diagrams have applications in the natural science, health, engineering, geometry and informatics. This theory can be used to located the nearest hospital or map a path for a robot. Check out other applications at this Wikipedia Voronoi Diagram article. The simplest voronoi patterns are shown in the dense pack of kernels on corn on the cob or the methodic structure of a bee's honeycomb.

The mirror maze was fun to navigate and it was a challenge to not get lost. Based on these pictures, which way would you turn to exit?

Our last quick dash before museum closing was through Coleen Moore's Fairy Castle. It really needed more time than we had remaining. This miniature fairy castle was a dream of silent film start Coleen Moore. She had the financial means and artistic connections to fabricate this 8' x 8' x 9' marvel consisting of more than 1500 miniatures. Books in the library have text within them. I can only guess at what the font size would be. The castle was made in aluminum modules and could be packed for touring in custom crates. The touring castle raised $650,000 for children's charities during the Great Depression.  Here are some photos I captured. More of its story can be found at the Museum's website for the castle. One of the conditions Coleen Moore placed on her donation of the castle to the museum was that one day a year her grandchildren would be allowed to come in and play with it.

We passed by/through other exhibits on our way out. We'd run out of time but the red dots show what we did see in our day at the Museum of Science and Industry.  Our completion percentage was not too shabby.

Wednesday, September 27th was Frank's and my 42nd wedding anniversary. John & Sue and Joe & Margaret treated us to dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant call Orso's, just around the corner for our home base, visible from our windows. 

Not only was it close, the food excellent, the carafes of wine relaxing, and the desserts wickedly luscious, but the atmosphere was romantic and perfect for a warm celebration with friends. We three couples were all married within a year of each other and the marriages have lasted. How is that for a fairy tale story?