WoodWorking

You sometimes forget that almost everything that goes into an exhibit needs to be fabricated in-house. For example, this past week I helped sand and paint wooden arrows that are going to be used for the Antarctica exhibit. The idea here is to create one of those sign posts that points to different major cities and states how many miles you are from them. Similar to this:

I hadn't really done any wood-work (like shop class in high school) before, so it was pretty neat to be able to both use power tools and paint these pieces. It will probably be even cooler when the actual things I worked on go out for display on the floor.

The workshop is in the basement, and it's a little surprising how you don't realize that there would be one if you didn't know. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the offices to the Exhibits and Education department are downstairs as well as the workshop and the audio-visual workshop too. The offices for the CFO and CEO of the museum are on the 4th floor (which is the same as the roof access to the observatory on the top of the building. You definitely get a better grasp on how much there is behind the scenes at a museum after working at one. For example, going back to my Spring Break experience at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, there are tons and tons of cabinets and hallways filled with preserved specimens that the public never gets to see. It's a bit different at the Maryland Science Center since there's really no collection of specimens, but there does need to be a lot of space to fabricate many of the exhibits that visitors see on the floor.

There's only a few more weeks left in the semester, but to look forward to next semester -- I'll actually be able to go in on a weekday in the Spring. Hopefully this will give me a better idea about the logistics and planning behind the exhibits. So far this year I've only been able to get to the museum around 4pm on Fridays, right around when people in the office start to leave (and the weekends when no one is there). Lastly, go see Harry Potter in IMAX at the museum if you hadn't already. =)

Hubble 3D

This past weekend was pretty light in terms of work, so I used it as an opportunity to experience the entire museum. I actually have not been able to do everything in terms of the whole visitor experience yet, and this was the best chance to do so since I began interning at the Maryland Science Center.

I actually noticed some displays and exhibits for the first time. For example, in the Dinosaurs part of the museum, they had a live lizard and a live African bullfrog (which was absolutely massive -- like a pile of snot the size of a small plate). There are a surprising amount of live animals in the entire complex. In addition to the ones in the Dinosaurs exhibit, there are live blue crabs and terrapins in the Chesapeake area on the third floor. I will have to look into how the museum keeps everything alive and happy, because so far I have not heard from anyone in the Exhibits Department that they are the ones who take care of the creatures.

Saturday was also the first time I saw an IMAX 3D movie at the Maryland Science Center. Luckily for me, employees get free tickets to movies there, so I finally decided to see Hubble 3D. To give a brief overview, Hubble 3D is a 45 minute film narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio about the service missions that have been performed on the Hubble Space Telescope. Hopefully most people are familiar with how when Hubble was first launched into space, its images were blurry because of a slight deformation in the telescope's mirror (this error was actually pretty tiny, but resulted in huge effects in the optics -- that's my astrophysics background kicking in). The visuals were pretty amazing, both the actual footage of astronauts performing spacewalks to repair components and the 3D animations of nebulae and star-systems. I could actually see a little girl in the audience reach up multiple times during the film and try to catch the objects coming out of the screen-- hopefully a sign that the movie will inspire some people to further investigate this field of science.

Anyways, there was also the Antarctica event that I mentioned in the last blog post. I didn't specifically look for any of the images I helped find, but the exhibit was on the third floor. There was a special talk given on the demonstration stage aimed at the children and research posters from an expedition with people ready to talk about their findings with the visitors. I have found that at a science museum, the exhibits people work very closely with those from the education department. For example, the talk given on Antarctica was given through the education people, yet the floor pieces that went along with this theme were put together by the Exhibits Department. The people at each poster were from Education though.

The one thing that I didn't get to do that I will try to accomplish in the next few weeks is seeing a planetarium presentation. The one called "Dark Matters" was actually created in conjunction with a few professors from the Hopkins Physics & Astronomy Department. I actually first inquired about working at the science museum because I had seen the story of the collaboration between JHU and the Maryland Science Center a couple years ago regarding this project. It should also be noted that some of the professors in the department are world experts on Dark Energy and Dark Matter -- two of the most exotic and enticing ideas in modern science in my opinion.

In conclusion, this weekend was a good break from the office work I had been doing lately. I think that's the benefit of working in a place like a museum; taking a break and just walking around the facilities is probably better here than in most workplaces.

COLD!

So it's November now, and the weather is getting cold. Also, I've been working on things relating to the cold at the musem -- namely, things for the Antarctica and Astrobiology exhibits. Just thought I would give a much needed update since the last post, so here it is:

The museum is currently in the planning stages of a couple exhibits, and I have been searching for photographs and pictures to use. The first deals with astrobiology. I actually have already had a small taste of what astrobiology is from researching some topics related to the field a while back in this internship.

To sum it all up, astrobiology is the study of biology/life beyond Earth. It is believed that life in space would look a lot like the organisms that can survive in the harshest climates on our very own planet. These organisms are called extremophiles, and I have been searching for photographs of these creatures. Most extremophiles are single celled bacteria, but the most interesting one I found was called a "methane ice worm" (pictured below)

I also have been looking for pictures that illustrate how coronagraphs and interferometry work in terms of optical astronomy. Basically, coronagraphs work by blocking out the sun/star so that you can see fainter signals in the background (i.e. a planet). Interferometry uses destructive interference to basically cancel out foreground/background light so that fainter images can be seen as well. It's been interesting to see how much I've gotten to learn about different disciplines just from searching for photographs and pictures dealing with astrobiology.

The other exhibit that may be opening soon is about Antarctica. I also worked on finding images that portray this landscape (i.e. emperor penguin, moss/lichen, protective clothing, and an arctic tern). In addition to this, I did some clerical work in helping to fill out an Excel spreadsheet containing all of the different vendors the Maryland Science Center Exhibits Department deals with. Vendors include stores/catalogs where they get their build supplies to video services and custom fabrication companies. Despite being very "office work" type stuff, it was interesting to see how many different things go into a functioning exhibits department.

Basically in recent weeks I've been doing research and computer-related things. I still have yet to see my first IMAX movie here, so I think that will happen soon. Next week is supposed to be the installation of the Antarctica exhibit so I hope to help out with that or at least check it out during its initial stages to when it opens to the public.