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. =)