Since it threatened to rain all day, we decided it would be good to visit the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland. The museum was housed in a collection of buildings on the river. Part of the museum was in an old steam power plant. There was also a decommissioned Navy submarine, a planetarium and an IMAX theater.
Our Florida Air Museum membership (ASTC) gave us free admission.
This was an above average snack shop.
All of this to play Connect Four! It was really fun.
The physics lab was probably the most interesting to me. There was a strobe light shining on a stream of water. The frequency of the strobe light could be adjusted to "freeze" the motion of the water into droplets. There was also a pair of electrodes you could grip while the docent cranked an attached magneto. The high voltage would make your muscles twitch, creating a very strange feeling. Sadly, the Van de Graaff generator was not working or I would have had to make my hair stand on end for a picture! I could tell Joani liked the lab as well - she took a lot of pictures in there.
I finally found Waldo!! Hiding in a physics lab at OMSI.
Yet another iteration of a Harmonograph.
Each a bit different, but always fun!
We saw a Pendulum Wave Machine in Boise, only it was room-sized. But, this one showed it's math.
The plasma tube was fun, but we had to make sure we didn't touch each other or cross the streams inside the tube - that would be very bad (according to the Ghostbusters).
Plasma tube was invented by Nikola Tesla in the 1890s.
4:17:46 would be a very bad time to drive home
In several halls between exhibits, there were brain teasers. We were able to figure out most of them, but there were a few that eluded us. It was a bit frustrating that there was no place to find answers. On one puzzle, after we invested a good amount of time, we noticed the fine print - this puzzle has never been solved.
David blew my mind!!! He got the job done.
The infrared cameras are always good for a few minutes of entertainment! Luckily, there was no one around to see us making faces like 5 year-olds.
As an example of serendipitous timing, we found ourselves pretty much finished with the museum at 4:45. I realized traffic would not be good at this hour and looked for something else to do. Joani asked at the desk about the IMAX movie and found the last movie was at 4:00, but there was a free showing at 5:00 (first come, first served) which would be the last time ever. The IMAX projector was scheduled to be replaced - no more IMAX film - it will be all digital.
The projectionist addressed the audience before the movie (Ring of Fire) with a few comments. He had worked there since the theater was opened in 1992 and it was clear he was a bit sad to see the change. When the lights came up after the movie, the speakers were illuminated behind the screen. I should have realized there would have to be so many speakers to create the massive sound we heard. They also gave us all souvenir sections of actual IMAX film as we left the theater. While it was a somber time for the employees, my sympathy for the plight of the theater was offset by the light traffic on our six-mile journey back home for the evening.
There were 7 (maybe 8) of these huge speaker clusters behind the dome screen.
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