Blog #2 - Danielle Tisdale

            At MOXI, guests have so many interesting ideas about the exhibits and program carts that it's hard to choose just one example of ideas that surprised me. One I hadn’t heard before was the other day at Mindball, two guests were trying to figure out how it worked, and they thought that the ball might react to how you squint your eyes or how hard you push your forehead against the magnets. My initial reaction was to ask them how the magnets could read what your face is doing, but I decided to just listen instead. They hadn't reached a solid conclusion on how it worked before they noticed the instructions and saw that it said that they should relax. Once they read that, they decided it read your brain waves, and then had a small eureka moment where they realized that although their original hypothesis was not entirely correct, it still fit with how mindball works. When I asked them about it, they demonstrated how when someone is really focused on mindball, the more likely they are to be squinting their eyes and pushing their forehead harder onto the magnets. The guests told me that you could see who would probably win when they first start the game because one person might be scrunching their face and focusing completely on the ball while the other person is more relaxed. So, while mindball isn't measuring their facial expressions, the facial expressions are an outward expression of the brain waves that mindball is measuring. I was pleasantly surprised that instead of just moving on because their original idea was wrong, they continued to engage with the exhibit and figured out how their idea does tie in with the exhibit. It’s so easy to just say “oh well” and move on when you find out your idea was wrong and you’re given the right answer, but I admired their commitment to finding their own answers.

            I’ve had a few “yes and…” experiences at MOXI, but my favorite was with a four-year-old boy on a quiet morning. He was wearing a Batman costume shirt so I went up to him and asked if he was Batman. He looked at me in confusion for a second, and then his face lit up and he said “YES!!” From there, he led me around the second floor, showing me the cars he built and how one was the Batmobile, obviously, because it was the fastest and coolest one. We played with a few other exhibits and then we worked on a house with a secret batcave for a long time. It wasn’t the most educational interaction I could have had, but it was fun and he got to really use his imagination. He has been to MOXI many times, and I think it was fun for him to get to experience MOXI as Batman, and it was good improv practice.