Engineering with Guests

For the evening events I have been attempting to demonstrate the each if the activities on the second floor. That way quests that may not want to spend much time building on the roll-it wall or at the Keva Planks can see the potential and may be encouraged to participate in the moment or return for another visit. For the event on Wednesday 11/7/18, I built a couple of towers during my afternoon shift and left them up for the event. I did not expect the interaction that followed.

During the event I came up the backstairs and saw one quest adding pieces to the top of the tower I had built (photo credit to Stephanie). The guest was being very careful with his placement. He seemed to have one goal and that was to keep building the tower higher and higher. He went as far as to find the tallest guest and enlist them to help in his mission. The second guest was able to add more than a foot in height. The first guest had chosen a simple be sturdy and effective design using two vertically stack pieces on each layer and the second guest continued with this design. 

Today I spent the morning on the second floor behind a program cart I had not done before. I was talking to guests about momentum and gravity using the steel balls and the tracks. After talking to guests about the physics I encouraged them to build their own track on the roll-it wall. I noticed that most of the guests that I interacted with took the time to visit the wall. The guests the visited the wall took the time to play with the tracks up on the wall and change one or two things. Some just rolled the balls, but that interaction is still and intentional exploration of the principals I discussed.  I was pleased to see the guests using the space and exhibits. I was encouraged by the interactions and would suggest that we find a connection between the program carts and the exhibits to better encourage guests to use the knowledge discussed at the carts in the museum.