MSI again

I grabbed a free ride to the Museum of Science and Industry again yesterday (Thanks M!) and enjoyed myself a lot! I checked out a bunch of the exhibits I didn't get to last time:

Baby chicks:

11 AM:

2 PM:

By 3:30 there were 13 chicks hatched, but they were all still damp looking. The other incubator had the cute, fluffy, peeping ones.

I checked out the chemistry exhibits, and the You! exhibits about the body (quite good!) and the plumbing exhibit, and the energy exhibit, and of course the Fairy Castle, but I tried to make as many of the shows and demonstrations that I could fit in. I saw a demonstration/science project on the digestive system (so much fun I want to make sure to take P there next month... right up a 9-year-old boy's alley!); a balcony toss (throwing balls off the balcony... I wished they had talked about gravity instead of about elasticity); I caught the bang! demonstration again from the balcony; and there was a demonstration about chemistry bonds. Pretty difficult to explain in a 15 minute activity. While I was resting (knitting) waiting for another exhibit they demonstrated the Tesla Coil right overhead:

Pretty impressive! Then I went to a demonstration of a medical school teaching robot:

First we checked his vitals on a normal baseline, and then the demonstrator fiddled with the controls, and he showed all the signs of asthma, which we diagnosed with no trouble. Finally I went to a Brrr-day party (for H.G. Wells... he wasn't there) and we "played" with liquid nitrogen, frozen balloons, boiling liquid nitrogen that tooted party noisemakers, and ice cream that was made by mixing room temperature ice cream mix with liquid nitrogen. I just had so much fun!

Then I walked back to M's office, about a mile, on a lovely September afternoon, sunny and breezy. What a wonderful day!