Diving and Climbing Sparkies Go to a Summer Camp

Tanya Garner, Lemelson Center’s Interpretative Exhibit Manager, goes to a school in Washington View once a week for an all-girls summer camp. She invited us to bring the Diving Sparky and Climbing Sparky to test it out with the camp’s participants. Since I have been testing the Diving Sparky and Climbing Sparky activities with a number of Spark!Lab visitors for over a week, we felt that both activities are now ready to travel.

        

Inventors' Week at the Spark!Lab

In celebration of National Inventors' Month (2009), the Spark!Lab partnered with Lego for a weekend of inventing. For August 1 and 2, Lego builders set up shop at the National Museum of American History’s lobby to create an eight-foot tall bulb completely made up of Lego bricks. Museum visitors helped by creating the bricks, while the builders assembled the bulb.

The seven-foot LEGO light bulb and its mini-me

Joe and the Diving Sparky

Experiments and activities at the Spark!Lab normally starts at 11am. However, at the request of two docents who were eager to learn how to conduct the Diving Sparky activity, I started facilitating the first activity at 1030 am.  Ten kids participated during the first round. As these kids were leaving the bench (this is how we call the table where experiments are done), eight more kids immediately took their place! So as not to disappoint them, we decided to conduct another activity right away. This time, however, I asked Joe to facilitate the activity. Joe is one of the docents who has been very enthusiastic about the Diving Sparky activity and was very interested in conducting it himself. He has been observing me conduct the Diving Sparky every time he is on duty at the Spark!Lab. 

Visiting the museum next door: National Museum of Natural History

We usually have two or more docents and volunteers at the Spark!Lab every morning. But for some reason, this morning there weren’t any volunteer or docent at the Spark!Lab. So it was up to me and Danielle Weaver (one of three of Spark!Lab’s part-time facilitators) to conduct all the activities. There were a lot of visitors at the Spark!Lab today so Danielle and I did two experiments simultaneously. Danielle facilitated the DNA extraction, while I chose to do the CO2 experiment. After conducting three back-to-back experiments within two hours (we normally just conduct experiments every hour on the hour unless there are a lot of visitors), I was more than ready to take my break and do something else! Luckily, some of the docents and volunteers arrived and took over.

Developing the Diving and Climbing Sparkies

For my internship project, I was tasked to develop activities/experiments that can be implemented at the Spark!Lab. Since the Spark!Lab focuses on creativity and invention, I decided to create two activities that support both. Steve and I both agreed that making toys that explain basic science concepts would be a good activity for kids. Thus, I started developing one diving toy, based on the Cartesian Diver, and a climbing toy, based on something I read online.

Cartesian Diver

Toys...

For next month’s Toy Building Workshop at the Spark!Lab, Steve and I had a long discussion about the kinds of toys we use to play with when we were kids. But aside from the regular off the shelf toys like Barbie dolls, robots, GI Joes, trucks, cooking se, legos and etc., I recall that I also had some toys that we just made from found objects. This had me thinking that back then kids had to be more creative and imaginative when they were playing. A chair is no longer just a piece of furniture you sit on but it can also be a race car, a bus, a sari-sari store or even a control chamber of a gigantic robot!

Carbon Dioxide Experiment

Day four of internship: Thursday, June 25

Steve asked me if I wanted to do the Carbon Dioxide experiment and I excitedly said YES! After three days of reading the manuals, observing the experiments and shadowing the facilitators, I finally felt I was ready to lead one of the experiments on my own.

"Playing" with the kids before the experiment

One billion and five hundred forty million

Today I learned my height in nanomillimeters: 1,540,000,000. Wow, that's a lot of zeroes, I feel taller! I should remember this and start writing it down when forms asks for my height :)

First day as an Intern

We were asked to show up at the employee entrance of the National Museum of American History (NMAH) at 10 am today. Although I live about four miles and 3 Metro stops from the NMAH, I decided to leave the apartment at 9am. Thanks to the Metro, it only takes about 30 minutes for me to travel from door to door, oh how I've missed living in the big city!

Sneak peak at the Lemelson Center

I arrived in Washington, DC on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 17. Since my internship does not start until June 22 and I have some time on my hands, I decided to re-visit the National Mall the following day. It has been almost seven years since my last visit and I have forgotten how many people come to see its museums! If only visiting museums could be as popular in the Philippines...

Summer Internship at the Smithsonian

Excerpt from the e-mail I received this afternoon...

*******************************

Dear Ethel,

We would be delighted for you to join us 
this summer as an intern! After talking with you and reviewing your 
resume, **** and I both feel that your breadth of experience in 
developing programs and activities both for in-museum and online 
audiences will be of great value to us as we continue to improve and 
refine Spark!Lab. In turn, I think it will provide you with good 
experience in working with a large volume of visitors from very diverse 
backgrounds.

*********************

I still cannot believe it... two months at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington DC!!! I am sooooo excited!!!

Talk about a dream come true!


It might be time to update this picture taken over 7 years ago :)