Quarter classics (was: Big Iron Was:RE: Backwate

From: Hans Franke <franke_at_sbs.de>
Date: Wed Jun 24 06:09:45 1998

> Incidentally, I spent a lot of time today in the Boston Science Museum.
> They have some old models, even a functional steam engine, but also a
> lot of hands on junk. Although kids do enjoy touching things and often
> regard untouchable museums as boring, there is the issue of the
> usefullness of the things, and even the issue of what knowledge we are
> propagating to the children. Many of the exhibits were broken. The
> robots exhibit had an arm shooting hoops. The worst it got was with the
> model of the NASA Dante II robot. It was hands-on, all right: press the
> up button to move a leg up, and the down button to move it down. Just
> one leg. BTW, they had an early Amiga in one kiosk. At any rate, I was
> kinda bored with so much floor space taken up by junk.

The Boston Science Museum is an impressiv thing - or should be.
I been there twice. Theoretical they could be a in competition
with the Deutsches Museum, but in fact a lot displays look more
like a storage back yard than a museum. Just putin some maybe
similar things in one space, without any description or system.
The tragedy is that some are real nice things, but without
proper integration even the best exhibit is just crap no matter
if hands on or not. In contrast to the basic exhibitions, special
shows (like the 'Jurasic Park' exhibition or 'Boston Underground')
are made with a huge effort but only a little information to tell.
Maybe they are just no longer interestet in a general purpose (*G*)
museum and change to a theme park including merchandise ...

Gruss
H.

Btw: They have (had ?) a nice hands on display about mechanics
     (ropes and levers), made completely from wood (Again just
     standing senseles without any proper guide ).

--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
Received on Wed Jun 24 1998 - 06:09:45 BST

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