Conquering The Pulley Chairs

Maria*, a first-grader, steps up to a strange machine in the center of WonderLab’s first floor. She looks at it, intimidated but determined to prove that she can conquer this contraption. Her first challenge is height; the seat she must climb on in order to proceed is a foot-and-a-half above the ground - to her,...

Great Balls of Fire

There is one WonderLab exhibit that you always have to reach out and touch. It stands right in the entrance to the gallery. Playing with it is almost like a rite of passage. It consists of a long wire running to the ceiling and a stack of four balls of descending size. Lift the stack...

Nailed It!

The first floor of the WonderLab has a whimsical, eclectic appearance with bright colors, exhibits of all shapes and sizes and kids running everywhere.  Even with all this bustle and activity my eye is naturally drawn to the shimmery display in the back of the room. There sits, in all its glory, one of WonderLab’s...

A GIANT MECHANICAL CRANE!!!

While WonderLab has a number of exciting and eye-catching exhibits, none has ever struck me as much as the Giant Mechanical Crane on the second floor. Signified by a yellow wire cage surrounding a building area, it’s a deceptively simple-looking exhibit. There are no instructions. Visitors, or interns like me, have to sit down and...

The Magnificent Magnetoscope

On the first floor of the museum, just outside the Bubble Room, sits the MagnetoScope. On my first day here at WonderLab my boss had me play in the with the exhibits in the museum, so I could get familiar with what I would be writing about. Despite its small stature, at least in comparison...

The Weird and Wonderful Theremin

If you stand on the second floor of WonderLab Museum of Science, Health and Technology, you may hear a strange, eerie noise. Don’t worry, aliens aren’t invading! The wailing you can hear even over the sounds of the Xylopipes and the Heartbeat Drum is actually a musical instrument. That small yellow tower next to the...

Sleepy Brain Equal Bad

I do know that I’ve personally experienced all of the other side effects. I’ve hallucinated horrifying faces staring at me during fits of insomnia, lost my temper over tiny and otherwise unimportant events, remembered events that never took place, said things that I knew I shouldn’t have, and experienced my thought processes slowing down the more tired I become.

Viruses in the Body

I spent all of last week lying in my dorm room with the lights off. While that kind of break may sound like fun, it wasn’t. Like so many over the last few months, I was sick with the flu. In fact, 100 years after the worst flu pandemic in history, the United States is...

So, What Happens in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory?

If you were born in the 1970s or later, chances are you grew up watching either Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory starring Gene Wilder or, in the case of much of my generation, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp. Regardless of which film you grew up with you were sure to be...

Break Down or Study Break

While people all over the U.S. just had Thanksgiving, students may have been looking forward to it the most. The Monday before break I was in the communal bathroom in my dorm, getting ready for my 8 a.m. class when the girl I always make small talk with in the morning looked me dead in...