Our trip to the top of Mauna Kea on our vacation was full of science geek fun, but was diminished by the absence of the rest of the Explainers and Paul D.

Because of its height and clear skies, this is apparently one of the best places in the world for astronomical observatories. We didn’t get to go into the research telescopes, but the park guides set up scopes and showed us Saturn and the stars in the Milky Way.

As we were driving down, I think we saw the green flash.

The sky looked much more green than it does in this photo. But to be honest, I’m really not sure whether we saw it or not. According to my guide book (Hawaii the Big Island Revealed), the green flash occurs in super clear skies just after the sun goes down. The light is bent through the thickest part of the atmosphere, splitting into the colors of the rainbow. The green and blue are bent the most, and so you see green in the sky for a few moments. Anyway, I thought of all of you!

Happy America’s Birthday Day! I spent the day in Coney Island fulfilling an ultimate dream of mine…witnessing the majesty of the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog eating contest. There was a fine field of gurgitators but in reality the only two that mattered were Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut.  Kobayashi couldn’t compete with the upstart American who devoured 68 hot dogs in ten minutes.

It’s pretty incredible that these otherwise normal looking human beings can eat so much more than the average man or woman. I feel like I couldn’t eat more than 7 hot dogs in 10 mins. We also started trying to figure out what food we would want to competititvely eat. I said either strawberries or french fries. After the contest we watched the fireworks over the Hudson! All in all the ultimate way to spend the holiday. Hope everyone is doing well in San Fran.

Yesterday it rained for a second in Manhattan and after was the most amazing rainbow I’ve ever seen outside the window of the Space Dino dorm. It had a secondary rainbow on top and two extra groups of colors below. It made me wish that all of you were here in NYC listening to Paul D. explain what the heck was goin on. I miss all you explainers and will hopefully be making more reports from the east coast y’all.

The last day of Explaining this year, I got stuck got to be at Goofy Goggles for 2 consecutive hours.  Goofy Goggles was started as a floor activity for Explainers to engage visitors in, in the often chaotic skylight area after a fun Study Group led by Marcus and Antoine.  I went through a period when I was fascinated by the idea of changing your vision and rewiring your brain, so if you are curious, you can click here to read more about the science of goofy goggles.

 So since I was stuck with two pairs of goofy goggles for awhile, I decided that instead of passing basketballs like in our exhibit Hoop Nightmares, we were going to play four square!  Four square, which is already super fun without messing up your vision, became ridiculously fun when the people in squares A and B were forced to wear the goggles!  The kids were really into it, and it was fun to watch them take on other students, their teachers and chaperones, and other Explainers.  Lea suggested we try playing hopscotch and that proved to be a hit as well.  I have never had to think so hard about hopping in my life!

Here are some pictures!

A goggled-Gabriel takes on some kids in four square

Jarrod is sneaky good at four square. Where is Gabe facing? Is he trying to fake-out Jarrod, or can he just not see straight?

Until you've tried, you have no idea how hard she's trying to get one foot in 5 and the other in 6.

Goofy Hopping!

The playground...minus the geometry.

Gabe's brain got pretty good at defending square A with goggles on!

Today Ryan J. and I spent the last 1/2 hour of work building a perfect scaler model of our solar system out of shadows.  We had help from a precocious 5-year-old girl who had been inspired by a recent magic school bus episode on outer space.

 Please refer to the (below) photographs, taken from the Cell Phone Rover on the International Space Station. You might recognize our sun (left) , Saturn (dead center), and a rainbow (I’m not going to tell you because that’s pretty obvious).  

We notified our best astronaut friend, Bret, as soon as our photographs were transmitted, and he is making his happy face (although it looks rather frightened) because these photos further corroborate the heliocentric theory of the universe. (Perhaps this will finally convince the 20% of American adults who still believe the sun moves around us?) I’m pretty sure they also explain Dark Matter. See for yourself:

Check out Paul D. smash a cinder block on the chest of the non-holeyman. Much like cow eye tacos, don’t try this at home.

Bike to work month is in full effect and there are two explainer teams vying for the coveted frank/yoda trophy. We have our big wheels and our novices and only a few more days left in the competition. But last week we put our team affiliations aside and joined in a pancake breakfest before donning the orange vests and pedaling to the explainer lounge. Photographic evidence follows.

Last week Profs Ryan J. and Ryan K. led the group in a class about the poems and other literary allusions scattered around the museum. In a science museum we have quotes from Mrak Tiwan, lines from the Tempest, and a picture of Allen Ginsberg on a lotus flower. We thought that these works introduced another element of meaning to the exhibits. As well we checked out a much loved exhibit, now relegated to 1188.  In case you missed the training or if you were there and want to read the articles that we discussed and some that we didn’t. Here you go.

Dr. Seuss Meets Charles Darwin

Two Cultures Turns 50

Art Instinct

And when you finish those articles start reading Ulysses, you’re already 6 chapters behind!

Here I am, the ghost of explainers past, to present: chain reaction contraptions built as part of a training with PIE and the Learning Studio. This is just a small scale preview of the chaos we will unleash on the unsuspecting public at Maker Faire, coming up at the end of this month! Enjoy the videos.

On Friday those of us around the museum got the distinct treat of getting involved in an awesome temporary art installation by Shih Cheih Huang (CJ) who has spent the week at the Exploratorium sharing his work with us. With the simple materials of a box fan, bungee chords, a large plastic painters tarp, and the willing help of volunteer knot tiers, he created a magical moving tupe scuplture that looked like either small intestines, a a caterpillar, or a benign version of the smoke monster on LOST. In my mind, the coolest part was how co-workers from all over the museum appeared in the skylight to play together and participate in the unique experience. Everyone had giant smiles on their faces and I heard many people commenting about what a fun place we get to come to for ‘work’ everyday. Check out some photos I took of the festivities.

Here’s a link to Karen’s photos on Facebook

More photos of the artist’s works on his website