As one enters the Children’s Museum, past the entrance on the first floor to the right is a series of different themed rooms. The first one will encounter is the Attic, where several whimsical design and play sets are on display. Further down the dark hall comes the next room, the Garage. This brightly lit,large domed-shaped room, seemed to be the heart of the museum. The theme of the room, seemed to revolve around mechanical curiosities and inventions. From wheels, to a wooden giant, and balls being guided by small wires, this room seemed to be the most intriguing of all the rooms as it contained objects that could intrigue both adults and children. Observing the room for some time I couldn’t help but be caught in attention by the array of bouncing noises coming from the first object on display by the entrance.

The “Bounce Array” operated on very simple means. First, push a series of orange ball up to the top of the system, then pull down a lever and the balls are released.  Seems boring at first, but after a while of observing the interaction of children and adults with the machine I came to notice that the part children adored most about the machine was not the release of balls, but rather the way in which they where released. The 16 orange balls where set off, not at the same time, but on a delay of 50 milliseconds per ball. This delay in release caused the balls to drop and bounce in a parabolic motion for about 8 seconds, before dissipating into a more chaotic, non-synced motion.

Though adults in general found the machine itself not very intriguing, they still seemed to stay to watch their children fiddle with it. At times some of the adults would stand encouraging their children to lift all 16 of the balls up. It began to seem like an exercise for patience at some point.

The children on the other hand enjoyed dancing to the bounce of the balls as they fell. The array of balls falling in a wave-like motion sparked the attention of the children. Sometimes other children would come up and chime in to push

all 16 balls up, out of curiosity in what pushing down the big black lever would do. Because pushing buttons and levers always seemed to intrigue children.