Outside of the gravity room area, on the ground floor, there was a hand-wound clock by the entryway coming off the hallway. This clock had removable pegs located in a box off to the side that children could pick up and insert into holes in a large wheel gear that allowed the crank to turn at different speeds depending on how far apart the gear pegs were placed. The average age of the visitors I witnessed interact with this contraption was anywhere from 4-6 years old. At a time, there were only about 2 or 3 kids at most at the clock (often one lone kid), and they dispersed quickly because it was difficult to figure out and apparently not very rewarding to play with for the youngsters. When there was more than one kid interacting with this clock, the other kids just watched the one kid playing with it since there was nothing for the other kids to do. What sparks the kids interest initially is the big wheel protruding from the clock that looks like it wants you to turn it. Once you begin turning it, a large horizontal wheel begins to spin which looks kind of cool but has no real tangible output other than rotation (until you put pegs in). Many kids did not know that you were supposed to put pegs in or how it was supposed to work, and there were no directions for how to do so. Autonomy objective was not met because I witnessed no kids experience success in using the machine, so they couldn’t “do it by themselves”. Initiative was not met because no kids knew what to do besides turn the wheel and it wasn’t clear enough that pegs were supposed to go in the holes. There was no facilitator present to help the kids, though I suspect even if there were the kids would not be that into using the clock because it was too complicated with not a very flashy output (it just drives a large grandfather clock on the other side that the kids cannot see). The piece itself also did not relate to any other pieces around it so it wasn’t a logical step through the space.
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