I chose to observe the structures on the ceiling that guides the ball to move around. The intended use case is that the user loads the ball in a carrier, then moves the ball up to the ceiling where all the guiding wires are located. By maintaining the ball at a certain speed, the ball will be popped on to the guiding wires and starts to roll down in a large circular path around the ceiling, and eventually rolls back the starting position where the user loads the ball. The exhibit is located right next to the wood shop next to the lobby.

The engagement of this exhibit was mixed with both children and adults. Visitors usually came in as families. The children were very interested in the mechanism that raises the ball to the ceiling but were not so excited by, if not ignored, the structures at the ceiling. This indicated that children are more easily to be attracted to something that is obvious and can be manipulated easily. And the moving parts had the most significant impact on the children’s autonomous engagement to the device.

Most of the parents would watch their kids to manipulate the mechanism for a while, and then got involved to try the entire procedure by themselves. After figured out the process, they would turn to their children and show them how everything on the ceiling was connected with the raising mechanism. They would then guide their children to move the ball up with a controlled speed and unload the ball on the structure on the ceiling. During this process, some of the children got bored and move to other exhibits that were also shown in the room, while the others would be patient and feel achieved after they succeeded. Some of the kids would even want to try to do it by themselves entirely. Thus, I think children’s further development on more complex systems depends on the characters of each individual and different kids would behave differently.

The entire structure presents aesthetic by not only arranging the structure on the ceiling in a circular shape but also by making the declination angle small so that the ball moves slowly on the wires.