Science Factory

Videos at all the links but the first link!  I have not done a nice blog post about Smiley playing in a while, since I was foolishly trying to keep videos chronological and am still way behind in processing December videos.  Well, enough pointless procrastination.  Here's some very recent footage.

Yesterday Smiley visited the Science Factory for the first time.  A friend of his invited us.  Guest admission is free with a member.

Spring weather and flowers have really arrived.  The park in which it is located was beautiful.






The two boys would have been very happy just playing outside.  They climbed and jumped on a bench and chased some ducks.  (I only got the very end of the duck-chasing on video.  I was astonished that the ducks ran so much, instead of immediately flying away.)

The first exhibits were a bit too old for Smiley.  He liked the noises the circuits and cams made but did not really comprehend what was happening.

But the Gravitram was fascinating.  I took three videos over the course of ten minutes, and a fourth when he returned to it later on.  He must have spent half an hour watching the thing.  While driving home he talked about it.  "The machine with the balls had a man with a hammer.  He stopped the balls.  He was not nice.  I don't like him."  (In that first video you can see the little-man part of the contraption if you look carefully.)







Smiley also enjoyed the Kinetica, a simpler device with more user participation.  The Archimedes screw was also fun, although he had to wait a while until it was not mobbed by other kids.

At the end of the visit, when he was getting tired, we went to the "Five Years Old and Under" area and he played with a crane.

Smiley has a few friends with memberships.  He already had a play date scheduled with one of them for today.  We were going to visit a park, but since Smiley really wants to return to the Science Factory and his friend also enjoys it then I expect we're returning there this afternoon.