black hole son

Mar 2, 2012

First up today was Costco; to see what all the fuss is about. It is huge, and has a very wide range of items. I’d be interested to see how the Melbourne one compares to this. We signed up and bought a few essentials (flashlights, Lego books etc). Afterward we headed back to Balboa park for the second of our Museum trips. Yesterday, the GPS might have misguided us to our second choice destination but today we ignored the directions at the appropriate time to make it to the science museum, Reuben H Fleet Science Centre.

We got there mid morning, and thought it would occupy the kids for a couple of hours… five hours later we finished up.

IrishKing wasn’t feeling well and looked to have a tummy bug (he vomited a few times so I had to take him out to the car, and around the grounds to get some air). He picked up in the afternoon and was able to take in most of the exhibits. The museum has loads of hands-on exhibits which children can climb/feel/lick (ok … no licking but everything else goes). In the geometric shapes section I read that shapes which fit together without leaving any gaps are said to be in tessellation (think Escher drawings). I asked IrishWrath what the name was for “when all the shapes fit together without gaps?” and he got it right. I was quite taken aback by this as I hadn’t heard of it before.

 

 

There was also a section on Black Holes where each explorer gets a card that they insert into a car reader at each exhibit, so you can track your progress. At the end of the section you put your card into a reader, and enter an email address to mail your report to. It’s very good – hands-on learning. Black Holes fascinate IrishWrath, he said after that he would like to work as an astrophysicist specializing in Black Hole research. He has said this before, and commented that there wasn’t anything in the exhibit which he hadn’t read before, but he liked it all the same. IrishKing liked the card he got. After the Museum we went for Dinner at Ruby’s Diner and then back to the Hotel to start thinking about packing. We leave for Melbourne on Sunday.