ASU Museum presents
"Science in Motion" exhibit

The new "Science in Motion" exhibit will open Monday, Oct. 11, in the Museum at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. This innovative exhibit is designed to make science, math and technology engaging, exciting and fun. It will feature eight hands-on displays from the San Francisco Exploratorium. 

This exhibit, along with two others from the world-renown exploratorium, will be rotated among six museums in the state. The museums are part of a pilot collaborative called the Arkansas' Children's Discovery Centers Network.  The statewide museum collaborative was initiated and funded by a grant from the Las Vegas-based Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

Hyperbolic Slot displays an aspect of mathematics, which is positively arresting. A flat vertical plane made of plastic is mounted on a tabletop; there is a curve cut into the plastic sheet. Next to the plastic sheet stands a straight stick which is mounted on a vertical rod. The stick, even though it is straight, swings cleanly through the radically curved slot in the plastic.

Mercator Your Face - this exhibit uses a video camera and a computer to capture the image of the visitor's face and convert it into several of the projections that are used by mapmakers. It's a fun way of using the principles of map making to see how an image with which one is intimately familiar — one's own face — is distorted by the mathematics of map projections.

Non-Round Rollers - rollers that are not round, but that are of constant width, are used like roller bearings underneath a flat plate. The visitor moves the plate horizontally along the table. The plate moves smoothly in a horizontal plane while the rollers appear to wobble.

Pendulum/Relative Motion is a pendulum that swings above a table. The table itself is also a pendulum that swings at right angles and has the same period as the first pendulum. When both pendulums are set swinging at the same time, the observer sees the relative motions of the two pendulums. The relative motion can be linear, circular or elliptical, depending on the phases and amplitudes of the pendulums. The visitor starts the pendulums swinging and controls their relative phase. The exhibit illustrates how two “sinusoidal” motions at right angles add together.

In Square Wheels, a 10-inch square wheel rolls smoothly across a very bumpy surface. The bumps are carefully designed, flat catenary curves, which exactly match the sides of the wheel in length. These curves also exactly compensate for the changing axle height of the square wheel as it rolls along. The axle of the wheel does not move up and down.

The Turntable disk is one that rotates like a giant compact disk. A supply of small metal disks, rings, and balls, seven to 10 cm in diameter, are scattered around the stationary portion of the tabletop. Visitors try to keep the rings on their edge spinning on the disk. They discover that a ring spinning on edge may stay on the turntable for a while, orbiting the center. A disk laid flat will move in a straight line as soon as it slides off the turntable. Visitors, especially children, love the challenge of getting the disks and rings to stand on edge while moving around the turntable.

Chaotic Pendulum contains a deceptively simple set of pendulums in a steel and plexiglas case. The visitor gives an initial twist to the pendulums with a protruding knob. Intuition says that the resulting motion of this system should be, if not simple, at least predictable. Intuition, however, does not work with this device since its motion is chaotic, extremely complicated and long-lived.

Catenary Arch is an arch assembled out of numbered blocks. The blocks are laid out on a horizontal board and then tilted into a vertical position. In spite of the fact that the blocks are relatively slender, they can stand due to their catenary shape. Visitors can compare the shape of the arch to the shape of a freely hanging chain and see that the shapes are the same.  

Museums in the Arkansas' Children's Discovery Centers Network are the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock, the Mid-America Science Museum in Hot Springs, the Arts and Science Center of Southeast Arkansas in Pine Bluff, the Texarkana Museum System in Texarkana, the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources in Smackover, and the Arkansas State University Museum in Jonesboro.

The aim of the pilot network is to strengthen partner museums by sharing resources and expanding discovery learning opportunities across the state.

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named.

Headquartered in Las Vegas, the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation it is one of the 50 largest private foundations in the United States.

“Science in Motion” continues through Nov. 28 at the ASU Museum.  The museum is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.  To schedule a school group for the exhibit, contact Lynda Medlock at the museum, (870) 972-2074, or for further information.