(OMAHA, Neb.) - Sept. 30, 2009 - A Garden of Gizmos, a new traveling exhibit, will be open at Omaha Children's Museum, 500 S. 20th Street, October 10 through January 3. A Garden of Gizmos brings natural sciences to life in a whimsical garden of 19 hands-on interactives including mechanical plants, flowers and creatures.
 
Both kids and adults can gain a new environmental perspective with these gadgets, doo-dads, and thing-a-ma-gigs designed to show the real way things move and grow.
 
Supported by murals from artists Robert Stone and Roppei Matsumoto, A Garden of Gizmos demonstrates the complex mechanisms involved in growing processes, resonant frequencies, waves, and more in an easy-to-understand, fully-interactive world.
 
On opening day, Hy-Vee floral will present a free workshop where kids learn about basic science of flowers, how they grow and how they are used in displays. Each child will make their own bouquet to take home. No registration is required, participation will be on a first-come, first-served basis at workshops at 11 a.m., noon, 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo will also be present with its Nature Explorers program from 9 a.m-2 p.m.

 

Admission to A Garden of Gizmos is $2 in addition to regular museum admission. Museum members and children under 2 are free.
 
Ongoing museum programming and community partnership programming throughout the run of the exhibit includes:
 
Garden Creatures Presentation on October 20 and November 24 at 11 a.m. The Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District will present an interactive demonstration on garden bugs including butterflies, ladybugs and bees. Kids will make a honeycomb candle to take home.
 
Raptor Presentation on October 16 at 10:30 a.m., 11 a.m. & 11:30 a.m. Raptor Rescue of Nebraska will introduce these amazing birds of pretty and explain how important they are in the animal kingdom.
 
Plants with Miss Emily on October 23 and November 13 from 10:30 a.m. to noon. Miss Emily from Lauritzen Gardens is bringing plants to the museum and introducing kids to a different nature theme each month.

 

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A Garden of Gizmos Exhibit Component Descriptions

Sprouts
A single sliding knob controls the rate and direction of time in Sprouts, a time lapse movie that shows a variety of things growing in a single big window box. This includes a variety of real plants, and Clifford Wagner's (the creator of the exhibit) hair! When the slider is all the way to the left, the first thing that appears in the empty window box is a bald head. When the control slides to the right, Clifford's hair grows along with the plants. This provides a real-world, very silly measure of how long it takes plants -- and hair -- to grow.
 
Bird Land
This exhibit allows visitors to see simple machines in action using cranks, connecting rods and camshafts. The big cranks in Birdland make a life-sized, overhead peacock open its tail, 18 rainbow doves do the wave and a circle of birds flap, wheel and spin overhead.
 
Bead Stream
Shake a handle back and forth to make streams of beads form wave patterns on an eight-foot-long slated surface, making beautiful waves cascade down a stream. This exhibit teaches cause and effect and resonant frequency.
 
Rope Fountain
The Rope Fountain has six symmetrical loops of rope constantly thrown into the air, their angle and height controlled by the visitor activated joystick. Guests can learn about the parabolic trajectory - the shape of the path taken by the ropes.
 
Foxglove Zoetrope
Spin the Foxglove Zoetrope to reveal a mini-movie of a fox trotting along in two dimensions and turning into a three-dimensional flower.
 
Dancing Wallflowers
Visitors control the speed of the flowers to get them to dance on the wall. Guests can create single, double and triple wave patterns using the controls to manipulate these flowers that respond together.
 
Earthworm
Watch the listen as the earthworm zigzags down through the "dirt".
 
Snapdragons
Two snapdragons operated by a visible complex mechanism created by artist Paul Nagle keep the beat to music created by Paul Jost. Visitors can visually decipher how the mechanisms below them make them move.
 
Tumbling Bumble Bees and Jumping Slugs
Tumbling Bumblebees and Jumping Slugs both live in the same device, an air table that makes the three "bees" do a magical mid-air dance. In A Garden of Gizmos, slugs live in holes. Visitors drop the slugs into the holes, one at a time. When there are too many slugs in the holes, most of the others suddenly pop up.
 
Sunflowers/Moonflowers
Guests press a button to see lively sunflowers at the beach basking in the sun and watch as the moon comes up and the scene rotates to reveal glowing Moonflowers asleep in their flowerbeds. Scenes sculpted by Paul Nagle.
 
Date Palm Boogie
Visitors dance on a tilting platform in the Date Palm Boogie and three 10-feet-tall palm trees with trunks made of flower pots sway and dance with them. The trunks of the trees are made from recycled plastic flowerpots. This activity is a playful exercise in cause and effect.
 
As the Year Turns
The centerpiece of the Garden is As The Year Turns, a circle of 16 video monitors. Within the circle of monitors are images of the natural world, filmed at three gardens, and two farms over the course of a year so that each monitor is a window into a single season, four each for winter, spring, summer and fall. The images were filmed with a camera on a rotating mount, showing a dramatic panorama of the changing season. Visitors sit on the bench in the center of the circle and look straight ahead. A full year passes in six minutes, since the floor and the bench are motorized, turning gently at the same speed the camera was panning. This piece provides a window on one year's changes to the natural world.
 
The Folded Flower Farm
The Folded Flower Farm is an origami creation by artist Jay Ansill, author of several origami books. Visitors can make their own origami creations to take home.
 
The Kitchen Garden
Kids can pull up and inspect a variety soft-sculpture veggies including carrots, potatoes and other root vegetables. They can also water the garden, using a watering can that makes the sound of rain while multiple streams of beads pour out of it.
 
Spring Flower Field
When visitors vary the speed, a whole field of Spring Flowers sways and bounces. Each of the 32 flowers has its own connecting rod and crank, making them tip and sway. The movement created looks organic, juxtaposing the highly mechanical base that drives them.
 
Blooming Rainflower
The Blooming Rainflower, a giant flower made from 13 sunflower umbrellas, grows taller than the tallest visitor when a crank is turned, and then blooms. Visitors can see the mechanics with a giant lead screw moving the shafts that make the umbrellas open.
 
Groundhogs' Ground
In Groundhogs' Ground, visitors control a groundhog that passes under their feet and then pops up in another corner, only to disappear under a bed of flowers.
 
Flower Kaleidoscope
Guests can experiment with math concepts by turning the knob to adjust the mirrors and make unique flowers in the Flower Kaleidoscope. When the mirrors close together, the flower grows hundreds of reflected petals.
 
Maple Seeds
This exhibit explores the concept of the evolution and survival of the maple tree. Turning the knob controls the speed of a fan at the bottom of a plexiglass tube making maple seeds hover and scatter. 
  
A Garden of Gizmos is sponsored by The Douglas County Board of Commissioners,
Iowa West Foundation, Yellowbook, Cox Communications and Hy-Vee. Media partner is Family Spectrum Magazine.

Visit www.ocm.org for more information.

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