Science Museum Childrens Gallery

[Paul Bird]

Some of us on here are "of a certain age" and remember the 1960s
Childrens Gallery and its exhibits. The museum themselves are remarkably
light on archive (I've been in touch), there are few photographs on the
web, and their website practically ignores its existence after 1931.

A long shot but if anybody reading this went as a child and has
photographs I'd be very grateful and interested. I think I've exhausted
the publicly available material (got the guide books etc) so now it's
down to personal memorabilia.

PB

[Tim Ward]

I remember a blue-and-pink plasma thingy, and some vacuum tricks.

I very much doubt that my parents have any photos I'm afraid.

--
Tim Ward - 07801 703 600
www.brettward.co.uk

[rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk]

In article <nq4hul$u1u$1...@dont-email.me>, t...@brettward.co.uk (Tim Ward)
wrote:

I think there are a few shots on one of my father's 1957 8mm films but very
little inside, mostly outside, the Science Museum.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

[Tim Ward]

On 30/08/2016 19:06, Tim Ward wrote:
>
> I very much doubt that my parents have any photos I'm afraid.

No, they don't remember anything about it at all. It was probably my
grandpa who took me actually.

[Roland Perry]

In message <nq3la2$tk3$1...@dont-email.me>, at 10:57:21 on Tue, 30 Aug
2016, Paul Bird <pa...@nospamcamtutor.co.uk> remarked:

I remember to things particularly - there was an electric door which
opened automatically when you broke a light beam on approach, and they
had a special exhibition with a tube ticket machine and an automatic
barrier, reflecting the new technology just introduced for the Victoria
Line. I still have that ticket.
--
Roland Perry

[Martin]

On Wed, 31 Aug 2016, Roland Perry wrote:

> there was an electric door which opened automatically when you broke a
> light beam on approach

That is still present (and working) in the "Secret life of the home"
exhibition (in the basement floor), which is highly recommended.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/exhibitions/secret_life_of_the_home


Martin

[Patrick Gosling]

In article <nq3la2$tk3$1...@dont-email.me>,

No photographs, I'm afraid; and my recollections are of the 70's rather
than the 60's .

The Children's Gallery was in the basement, as I remember it; there was
a large sweeping staircase down about mid-way along the length of the
site, at the bottom of which was a large circular table with a metallic
ball in the middle; if you tried to reach and touch the ball, motion
sensors would trigger a mechanism which would cause it to drop through
a hole. The result was a lot of hyperactive children hurling themselves
(sometimes directly from the staircase) onto the table in the hope of
getting to touch the ball.

Just ahead and then continuing round to the left, were the pulleys and
weights demonstrating the effect of mechanical advantage; these were
perhaps 3-4m high, I think; you pulled horizontally on the rope and in
some cases lifted some impressively heavy weights (one of the pulleys
had something like eight loops, I think).

As you then went back along the length of the building towards
Exhibition Road, there were several areas to the left with sequences
of displays showing the development of technology (one of them went
from pre-stone-age through to 20th century). My recollection is that
some of them had push-buttons to cause some "action" (usually trivial,
such as causing lights to light up).

Somewhere off to the right, there was a colour-blindness-testing
demonstration, and a reaction-tester (you held something, and then
when a signal (light? sound?) occurred you had to touch a plate, and a
rather 60's neon-tube digital display showed you how many 100ths of a
second it took you.

There was the automatic door triggered by you interrupting a beam
which others have mentioned - I seem to remember it involving a
"corridor" constructed in the middle of a large-ish open area in
the basement; for some reason I strongly associate a particular shade
of dark-ish green with it.

I also have a vague recollection of some kind of model of a lift
mechanism in a model house or building of some kind.

[ I also remember very much liking the huge array of models of industrial
devices with working mechanisms that you could operate with a push
button or turning knob, that were located on the ground floor, to the
side of the big steam engines ]

Recent visits have been oddly disappointing, and I'm not quite sure
why, although I _think_ that part of it is a tendency to go for smaller
numbers of bigger "more impressive" displays, rather than large
numbers of smaller but incredibly intricately designed and build
mechanisms and devices.

Perhaps the things that entertained me then would not seem remotely
as impressive to a generation used to CGI and augmented reality.

-patrick.

[Patrick Gosling]

In article <Tpz*Pc...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,

Patrick Gosling <jp...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>I also have a vague recollection of some kind of model of a lift
>mechanism in a model house or building of some kind.

I think this is probably the same one; it must have lasted for decades:

<http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10284209&itemw=4&itemf=0007&itemstep=1&itemx=2>

I've also been vaguely reminded by

<http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10284205&itemw=4&itemf=0008&itemstep=1&itemx=1>

that there was some kind of device that demonstrated electromagnetism with
a challenge to pull a metal object away from a quite powerful electromagnet.

-patrick.

[single...@gmail.com]

Perhaps we've remembered the same one differently.

I remember one with a heated coil that heated the magnet until it lost its magnetism then it fell away, only to reconnect on cooling.

nb Sorry can't post from normal address at moment, using wifi which won't connect to ng.

PB

[single...@gmail.com]

Thanks for your long post. I've scanned the floor plan and list of exhibits from the 1973 guide but can't attach it to this post and am not quite sure where to post it online, if you drop me a line to bl...@singleaspect.org.uk I'll zing it back.

Thanks
PB

[Alex Selby]

On 01/09/16 11:27, Patrick Gosling wrote:
> In article <nq3la2$tk3$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Paul Bird <pa...@nospamcamtutor.co.uk> wrote:
>> Some of us on here are "of a certain age" and remember the 1960s
>> Childrens Gallery and its exhibits. The museum themselves are remarkably
>> light on archive (I've been in touch), there are few photographs on the
>> web, and their website practically ignores its existence after 1931.
>>
>> A long shot but if anybody reading this went as a child and has
>> photographs I'd be very grateful and interested. I think I've exhausted
>> the publicly available material (got the guide books etc) so now it's
>> down to personal memorabilia.
>
> No photographs, I'm afraid; and my recollections are of the 70's rather
> than the 60's .
>
> The Children's Gallery was in the basement, as I remember it; there was

I remember the children's section of the Science Museum. It was the only
museum I liked going to because you could actually do things. (My view
hasn't really changed.)

There was a yellow line on the ground that you followed to get there,
which I always looked forward to at the time.

Not strictly in the children's section, but also a fun gadget at the
time, was the radar-operated traffic light at the entrance.

[...]

> Just ahead and then continuing round to the left, were the pulleys and
> weights demonstrating the effect of mechanical advantage; these were
> perhaps 3-4m high, I think; you pulled horizontally on the rope and in
> some cases lifted some impressively heavy weights (one of the pulleys
> had something like eight loops, I think).

There were three or four rope pulleys, as you say in increasing order of
mechanical advantage. And to the right of these there was a different
kind of lever: you pumped this arm up and down and it very slowly lifted
some rather large cuboid weight (1 tonne, possibly). There was also a
release valve which would let the weight down again. I used to like
spending some minutes raising it a few inches then releasing the valve
as quickly as I could to see if I could get it to crash down with a
bang.

[...]

> Somewhere off to the right, there was a colour-blindness-testing
> demonstration, and a reaction-tester (you held something, and then
> when a signal (light? sound?) occurred you had to touch a plate, and a
> rather 60's neon-tube digital display showed you how many 100ths of a
> second it took you.

The colour blindness test was a booklet of Ishihara plates.

There was also a large demonstration of polarised light, with a
full-length backdrop that looked white if you looked at it directly, but
appeared like a coloured stained glass window image when you looked at
it through the polarised glass plates they provided.

There was a demonstration of the magnetic properties of various metals:
rings of iron, copper, zinc, etc, which you could move around a
hoop. You could control an electromagnet (with a pedal?), which was
quite strong, making it hard to remove the iron ring without switching
it off.

>
> There was the automatic door triggered by you interrupting a beam
> which others have mentioned - I seem to remember it involving a
> "corridor" constructed in the middle of a large-ish open area in
> the basement; for some reason I strongly associate a particular shade
> of dark-ish green with it.

Was that the place with a model of the solar system where they tried to
explain the seasons and days by casting shadows over the planets as they
went round?

> I also have a vague recollection of some kind of model of a lift
> mechanism in a model house or building of some kind.
>
> [ I also remember very much liking the huge array of models of industrial
> devices with working mechanisms that you could operate with a push
> button or turning knob, that were located on the ground floor, to the
> side of the big steam engines ]

There was also the "million volt bang", though unfortunately we were
rarely there at the right time to see it demonstrated.

>
> Recent visits have been oddly disappointing, and I'm not quite sure
> why, although I _think_ that part of it is a tendency to go for smaller
> numbers of bigger "more impressive" displays, rather than large
> numbers of smaller but incredibly intricately designed and build
> mechanisms and devices.
>
> Perhaps the things that entertained me then would not seem remotely
> as impressive to a generation used to CGI and augmented reality.

I think they've got some pretty well-thought out children's exhibits
now, which subliminally teach some scientific principle while also being
fun. (I know one of the designers.) But I also have the feeling that it
somehow isn't as magical as before. To be fair to the modern designers,
this is may be mostly just the fact that I am older and more jaded. Also
nowadays everyone has technology that they consider commonplace, but
would essentially be considered magic a few years ago, and it's hard to
compete with that.

>
> -patrick.
>

[single...@gmail.com]

On Monday, September 5, 2016 at 1:49:24 AM UTC+1, Alex Selby wrote:
<big snip>
Thanks Alex for your additional reminiscences. Having limited connectivity at the moment I can't connect with Eternal September so now via Google Groups but here's a link with some additional files of interest, a map of the gallery and list of exhibits as of 1973 and three pages from Look and Learn in the early 1970s.

https://www.sendgb.com/VXpBPgSvct6

Link valid 14 days from today.

PB

p.s. Why won't Cam Public Wifi connect to Eternal September? Is it blocked?

[Roland Perry]

In message <65f27edc-8092-4b30...@googlegroups.com>, at
10:57:26 on Mon, 5 Sep 2016, single...@gmail.com remarked:

>Thanks Alex for your additional reminiscences. Having limited connectivity at the moment I can't connect with Eternal September so now via
>Google Groups but here's a link with some additional files of interest, a map of the gallery and list of exhibits as of 1973 and three pages
>from Look and Learn in the early 1970s.
>
>https://www.sendgb.com/VXpBPgSvct6
>
>Link valid 14 days from today.

Why the fortnight's delay?
--
Roland Perry

[DR de Lacey]

On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:57:26 -0700, singleaspect wrote:

> On Monday, September 5, 2016 at 1:49:24 AM UTC+1, Alex Selby wrote:
> <big snip>
> Thanks Alex for your additional reminiscences. Having limited
> connectivity at the moment I can't connect with Eternal September so now
> via Google Groups but here's a link with some additional files of
> interest, a map of the gallery and list of exhibits as of 1973 and three
> pages from Look and Learn in the early 1970s.
>
> https://www.sendgb.com/VXpBPgSvct6
>

Thanks for that, Paul. My own memory of the Science Museum is from the
summer of 1956 when my family came back to England for a 3 month holiday.
It took 3 days to fly from Central Africa in a Viking which had no
catering: landed for lunch and again for tea, supper and a comfortable
bed in an hotel ... but I digress.

I don't remember the items mentioned by others, or even a children's
gallery; but I do remember a huge range of activities, a few through
pressing a button but most via wheels and levers -- we could operate a
lock, lift great weights with pulleys, and I recall a thin section of a
vessel spun at such a speed that it could hold water poured into it. I
can also remember being deeply disappointed when I took my own children
in the late 80s, when there seemed to be far less interactive material,
and most of that just one press of a button.

No pictures, alas.

Douglas de Lacey

[single...@gmail.com]

Perhaps yourself, TNP & Tim would like to form Pedantsrus.com on a small island in the Pacific then I won't have to bother anymore with your tedious amusements :)

However since you asked "valid FOR 14" and so on. Sweetheart.

PB

[single...@gmail.com]

On Monday, September 5, 2016 at 7:33:51 PM UTC+1, Roland Perry wrote:

I humbly apologise for posting too quickly with insufficient attention to mi inglish probably after a couple of drinks and in complete contravention of the cam.misc rools.

Good night.