Chicago Blog-- Day 2 Museum of Science and Industry

So, Day 2 in Chicago was scheduled for the Museum of Science and Industry. The museum is only about ten blocks away from the apartment where we were staying, so we walked south with the boys as soon as Cooper woke up from his morning nap.

Alan and Melanie had headed down about 45 minutes before we did (their kids were ready before Cooper woke up), so the first place we went was to the ice cream parlor in the Old Chicago section of the museum. Both Cooper and Ian had milkshakes and Ian had a PBJ and we were all fueled up and ready to go.

I'm not sure if this is the same spoon that Cooper had on the airplane the day before, but he sure seemed entertained by it! He was a good boy the whole time we were there and shortly after this picture moved into the Moby for another nap. Robyn and Caleb gave us this umbrella stroller for Christmas, and it was great unless you were on a slick surface... MSI is a couple hundred thousand square feet of travertine. I was about ready to smash the wretched thing because without any friction the front wheels turn in and it persistently refuses to travel in a straight line. I'm pretty sure that they invented an eighth circle of hell for the sadistic and nefarious designer of this particular torture device.
When Jenny and I were at MSI last year, we saw this exhibit and were just dying for Ian to see it. They have an entire automated assembly line with all of the spiffy robots doing the sorting, assembling, sonic welding, testing, et cetera of a little gyroscope that you can order in three colors and with your name laser etched on it. It was fun to watch the robots work and I wasted no time helping Ian scan in our little order slip. (I might have been a little excited about the robots, too.)

Once you scan in your order the system places it in the queue.

Then you watch as the robots sort out the parts for the colors you picked, install the bearings, retainer ring, antenna tip, and weld them all together with ultrasonic pulses. I think that Ian thought that the robots were cool, because he was definitely enthralled by what was going on, but I am not sure how much of the linear process he got. We had fun anyway.

This is what we were looking at through the glass. We actually got to watch the whole process three times because the first two times Ian's gyroscope was assembled it failed the quality control check at the end of the assembly line. I'd say we definitely got our five bucks worth. If you look closely, you can see the little purple gyroscope in Ian's hand; it looks just like the blowup on the display above his head. The first words out of Ian's mouth just about every morning from then until we got back from Chicago? "Daaaaaad! Where's my spaceship?"

MSI has what must be one of the largest model train installations around. There are dozens of trains running around through about 5,000 square feet of display space with synchronized sound effects and lots and lots of details. It must be some model train fan's dream job.

Part of the display is a scale model of the downtown Chicago area from Michigan Avenue going east out to the river. Right here I am pointing out to Ian where we popped up from the Metro station right by Millennium Park. Some of you may recognize that building from Adventures In Babysitting. It's the Smurfitt Stone building, just in case you were curious.


I got a kick out of the things that Ian really found interesting. I was nerdy enough to want to read about the oversize drive wheels fitted to this steam locomotive which allowed it to set a land speed record at one time. Ian and Peter were more interested in having a discussion over whether they were seeing bear tracks or deer tracks. Funny kids!


I'm not sure if you have to have a learner's permit to drive one of these things, but I am pretty sure that if this was the real thing that my insurance agent would rapidly develop an ulcer. Cooper spent a lot of the trip hanging out in the Moby. He was a good boy about taking naps in there, but he never seemed to grasp that his was the best seat in the house.

One of the displays which is kind of a tradition at MSI is the hatchery-- one end of the display has an incubator for the eggs where you can watch the chicks peck their way out. As we were looking through the glass it occurred to me that hatching eggs is a way better way to have offspring than doing the whole pregnancy thing. Seriously. While the kid is being born mom and dad can be of celebrating and having dinner together. (Or, in the case of chickens, being dinner together... ) I'm going to suggest to Jenny that we try this one as an alternative birthing method.

The other end of the incubator holds the chicks for a few days until they get shipped off to wherever it is that they go (my bet: Foster Farms. Hey, someone has to pay to keep the warming lights on.) With the attention span of our toddler, the 4-12 hour span it takes for a chick to get out of the egg was not nearly as enthralling as watching the little fuzzballs run around.

Cooper even seemed to get that there were cute things there behind the glass. There is one picture that didn't turn out very well where Jenny has turned to try to get Ian's attention and you can tell that Cooper is unhappy about having his view obstructed.

It will come as no surprise that my very, very, super-duper, uber-favorite part of the whole place is the U-505 experience. This is an actual German submarine which was captured during WWII by an American hunter-killer task force. The story of the capture and the subsequent intelligence coup reaped by the Allies is fascinating, but no less fascinating is the story of the red tape, technical planning, restoration, historical fact-checking and engineering which resulted in it's being towed across four of the five great lakes, hauled out of the water, across a freeway and installed at MSI-- and then it was moved all the way around the building and installed in this underground exhibit after fifty years of being on display out in the sun. Pop culture tidbit: the engine room of the U-505 was used for filming a number of sequences in the movie U-571. I bought a book and have been reading up on it. Love it!

The display is dimly lit in order to slow the degradation of the decking and other materials on the sub (and it gives a very cool ambiance because they variegate the lighting to look like you are underwater), but it makes taking pictures very tough without auxiliary lighting.

One of the attendant submarine displays had you try to trim the ballast tanks in a mock sub. I figured that since I had read a fair amount about subs and had a pretty good idea of what you were supposed to do I would be a whiz at it.

Ian totally kicked my butt. It's harder than it looks!

You pass through the circus area on the way back from the submarine. Ian roars!


We had to coax Ian into the seat of the tractor, but he thought it was pretty cool once he finally got in. What tractor? Where? I'm still playing with my spaceship!



Ian came up with this all on his own-- there was no coaching. I cracked up.


There is a very thoughtful children's play area called the Imaginarium. We went in so that Ian and Andre could play, but Cooper thought that the little water toys were awesome. We need to get some video of him in the tub, because he just goes nuts when we let him play in the water.

I love the look on Cooper's face here.

I'm tired!
This was one of the coolest things that they had in the Imaginarium-- it was a water kaleidescope. They had all of these plastic beads in the water and little pumps for stirring them up and then the orange tube you can see in the foreground has mirrors mounted in it so that the swirling beads created a really cool effect. Cooper (and I) got a big kick out of just watching stuff flutter around in the tank. Jenny was great about making sure that Cooper got some play time.


Thankfully, the museum had the forethought to include pint-sized slickers along with all of the water-based displays. The only downside to the slickers was that we just kind of turned the boys loose to play, and it was dang hard to get their attention after we told them it was okay to just go play!
This display had different colored lights that cast different shades of shadows. Most people just stuck their hands under the lights. We just stuck the whole kid under there.

Coming soon: Day 3!