Ankara Natural History Museum

On a recent trip to Anakara, we visited the Natural History Museum (MTA Genel Müdürlüğü Tabiat Tarihi Müzesi).

We were greeted by dinosaurs at the entrance

Guarding an egg or playing ball?

Inside are plenty of fossils, models and taxidermy exhibits of all sorts of creatures

Pseudofusulina fossil, a type of marine creature

Also a large collection of different rocks and minerals

Purple Jade

METU (ODTÜ) Science and Technology Museum, Ankara

On a recent trip to Ankara, Turkey, we visited the Middle East Technical University (Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi) Science and Technology Museum.

This museum is located on the university campus and the security guard was kind of confused as to why we were visiting. 

Steam Engine

Outside is a steam engine and several aircraft and several buildings that appear to be cover-ups for alien landings. The large saucer-shaped building is entered via an automatic door that makes a wooshing sound when opening.

Satellite map view courtesy Apple Maps.

The same satellite map via Google. What are they hiding?

Inside are two floors of exhibits of science and technology from prehistoric to modern times.

Hittite era guitar

With Gallipoli located in Turkey, there were items from World War I, including a medical tent and devices for carrying the wounded soldiers.

Army hospital tent from 1914-1922

The system to carry a wounded soldier on a horse

The system to carry wounded soldiers on a donkey

There were several variations of typewriters. 

QWERTZ (German/Polish) keyboard

AZERTY, (French/Belgium) keyboard

Turkish-F keyboard

Video cameras

Helicopter

I think my parents had a cassette deck and headphones similar to this in the 1970s.

Tape deck, headphones, cassette player

Home movie cameras

Movie projector

Oric Atmos Computer made by Tangerine Computer Systems

In another building are vehicles - mostly cars.

Yellow Desoto

Yellow Pontiac

Yellow and Black Chevrolet

Anadol Böcek, (Anatolian Bug), a Turkish made car from 1975

Center of Scientific Wonders, Budapest

Last Monday, we spent the day at the Center of Scientific Wonders in Budapest. We enjoyed a wide range of interactive science exhibits, the games and puzzles bar and an escape room. The space exhibit had a series of puzzles and challenges to complete. The cafe tables had multi-player games and puzzles embedded in them. We escaped from the Globetrotter room in about half of the 40 minutes time limit after solving geography puzzles to open locks and get more keys and clues. It was a lot of fun.

I built a leaning tower.

We looked at polarization. 

And ferrofluid.

And played with magnets.

A water vortex.

For more info visit the Center of Scientific Wonders' website: https://www.csopa.hu/en/

  

OK GO Sandbox

The band OK GO have a sandbox of online resources around their music videos for STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Arts Math) education.

The science and math behind some of their recent videos are discussed and they present challenges for students to create their own animations, music and experiments.

Watch the OK GO Sandbox videos here:



Explore the OK GO Sandbox here.

Science fair featuring Rube Goldberg machines

Recently, my children's school held a science fair for students in Years 7-11. My daughter did a project on the layers of the earth. My son and other students from Years 10-11 created Rube Goldberg machines.

Some of the machines and exhibits

Watching the SpaceX launch live

Sometime in the 1980s I stayed up really late to watch one of the space shuttle launches live (possibly STS-61C. Due to weather or some other problem it was delayed and I missed seeing the launch.

Just now I watched the SpaceX launch live on Facebook!

Not only did CRS-8 Dragon mission successfully launch and deliver the Dragon spacecraft into space to deliver supplies to the International Space Station, but the Falcon 9 rocket returned to land upright on a barge floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

You can watch the replay of the launch video at https://www.facebook.com/NASA/videos/vb.54971236771/10154018106296772

Natural History Museum, Stuttgart

We visited the  Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart during our summer holiday.

The museum has two exhibition buildings in Rosenstein park. We only visited the Museum am Löwentor, which contained items from prehistoric times including amber complete with captured insects (like in Jurassic Park) and fossils and reconstructions of cave bears, dinosaurs, mammoths, people and other land and sea creatures.