I need a fifth grader's eye to give this place the proper once-over. The idea for the playground actually comes from India, where municipalities sometimes build such parks before they move ahead with construction of an entire museum. Slides and teeter-totters attempt to merge the activity of play with the discipline of physics. Benjamin and Geoffrey stop first at the three-dimensional spiderweb, similar to a jungle gym and big enough to accommodate a classroom of kids. Flexible steel cable sheathed in nylon wrapping is tied into interconnected hexagons, the entire structure taking the form of an octahedron.
Weight applied by the random sneaker induces ripples that realign the hexagonal elements.
Next we mount a platform where a red parabolic dish faces another positioned 80 feet away. A metal ring near the dish marks the focal point, the spot where an ear or mouth can be placed to communicate with someone at the other dish. Benjamin asks softly. Geoffrey stops to hit a gong in different places, testing the concept of resonance. Alan J. Friedman, the museum's director, demonstrates how softly tapping the gong repeatedly at certain spots causes the volume to rise steadily to a level louder than if it receives just one good whack.