The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1936-03-18
VISITORS OPERATE
EXHIBITS IN new
SCIENCE MUSEUM
NEW YORK INSTITUTION
CARRIES ON VARIOUS ACTI-
VITIES IN CONNECTION
WITH SCIENCE, INDUSTRY

Several thousand men, women
and children a week are pushing
buttons, pulling levers and turn
ing cranks in the New York Mu-
scum of Science and Industry in
Rockefeller Center, delightedly
showing themselves how the wheels
of the modern world go around
in the smOoth-running of the ma
chinery of their everyday lives.
The New York Museum of
Science and Industry is pre-emin-
emily a place where things move
and, even better, a place where
observers themselves make things
move, thus staging their own dem
Onstrations.
In almost every other kind of
museum the visitors only part is
to stand and look, to walk around
and look again. In the New York
Museum of Science and Industry
he puts on his own show, and en-
joys himself thoroughly in doing
so.
Moving Exhibits
Of the eleven permanent divi-
sions of the instrumentation,
power, highway transportation.
marine transportation, railroad
transportation, textiles, housing,
communications, machine tools.
electro-technology and food
practically every one of them in
cludes numerous moving exhibits,
either in full size or in scale mod
els.
The main attraction of this
kind in the aviation section is the
so-called "pilot trainer"-the air
plane cockpit into which anyone
may climb and, operating the
d:sls on the instrument board in
front of him, maEeuver the ma
chine of which he is temp orari!.y
the sclo pilot this way and that
way-i0 any direction except up in
tho air.
IL the tralsrta tation sa,ti1n,
the visitors whim is all that is
needed to start the wheels of loco
motives turning, operate railroad
signals and flash important lights
all in miniature models from
the early crude designs of loco
motives to the stream-lined mogul
of today. The communications
sections has innumerable fascin-
ating things that answer to the
pressure of button or the lift
ing of gadget. For example, one
may give himself practical DEM
onstration of ship-to-shore radio
communication by operating the
apparatus, in miniature, by which
a ship determines its position in
relation to lighthouses sending
out radio signals. BY pressing a
button and turning a knob, one
maneuvers the tiny radio receiving
loop on the PROV of a small YES
sci into the proper position to
catch the signals from the light
house which flashes in the dis
lance. Guided by the repeated
ring of bell, timed to the light
house flash, he turns the apparat-
us this way and that until he has
it so adjusted that the signals
come in at their clearest.
Modern Machinery
Modern machines used in va
rious types of industrial plants
automobile factories, iron and
steel works, power plants. refrig-
Grating plants and the like-can
be observed in action.
, Four special exhibits. assem-
bled by as many of the country's
famous research laboratories. like
wise contain machines for casual
operation. These are the exhibits
of the Eastman Kodak Laboratory,
the Goodrich Rubber Company,
the General Electric and the Bell
Telephone Company. The first of
these offers various devices of
particular interest to camera fans.
The second shows an operating de-
ieer. the device by which the wings
of the modern airplane are kept
free of ice when flying through
low temperatures.