Discovery World - Les Paul's House of Sound

There were so many things to look at and read in this exhibit. Bug's dad & I could have spent the whole visit there.


I love this picture of Bug and her dad.

This wheel rotated and when you strummed the strings, you could see the vibration very clearly.

This was shallow water in a tray. You could turn the knobs on the black box to change the frequency of the sound and the water would react to it.

Bug's dad, teaching the girls about this old phonograph.

This is an old railroad tie with a guitar string on it.


Bug and her cousin, M, looking at a record with a microscope.



This was cool! The tube was filled with styrofoam beads. As you changed the sound, the movement of the beads would change.
There's a small camera aimed at the 2 strings. As you strum them, they are shown on the screen. There's also an oscilloscope off to the right, showing you the wave forms.

This display shows a Les Paul guitar from beginning (plank of wood) to end.




We want one of these for our house! As you set the blocks on the table, they would make a sound. You would also see the sound waves, in a green light, in the table. The sound would continue as long as the block was there, so that you could add other blocks and, therefore, other sounds. All 4 of us played with this for a while.

Bug and her dad, experimenting with an interesting keyboard.


There was a lot of hands-on stuff here.

If you're ever in Milwaukee, you MUST go to Discovery World. We will definitely be going back.

Les Paul's House of Sound - the guitars

We went to Discovery World in Milwaukee yesterday. Our first stop was Les Paul's House of Sound. They had so many guitars on display. They were in cases, so it was hard to get decent photos. Here are the ones I found the most interesting, along with a plaque identifying each one.

Discovery World - Milwaukee

This is suspended in the center of the spiral staircase.

Bug and her cousin M trying out a helicopter.

It's hard to see, but this is a hydraulic dinosaur.
Bug enjoyed operating the controls for the dinosaur.

This lady offered the girls a ride on a hovercraft. After the ride, Bug's dad had them try to move it and they realized how much help the air was.

Bug, enjoying the view.
M, relaxing.

The multiple mirrors leading into The Hive...
Cousin M was VERY brave. She's waiting for the nails to be raised.

Cousin M, lying on a bed of nails! She looks quite comfortable. I checked...they were sharp!

Bug, checking her weight on an old scale. You can see me reflected on the right.

Bug's dad is demonstrating the theramin. Very cool.
Bug was a little too wiggly at this point.

The girls had to run in this wheel (like hamsters) to make enough energy to pump water.
Surprises at the Van de Graaff generator.

Discovery World - aquarium

I wasn't able to get many good shots in the aquarium. This is a kind of cool one of the jellyfish. We were all fascinated by their movements.


Bug was quite excited to be there.

The photos do NOT do justice to this area. As you can see, there is an arched roof here. What you can't see is that the glass/acrylic/whatever that was used makes it look like the fish that are directly above you are actually floating in the air...very strange. Even after you know that they're not right there, your eyes are saying "Oh yes they are!"


Bug had the option to touch these, but passed.

Sheboygan

The 3 of us left home on Thursday morning and headed to Sheboygan. We had a nice time walking around the town. Here's Bug outside the public library.


This park was across the street from our motel.

This is why it's called Fountain Park, I guess...
Our main reason for going to Sheboygan was to see/hear Garnet Rogers. He didn't take a break, so Bug was able to finally catch the whole show, hear him play his Strat at the end and hear Northwest Passage live, finally! This was taken about 2 minutes after the final note.


Since we didn't get a pic of them at the show, we took this one the next morning, at breakfast. We had a great time and have plans to do it again.