Own a Piece of Grandma's Dynamite Museum!

[beamjockey]

This is a little bit sad.

I am fond of hands-on science museums, in the Exploratorium style.

Back where my dad came from in Scotland, The Big Idea, which celebrated the history of invention, opened in 2000. It was on the site of Alfred Nobel's dynamite plant, where my grandmother worked.

Unfortunately, the museum failed after less than three years. Fizzled. Bombed. A dud.

Here's the good news: You can buy a bunch of slick interactive exhibits and start up your own science museum.


The exhibit initially shows a front-lit gauze showing a view of the Ardeer site in Ayrshire, Scotland, where Alfred Nobel started the British Dynamite Company in 1871.

As the visitor approaches, a PIR sensor activates the display and internal lighting reveals Alfred Nobel at work in his laboratory. A stinger controller then operates to let us hear Alfred Nobel reading a letter that he is sending to his family. The exhibit features the original artefacts and equipment from Alfred Nobel's workshop.

Comments

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

Aw, cool.

Coincidentally, it appears I am on a mailing list (dedicated to rolling ball sculptures) with the fellow who built that rolling ball sculpture depicted under "mechanisms". At least, I think that one is one of his. Have to go look now.

Years ago, there was talk of the Denver Mad Scientists Club initiating an Exploratorium type facility here. It fizzled. :(

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

That's funny, my grandmother worked in an Alfred Nobel plant, as well -- the one that's associated with Björkborn, and in fact there is a museum there now, as well, with a display of Nobel in his lab there. Further proof that the man got around.

Pity about the Ardeer museum, tho.

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

I've always had this fantasy of turning different rooms into mini museums. One room would have all my SF art, one would be full of my books. One room would have a marble race with levers and wheels and it would go from top to bottom with lots of roller coaster parts and it would all run by gravity. Then I'd have a table with magnets and one with bubbles and an area to do light experiments and another for sound and waves. I'll be lucky if I get one of those ideas in motion. It's pretty cool that you are connected to Nobel.