I made a video about my experience in the hall of science. I use pictures, audio, and video clips all together. I decided to talk about the visit by voice instead of captions because I think it makes the experience more real. The video is not a good representation of everything there, and I didn’t take enough pictures. I spent about two hours in there looking around.

Technology allows us to discover new things in science and math. The hall of science is a great learning experience for science and math. My point is that technology is always around us and helping us out.
This museum relates to technology in that it demonstrates what technology has done and discovered. Science and math go along with technology. Computers help out mathematicians solve complicated problems. Scientists can investigate more thanks to advanced machines.

The museums are part of the culture of NYC, and the hall of science is one of many. The arts of NYC isn’t limited to museums, but they offer a lot.

The Sony Wonder Technology Lab is perfect for the topic of technology. It is between E 55th and E 56th street on Madison Ave. There’s a public space in the building outside the Technology Lab, which is nice. Tickets are free, and you have to take an elevator down. The website says tickets on-site are limited to first come first serve, so I went early.
In the beginning, you get a card, which is used for the interactive activities. The first thing you do is create your profile. You input your name and get your picture taken. There’s some customization. When the machine was taking my picture, I thought it was finished after the light flashed, but it wasn’t finished. You only get two tries, and I messed up both.
Besides making your profile, there are lots of machines that involve interaction. There is one about image scanning, another about performing surgery, and one with programming robots. You press your card on the machine, and the activity starts.

In one area, you can play games for five minutes on PS3s and another system.When I tried a machine, it was already set to bowling, which the previous person must have been playing. The bowling was motion sensitive, and the controller was in the shape of a microphone. I thought that was interesting. It’s no surprise we now have this technology (since the Wii has been released for a while), but it is still fascinating how far gaming technology has progressed. When I finished bowling, I found out that the game was a sports game, and I could pick other sports to play.

The dance motion capture was out of order, so I couldn’t try that out.
There was one area where you can make your own tv broadcast. You read from a script after cues, and when it is done, some editing is automatically done. It is then shown on a big screen. There are screens on the side that show multiple angles of you. When I did it, the topic was polar bears, and I was the reporter, with my friend as the host.

In another machine, you create your own movie by combining multiple clips. There are 8 scenes, and you pick what you want in each scene. There are only 4 fixed options for each scene, with each scene being a few seconds. At the end, it shows the full movie smoothly.
You can see the change in phones throughout the years and the process of creating animation. There’s also an area about audio and television. Seeing the older products reminded me of the older products in my home back then. My parents did have a big block shaped phone when I was very little, and there are still cassettes in my home.

Before you leave, you scan your card again to ‘logout’ and you give the card back. Then a paper is printed out with the activities you have done. I didn’t do every single possible activity since I was limited on time (I had to go to class after). The interaction is engaging, and many people would find it entertaining. It is free, so I would recommend people to visit the place and enjoy.

Here is audio about my visit to the New York Transit Museum. There are pictures in the pictures section from this visit if you want to know what I’m talking about.
It was originally supposed to be a speech about the transit museum, towards the commemorative or persuasive side. I just talk about my experience there. I did do some cutting to take out pauses and retried many times.
Sorry for the background noise. I think it is coming from the camera.
[It’s funny how this audio can reflect how I do in my current communications class: not so well]
http://www.mta.info/mta/museum/

The museum of moving image, located in Astoria, Queens, shows the evolution of film and digital media. Technology has gone a long way, which is impressive. Back then there were black and white tvs and cameras that use film. My mom actually still has an old camera from the 1980s that uses film. In the current day, a lot of stuff has become digital, and it has been easy to forget or be unaware of the advancements that have been made to get up to this point.

The museum has everything related to media, with planning, directing, designs, lighting, recording, and more. There were also sections for music, sound effects, special effects, and early video games. In the above picture, the museum show a lot of the film materials used, and while the machinery is foreign and complicated, it looks cool and I respect all the effort put into film. There were always boards where you could read about the topic, such as the one above.

There is so much planning going on in films and media. There were blueprints of rooms or bridges and built models, all which fascinated me. The huge effort and time used to produce media is not easily seen, but it is there. There was a lot to explore in the museum. Music, lighting, cameras, acting, costumes, models, special effects,  it and sound are topics I remember.

There was a cool hands-on table that demonstrated illusory motion. People were experimenting with moving motion and created this. In the video below, there’s a still image and a circle that has holes in it. When you spin the circle and look through the holes, it looks as if the contents of the image are moving even though the image is still.

It’s an early example of moving image, before cameras or films ever started, so there’s a lot of history behind it. There were two other similar figures that looked like motion.

There was a small section about the early days of gaming. I saw a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which is really old. You could play the original Super Mario Bros, which I did (for a few minutes). The description of the system and the game mentioned that it got very popular, which is very true. Unfortunately, the other early arcade games couldn’t be played.

Many do not know or care about the evolution of media. I know I used to not care. But I have seen media change in my life. My family used to use a VCR. We still have it, but it is no longer used. It’s all about DVDs now. I’m blessed to be able to live with the current day technology. This experience was good for educating me about how much effort is put into shows and media in general. It helps to be aware so that we may learn and explore deeper in the possibilities of digital media and film.