After a picnic lunch at Brackenridge Park, we considered a ride on the Brackenridge Eagle to the Witte Museum…because then we could catch the train back to complete the trip through the park and to our car at the end of the day.
Especially interested in seeing the Leonardo da Vinci’s Machines in Motion exhibit which recently opened, I carefully managed our whirlwind tour of the Japanese Tea Gardens, Zoo, and Brackenridge Park, to make this amazing opportunity happen!
I even bought season passes to the Witte! My kids were growing up and their classical education in the last two years prepared them to enjoy museums!
Interactive Leonardo da Vinci Exhibit at the Witte Museum
Entering the Leonardo da Vinci room revealed opportunities galore to interact with his machines!
When my kids saw his bio displayed, they happily exclaimed: Oh, we read about all that last winter.
After quickly skimming the bios, they rushed to interact with the intriguing machines that come to life.
Recreated, before our eyes, were the very machines he imagined and sketched on paper, most of which were never actually made until decades, even centuries later.
Great Leonardo da Vinci Book
Repeatedly the kids said in awe: I remember this. We read about it last winter…
I highly recommend Leonardo da Vinci for Kids: His Life and Ideas by Janis Herbert. (Read how we used the activities in her book here.)
Leonardo da Vinci’s Interactive Machines
Leonardo’s war machine is pictured in the header of this post. The red blur is my son exploring inside the war machine, while my daughter is about to enter. Army tanks today are constructed very much like this.
My kids engaged with this type of cannon:
My son recognized this spinning battery as a flywheel (in today’s terms):
My son said this has been adapted for today’s army tanks for increased control of the direction of fire.
My son turning a crank to lift the column, just like in da Vinci’s day.
Ball bearings were employed in several of Leonardo da Vinci’s machines. When we got home my son went straight to the Geomag he had left on the table and exclaimed: Hey, this uses ball bearings!
Functioning as an odometer, this lantern pinon gear measures distance by dropping a pebble into a container. Multiply the number of pebbles by the circumference of the wheel to determine distance!
A more efficient printing press for use by one person instead of several:
And loads more can be seen at my Flickr set by clicking this link.
