Bakken Museum

Tuesday, 31 August 2010

Don’t bother going to the Bakken Museum. I took Owen there two years ago, and after about a 1/2 hour, we’d seen and done all there was to see and do. Worse, the Bakken is like the electricity portion of the Science Museum…only with nothing else to offer. Many of the rooms are totally empty, and the employees, unlike the helpful, zealous staff of most museums, just walk around going from one off-limits room to another, busy with seemlingly non-Museum-related affairs. This makes me feel like I’m walking around where I shouldn’t be – as if I’m interrupting something important they have going on.

A few weeks ago, Owen asked if I was going to take him there while on my paternity leave. I was surprised he wanted to go again…but today I met his request and even brought along his cousin (not the three-week old one). Trust me, these photos are cheaper, more convenient, and more entertaining than the museum itself:

Owen and his cousin Lyric use magnets to mess with the colors on a TV. Wow.

I’m pretty sure this was the one reason why Owen wanted to visit the Bakken again: it’s a magnetic crane that picks up nuts and bolts. Notice Lyric waiting patiently to have a turn. Keep waiting Lyric, keep waiting.

Check it out – I’ve attached brain scanners to two children.

This is the only new thing (of ay note) that the museum has acquired in the past two years. Each player straps a band with electrodes onto their heads, and then tries to keep their mind calm. If you can calm your mind more than the other person, then the metal ball (you can barely see it right in the center there) rolls toward your opponent. For a while, the ball rolled back and forth, but Owen was the ultimate winner. It was obvious his cousin got bored, as she began looking around at other things and talking to me while Owen just stared at the ball like a stoic robot.

Lyric stands inside a (defunct) fireplace for no discernible reason, because that’s the sort of thing that Lyric does.

Owen spins a wheel that generates static electricity, which in turn causes small bits of paper to ‘mysteriously’ rise from the table. Lyric (her hands are just visible) tries to ring some gratingly loud bells with a magnet.

There was a flower garden outside the museum, ’cause nothing says “Electricity” like a flower museum. I told them to smile, and Lyric initiated this spontaneous embrace. Aww…how adorable.