The Caffeine Diaries
In keeping with the attempt at cheap-or-free entertainment, Teo and I went to COSI on Sunday for their annual Community Open House, aka, Get In For Free Day. We knew going into it that the museum would be a zoo, but we'd both been wanting to check it out. Teo said he basically just wanted to see the building, whereas I was driven by my extreme love for all children's museums (science museums especially), my fond-if-hazy memories of Girl Scout sleepovers at the old COSI before we moved away, and my general willingness to act like an eight year old at any given moment. When I spotted the announcement about the open house on the website, we made a plan to take advantage of it, because neither of us were particularly invested enough to spend $12.50 each (though that's basically a bargain, considering the high price of admission to lots of museums in other cities). For the price of parking ($2), we were set.
I'd heard from several people that visiting the New COSI would basically ruin the Old COSI for me. Since I'd moved in the second grade, I didn't really remember much about the museum, other than there being something very high up you could sit in (some sort of space capsule or something), eating breakfast in the cafeteria one morning after sleeping over (that was actually a fun and creepy feeling, being in the museum overnight), and receiving a hermit crab on one trip that I secretly was terrified of and hoped would die quickly, but humanely (really, can't pin that on COSI, since I'm pretty sure our Girl Scout leader had something to do with it). However, despite warning and apprehension, I thought it was a pretty cool place. Since it was a madhouse, with everyone taking advantage of the no-cost situation, there were many exhibits I didn't get to touch or experience firsthand, but years of attending the Smithsonians have led me to be okay with that. There are cool things and creepy things and science-y things and just-plain-fun things. I thought the best part of any exhibit was a section of the Ocean exhibit where you just played with water. There was a tank you could make waves in to watch the sand underneath, and another area you could learn about erosion. There were fountains everywhere that you could control and experiment with. It was the only room in which I bothered to muscle my way up to anything that was interactive, because it just inspired me to play. I love exhibits like that. I also interacted with kids there, showing one little girl how to work these fish fountains that shot streams of water while your hand covered a trigger. Probably not worth the price of regular admission, but something I'd hit up for certain if I were going to the museum anyway.
We mostly just wandered the museum, getting a feel for things. We attended one show, where trained rats named Mary Ann and Ginger played basketball. The actual basketball-playing portion was fun, but the lead-up patter from the presenter could have used some work. We sat behind this totally adorable little girl who Teo ended up playing peek-a-boo with for a solid 20 minutes, popping out from behind his museum map to her delighted grin. He was so adorable doing it, I got all maternal for a second, but that got squelched but good again when we walked out from the show and ended up perusing life-size models of the stages of human birth. "Oh, so they know to do one shoulder, then the other. Huh." Not for a few years, thanks.
The other fun thing about the open house was that the television studios for WOSU are attached to the main building, and they let you walk around backstage. Blame Aaron Sorkin for this, but I've always been super fascinated by the control room, so getting to poke around one was awesome. I wondered absent-mindedly to Teo about whether they were hiring (even though, yeah, no experience in that field, though I watch a lot of TV if that helps). When we got to look around the studio itself, the very helpful gentleman there patiently answered all of my intelligently-asked questions, even getting anecdotal about how he doesn't particularly like when someone using the uplink wants to use their skyline backdrop to indicate that they're in Columbus, since he hates the picture and finds it cheesier than it needs to be. In the end, though, he said they weren't hiring, but when they do, the job will appear on the OSU job board, which means I need to check that thing even more regularly, because I would carry around coffee and clean the green room for a chance to move up to touching things in the control room or helping with any set design stuff. I should live in a bigger city.
All in all, the trip to COSI was worth dealing with the crowd and I think we both feel like we're set for awhile, at least until the next open house. I'd be eager to know what the crowds were like on a weekday or regular weekend, because it'd be more worth it to me to bring visitors if I knew they'd get to touch and play with lots of things, rather than wait around for exhibit features to open up all day. Also, I suspect there are probably places you can get coupons off admission, which would be worth looking into as well.
I'd heard from several people that visiting the New COSI would basically ruin the Old COSI for me. Since I'd moved in the second grade, I didn't really remember much about the museum, other than there being something very high up you could sit in (some sort of space capsule or something), eating breakfast in the cafeteria one morning after sleeping over (that was actually a fun and creepy feeling, being in the museum overnight), and receiving a hermit crab on one trip that I secretly was terrified of and hoped would die quickly, but humanely (really, can't pin that on COSI, since I'm pretty sure our Girl Scout leader had something to do with it). However, despite warning and apprehension, I thought it was a pretty cool place. Since it was a madhouse, with everyone taking advantage of the no-cost situation, there were many exhibits I didn't get to touch or experience firsthand, but years of attending the Smithsonians have led me to be okay with that. There are cool things and creepy things and science-y things and just-plain-fun things. I thought the best part of any exhibit was a section of the Ocean exhibit where you just played with water. There was a tank you could make waves in to watch the sand underneath, and another area you could learn about erosion. There were fountains everywhere that you could control and experiment with. It was the only room in which I bothered to muscle my way up to anything that was interactive, because it just inspired me to play. I love exhibits like that. I also interacted with kids there, showing one little girl how to work these fish fountains that shot streams of water while your hand covered a trigger. Probably not worth the price of regular admission, but something I'd hit up for certain if I were going to the museum anyway.
We mostly just wandered the museum, getting a feel for things. We attended one show, where trained rats named Mary Ann and Ginger played basketball. The actual basketball-playing portion was fun, but the lead-up patter from the presenter could have used some work. We sat behind this totally adorable little girl who Teo ended up playing peek-a-boo with for a solid 20 minutes, popping out from behind his museum map to her delighted grin. He was so adorable doing it, I got all maternal for a second, but that got squelched but good again when we walked out from the show and ended up perusing life-size models of the stages of human birth. "Oh, so they know to do one shoulder, then the other. Huh." Not for a few years, thanks.
The other fun thing about the open house was that the television studios for WOSU are attached to the main building, and they let you walk around backstage. Blame Aaron Sorkin for this, but I've always been super fascinated by the control room, so getting to poke around one was awesome. I wondered absent-mindedly to Teo about whether they were hiring (even though, yeah, no experience in that field, though I watch a lot of TV if that helps). When we got to look around the studio itself, the very helpful gentleman there patiently answered all of my intelligently-asked questions, even getting anecdotal about how he doesn't particularly like when someone using the uplink wants to use their skyline backdrop to indicate that they're in Columbus, since he hates the picture and finds it cheesier than it needs to be. In the end, though, he said they weren't hiring, but when they do, the job will appear on the OSU job board, which means I need to check that thing even more regularly, because I would carry around coffee and clean the green room for a chance to move up to touching things in the control room or helping with any set design stuff. I should live in a bigger city.
All in all, the trip to COSI was worth dealing with the crowd and I think we both feel like we're set for awhile, at least until the next open house. I'd be eager to know what the crowds were like on a weekday or regular weekend, because it'd be more worth it to me to bring visitors if I knew they'd get to touch and play with lots of things, rather than wait around for exhibit features to open up all day. Also, I suspect there are probably places you can get coupons off admission, which would be worth looking into as well.