Please Touch Museum

The Please Touch Museum re-opened in its new home at Memorial Hall in Philadelphia in October of 2008. USA built its Flying Machine exhibit, a centerpiece exhibit located in the Flight Fantasy galleries. The exhibit allows visitors to build their own flying object from foam parts at one of four building stations, crank the object up a 35 foot long launcher arm, and observe and time their object as it drifts down to the landing pad below. This activity centers on a 45 foot tall rocket ship with 9 planets encircling it.

FLYING MACHINE

Each unique Flying Object is hand-mounted by the visitor to the Launcher Arm. Based on a previous launcher arm design USA made for CMSSLC (Columbia Memorial Space Science Learning Center), we chose a flexible, replaceable hook for carrying the objects. The hooks are engineered to hold the objects securely during travel up the crank, but not strong enough to hold the weight of unwanted objects, such as a backpack. The hooks face down so they release the objects at the top of the crank as they round over the top.

Exhibit Development Team:
Client: Please Touch Museum
Design: Design + Creation, USA
Engineering & Fabrication: USA

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