Airplay August 16, 2008

Air may be invisible, but it is all around us, all the time. 'AirPlay' provides visitors with the tools to explore the nature of air -- how it moves and influences the environment. Air blowers propel bright yellow foam balls through air mazes; a tube tunnel demonstrates how air moves through tubing, angles, and tees; model sailboats move along a tabletop, driven by the force from a bank of fans; and an air cannon shoots a puff of air all the way across a room. Visitors can paint a wall of fluttering "shimmer disks" with a spray of air and race balls to learn the effects of turbulence. Visitors make discoveries about how objects behave in an air stream and balance objects on multiple streams of air.