WonderLab looking for a helping hand

Last summer, visitors of the WonderLab Museum of Science, Health and Technology could explore how the fingers on a human hand require the use of muscles, tendons and joints.

This was done through a complex lever-and-pulley system attached to a nine-foot-tall robotic model of a hand.

Now, WonderLab is looking to obtain this exhibit — created by Bloomington-based company “Explorabotics” — permanently.

WonderLab is a nonprofit organization that served more than 85,000 visitors in 2012, according to a press release.

“The reason it was popular is because it is large, and visitors were at the levers making the hands and muscles in the hand move,” said Louise Schlesinger, WonderLab marketing director. “It was a pretty exciting experience that appealed to adults as well as children, and therefore was a really good teaching tool.”

WonderLab is looking to raise funds to install the Giant Mechanical Hand, which was on display as a test run last summer, the press release said.

In this 2013 Exhibit Matching Campaign, an anonymous donor will match every $20 given plus an additional $10 donation, up to a total of $5,000.

The museum’s goal is to raise $15,000 total by July 31 to fund the Giant Hand and additional exhibits.

“The community has always been generous with our spring matching campaign,” Schlesinger said. “It’s wonderful when we have individuals who will step up and try to provide an incentive for others to give.”

As a WonderLab volunteer for six years, Don Jones has become accustomed to seeing regulars at the exhibits every Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s a great venue for Bloomington,” Jones said of WonderLab. “People from all over the country come here. I had a young woman who just moved here, and she came with her young children and her mother-in-law. She said, ‘Wow, this is terrific,’ and I told her to make sure to get a membership.”

Jones said the addition of the hand would provide a boost to WonderLab’s exhibits.
“We have different displays that come in on an ongoing basis, and the hand will become part of the ongoing road,” he said. “It will be some fun to have it.”

Schlesinger said WonderLab has not had any problems reaching its fundraising goals in the past.

“Admission fees only partially support the full operation of the museum, so fundraising in its various forms, whether it’s the annual gala, these matching campaigns or Science Night Out, supports the WonderLab experience,”
Schlesinger said.
She said usually the popularity of an exhibit is determined largely through observation and comment cards and sometimes formal surveys.

Aside from the Giant Mechanical Hand, Development Director Courtney Schmidt said in an email the funds from the campaign will help install a new mirror exhibition in the fall, which will teach visitors about the science of reflection.

Schmidt’s email said this new exhibit would include three other components: mirrors that create a sense of motion with a praxinoscope; an exhibit in which mirrors create the impression that a visitor’s body disappears and his or her head appears to be sitting on a platter, and mirrors that create a sense of illusion, making it a challenge to decide if an object is real or just a reflection.

Individuals who wish to make a donation may do so online by clicking “Special Matching Campaign” on the museum’s homepage, wonderlab.org.

If individuals prefer, they may also make a donation at the museum’s welcome desk or mail a check to WonderLab Museum, Attn: 2013 Exhibit Matching Campaign, 308 W. Fourth St., Bloomington, IN 47404.