I Am a Typewriter
1:34A typewriter tells you its own story. Why does a machine for homework have glass keys and shiny chrome?
Can you spot it on your trip?
Find the typewriter table. Can you spot the backspace key? Is there a delete key?
For kids
Watch a short video. Then find the real thing on your field trip.
Machines that real people designed to look good and work well.
A typewriter tells you its own story. Why does a machine for homework have glass keys and shiny chrome?
Can you spot it on your trip?
Find the typewriter table. Can you spot the backspace key? Is there a delete key?
A detective cracks the case of the 1940s TV. Four clues explain why it looks like furniture.
Can you spot it on your trip?
Find a TV with a gold ring around the screen. Which TV would you want in your house?
How many pictures make one second of a movie? Find out, then make your own flipbook.
Can you spot it on your trip?
Find the Mutoscope, the movie machine you crank by hand. What's inside it?
A game console from 1977 takes on a controller from today. Which one is more beautiful? You decide.
Can you spot it on your trip?
Find the Atari. Look at the front. Is it really wood?
Cats, dogs and the tricks painters use.
A whole wall of cat and dog paintings, some more than 140 years old. Learn the painter's trick that makes eyes shine.
Can you spot it on your trip?
Find the AWWW Wall. In the painting called Cats, can you find all four kittens?
Be the artist.
Four tricks artists use to draw what they really see. Wobbly lines are welcome.
Can you spot it on your trip?
Pick one thing at the exhibition. Look at it for one whole minute before you draw.
The objects and paintings in these videos are real. A few pictures and voices were made by a computer, and the video tells you when.
Find these 12 things on your trip. Check them off, and draw a tiny sketch of your favorite.
1. A radio shaped like the whole world
Clue: Designed in 1933 by Raymond Loewy
2. A TV screen smaller than your hand
Clue: Three inches across, from 1948
3. A machine where you turn a crank to watch a movie
Clue: Look for a reel of cards inside
4. A typewriter that packs into its own case
Clue: From about 1926
5. Wood grain on a video game
Clue: This kind first came out in 1977
6. The black phone most American homes had
Clue: Designed by Henry Dreyfuss's team
7. Glass pictures painted by hand
Clue: A toy from about 1900, in a red box
8. One blue brushstroke on a gray crock
Clue: It's called a bee sting
9. A soda whose name is a city spelled backward
Clue: Read it right to left
10. Three kittens and a straw hat
Clue: Painted around 1880 by "Kitten Couldery"
11. A dog wearing a red bow
Clue: In an oval painting from 1873
12. Three portraits of the same man
Clue: Only one is the original
1
Hands-on only where staff say
Type, crank, dial and play at the stations. Everywhere else: eyes close, hands off.
2
Walking feet, normal voices
Talking about what you see is the whole point.
3
Stay with your team
Your adult is your home base.
Grown-ups: why we’re doing this, and notes for every video →