Adventures in the physics garden

Kat Austen, CultureLab editor

(Image: courtesy of Thinktank)

Thinktank Science Garden opens at Thinktank museum in Birmingham, UK, on 2 June

HAVE you ever run in a human-sized hamster wheel? I did recently, on a rainy day at the new Thinktank Science Garden in Birmingham, UK. As I gained momentum, feeling my feet run away with me, I started to buzz with adrenaline.

The point of the giant wheel isn't just to give its occupant a rodent's-eye-view. Like all exhibits in the 2750-square-metre garden, which is designed for all ages, the wheel illustrates an engineering principle. In this case, my unusual workout showed me how devices called governors work. Used to limit the speed of machines, governors were invented by James Watt to regulate rotations per minute in steam engines.

As I sprinted, my building speed affected a crank, which connected the wheel's axle to a vertical shaft, which turned the weighted balancing balls of the governor, causing them to spin out and up. In an engine, these balls are connected to the fuel input in such a way that when the wheel rotates faster, the fuel supply is reduced. The shaft can also be linked to a braking mechanism, which regulates speed. We now rely on governors to keep aeroplane propellers from malfunctioning and diesel engines from overfilling with fuel and exploding.

In the exhibit, though, they feed into a display of a hamster making a slowing motion with its paws. I would have liked to feel enforced deceleration while racing along, but you can't deny the appeal of being a human hamster, just for a few minutes.

"If you want to experience real forces - gravity, centripetal force, friction - we need scale and size. The outdoors is the perfect place for launching water rockets or running in a hamster wheel," says Clara Lim, interactive exhibitions manager at the garden.

You can also experience the effect of pulleys by hauling your body off the ground in a chair suspended from a metal tower, and feeling the effect of air brakes - giant paddles that work via air resistance - on your way back down. The instruments of a "mechanical orchestra" can be made to chime by turning a hand wheel, pedalling or controlling the orientation of a windmill.

The Thinktank Science Garden builds on the legacy of a handful of similar spaces around the globe, including the New York Hall of Science, Danfoss Universe in Nordborg, Denmark, and the Weizmann Institute of Science's Clore Garden in Rehovot, Israel. But fitting out a science garden fit for British weather required lateral thinking when it came to sourcing exhibits. "We had to look for marine-grade items," says Lim.

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