1) Tinkering!: A Summer of Taking Things Apart
2) Microscope Imaging Station
3) Cutting Edge: Artists Tinker With Glass

Tinkering!
A Summer Devoted to Tinkering July and August, 2004
This summer, the Exploratorium presents Tinkering!, an exhibition and multifaceted series of special events that invites tinkerers and would-be tinkerers and all those inadvertent thumb smashers out there to converge on the Exploratorium and try their hand at what they should never try at home alone, taking apart (or putting together) all kinds of stuff, like a car, a boat, a refrigerator, and much more.

Microscope Imaging Station Expands In Summer 2004
Gives visitors the same control that professional researchers have over their own work. The public can use the most advanced microscopic equipment available to explore cells and microorganisms, an experience unique in the museum world. Computer-controlled image capturing and processing techniques make it possible to quickly select specimens; choose appropriate lighting, focus, and contrast conditions; and create seamless video footage of events, like fertilization, that take place in a fraction of a second or occur slowly over weeks or months. These are the same types of complex microscopes currently used in labs around the world.

Cutting Edge: Artists Tinker With Glass
in the Seeing Gallery June 24 -
September 12, 2004
Traditionally, artists have manipulated glass by blowing, fusing, or cutting. These artists tinker with the medium of glass in unexpected ways investigating its optical qualities. The works on view include Thad Povey’s images projected inside glass vessels; Leighton Pierce’s digital “marbles,” which play with our expectations about how images appear in glass; and Rebecca Cummins’ startling use of household glassware.

To learn or see more, go to: http://www.exploratorium.edu