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Aeolian landscape - We have one of these at the Maryland Science Center,
bought new, now 2 years old. I'd say people of *all* ages are fascinated by
it. The wheel to turn the fan usually does so pretty easily. Two cautions:
ours leaks sand out the bottom at a fairly regular rate and we are still
battling (after 2 years) this - sometimes visitors find the sand and will
throw it on top of the piece, etc. - you can imagine the potential messes,
I'm sure. We have also had to replace the fan blades once, not an easy task
as we had difficulty finding the parts. My experience is we have not had
much support from the Exploratorium. Same on the support issue with the
Tornado.

Regarding Science on a Sphere: we've had it open to the public for about 3
days (it is permanent here), and I did hear one visitor comment it was
boring when our audio was off and it was just images :) Normally, we're
planning a looped image/audio presentation and then "live" presentations 3+
times a day for about 15 minutes each. 
--

Kathryn Stofer
TerraLink Manager
Maryland Science Center
601 Light Street
Baltimore, MD 21230
410/545-5976
410/545-5974 fax
www.marylandsciencecenter.org

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