MSI exhibit puts 'MythBusters' to the test
Can you really dodge a bullet? Can a playing card be used as a weapon? Will you get less wet running instead of walking in the rain?
The answers to these burning questions can be found through experimentation at the new "MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition," which runs at the Museum of Science and Industry through Sept. 3.
Based on the hit Discovery Channel show, the exhibit was developed with "MythBusters" hosts and executive producers Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage.
"I'm really pleased with how it's turned out," Savage said. "We were nervous at the beginning. We didn't know what it would be like to work with the team at MSI. As a collaboration, it felt like a very natural extension of the same back and forth between Jaime and I."
The exhibit features a huge collection of "MythBusters" creations, including a mechanical shark, chicken cannon and arrow machine gun.
"They were very, very generous with props from the show," said project manager Chris Wilson. "Essentially anything we asked for that hadn't been blown off the face of the earth or reused, they gave us."
The exhibit attempts to reproduce the "MythBusters" experience. There's a replica of the show's blueprint room where visitors can flip through designs, and stations to test myths accompanied by original footage of the "MythBusters" stars discussing the experiment.
"A lot of what we do on the show is dangerous, and we can't have dangerous things in a museum exhibit, but we wanted to give the same feel, and that's kind of a tricky thing to do," Hyneman said. "We involve the visitors as much as we can, and while there's no danger to them, we try to get the immediacy and involvement that we feel on the show."
Savage said their goal was to make museum goers feel like they're part of an ongoing experiment. Many of the components encourage visitors to go through the scientific method, performing tests and recording their results. There are four Rube Goldberg machines used to fling bread to test if it always lands butter-side down, phone booths to time how long it takes to put on a superhero costume, a ledge to see how long a person can hang on by just their fingertips and a radar gun that tracks the speed of a playing card thrown at a foam target.
After exploring the exhibit, visitors can also watch a 10-minute science demonstration on human reaction time or collisions, which will be running every 20 minutes.
"It's really about the scientific process, which is so well-embodied by 'MythBusters,'" Wilson said. "This gives people the chance to do that, and experience that with your own hands."
One of the most impressive experiments is a pair of rain tunnels, where museum goers can walk or run as water pours down. The water has been treated with a black light reactive chemical, so visitors can clearly see how wet they get.
"That one was the butt-kicker of all of them," Savage said. "There were so many elements that needed to work to get that buttoned down."
When its run at the Museum of Science and Industry is complete, the exhibit will begin a five-year tour, with the first three years already booked.
"'Mythbusters' has been on air for 10 years and there's no end in sight," Hyneman said. "We like to keep in front of the public as much as we can. We also know that there's 10 years of accumulated fans that love the show and would love to partake of it in some way a little more personal than through the television set. We hope they learn something from it."
“MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition”
Where: Museum of Science and Industry, 5700 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, (773) 684-1414, msichicago.org
Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily through Sept. 3
Admission: $25; $24 for seniors; $18 for kids ages 3 to 11 for museum and exhibit admission