Press a button and lo and behold! Eight life-size reindeers leap into the air. Welcome to this creative world of Steve Gerberich. You can experience all this and much more at a special exhibition at Port Discovery Children’s Museum in Baltimore. Here everyday household items come to life through creative mind of this genius. At fully automated cookie workshop, you can watch robotic elves working hard to make cookies and put them in an oven. By pressing buttons or cranking a wheel, you can see a variety of sculptures come to life. A toy train moves around carrying a number of toys, steam billowing from its engine.
Gerberich explores principles of science in very creative and artistic way. He loves to make these wonderful sculptures, which can move about. A simple teapot can change into a face in his hands. He is renowned for recycling kitchen gadgets, waste tiles, license plates, and many more such items and changes them into unusual sculptures. He uses pulleys, gears and other mechanics in his sculptures, and when a button is pressed, electricity triggers a chain reaction, causing these robots to move.
Gerberich has the ability to reinvent waste materials and using his artistic and scientific mind create a quirky piece of sculptor. For his reindeer exhibit, he has used the motors of an old sewing machine, which moves the pedals of an old exercise bike. This sets into motion beautifully sculpted reindeer. The visitor can see a group of reindeer riding on bicycle flying through the air. He has used a number of items that he had inherited from his family. He also finds them at tag sales, and auctions.
His exhibition involves the visitors in an interactive manner. They need to press a button or rotate a wheel to see the sculptors come alive. Thus, this highly entertaining exhibition invites the museumgoers to experience and explore the basic principles of mechanical motion. It educates children subtly and at the same time entertains them. Many parents and grandparents can recognise the toys and other sundry items in use during their childhood days.
This exhibition is a great opportunity to teach children about recycling their old things. Gerberich changes many odd things into robotic heads, animals, and many other quant sculptors. His creative mind comes to play as soon as any old stuff comes into his hands. The museumgoers will enjoy watching these robots made out of waste, performing all sorts of activities; at the same time get an insight into various science principles that make these things move.
