Agents of STEAM Goes to Baltimore
Gordon Moore quote
I stayed overnight in Baltimore earlier this month and discovered an unexpected museum across from my airport-area hotel. Next time you are near BWI, consider making a stop at the National Electronics Museum. It is packed with fascinating gadgetry, and every exhibit functions perfectly!
Many of the docents worked at Northrop Grumman’s Electronic Systems , headquartered nearby in Linthicum, Maryland. Everyone was ready to answer questions and to point me to interesting aspects of the exhibits.
Located within the museum is a working shortwave radio station, and it was broadcasting that weekend in recognition of the upcoming anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The museum gave me a terrific overview of electronics in relation to radio, space, and defense. I am looking forward to a return visit next spring!
Below are a couple of videos from my visit, plus a collection of photos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gC60CbLCmg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8GgY8twk-g
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- Orsteds Experiment demonstration
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- Orsteds Experiment description
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- Manual turbine demonstration: OFF
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- Manual turbine demonstration: ON
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- From Idea to Product
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- Calculating through time.
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- Vacuum tube demonstration: OFF
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- Vacuum tube demonstration: ON
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- Comptometer
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- Bendix Radio Facto Meter
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- De Forest Audion advertisement.
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- Exhibit case of radios
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- Find out the connection between bananas, RCA, and the Great White Fleet.
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- Transistor miniaturization
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- 1980s-era *luggable* Seequa computer, all 18 pounds of it.
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- Motorola car phone, 1964-style
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- Telstar
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- Westinghouse Lunar Television Camera
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- Westinghouse electronic oscillograph
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- Transit satellite description
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- Transit 2A satellite
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- Teletype machine
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- TAM-5 model
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- TAM-5 route
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- Electron microscope
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- Raytheon RARF antenna
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- 1924 RCA Radiola with a loop antenna and Superspeaker
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- Hughes AN/APG-63
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- Ideals Radar Search game
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- Radar detection during attack on Pearl Harbor
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- Live shortwave broadcast for the weekend before Pearl Harbor Day
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- WW2 radar exhibit
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- Using radar technology during WW2
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- Instructograph Morse Code trainer
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- Crytography
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- Enigma Machine
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- WW2 era cryptographic equiment
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- Black Box *hotel key card for scale*
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- Western Union teletype
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- Demonstrating the variable intensities of microwave energy