The biggest little bridge built by a awesome guy named Dave

I wrote this a while back and put it in my drafts to publish some day, for some reason it just felt like a good time to post something I wrote maybe a year or two ago....  I really wrote it about a special guy Dave who works at the museum, because he is one of the cornerstones of hands on science museums and its been amazing calling him a mentor of mine. - JT

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Teaching....
Learning...
Fun....

The things that make the world go round, I think....

Its the reasons I wake up every day and do what I do, I love to use my talents to share with others and open their mind to use their talents and explore farther.

What better place to work and combine all my loves then at the Exploratorium Science Center located in San Francisco... A dream job.... even sweeping the floors at that place is a pleasure... because you can't go a day working there without a smile and a laugh.

We get to build amazing exhibits for people to enjoy and learn about science.

I always tell people " I know I won't get to walk on Mars in my lifetime... but I know that something that I will do in my lifetime will help the person or persons that will do it... I feel like the person that will be part of that landing is a little kid knee high right now, walking around the museum laughing having fun and something that I had a part in will trigger their young minds to love science and when they grow up their love for science will help unlock questions we all wonder and push the envelope of understanding."

I think that if you don't think like that and have some sort of dream or pride of what your doing and how your helping in the overall scheme of things you will never feel the true worth in your work and have the drive to create things that will push the limits... Its to easy to look at the majority and say disheartening things about where we as a human race are headed... but remember their is one in a millions out there... young Elon Musks and young Henry Fords ready to take on the world and change it for the better... dreaming of them learning from your passion will give you a satisfaction you can't describe.

One person that has some sort of a understanding and drive to make the future bright is a guy not many people get to see because hes got his head down and hes working hard to make it happen...

That dude at the Exploratorium I am talking about has almost been there since day one.... that's late 1960s and his name is Dave Fleming the San Francisco legendary exhibit builder and mastermind.
Dave has these goals of building amazing projects and exhibits that not only teach but display and interact in ways of having fun with science that keep kids and adults spending hours and days at science centers across the world...

I don't really know how many exhibits worldwide Dave has made in his lifetime ( but I want to guess 300+) since he started in his late teens at the Exploratorium while still in college working under Frank Oppenheimer . The concept of doing hands on science center for all ages was not even thought of in the 1960s.... as some know this early group of builders get the credit of saying they really build the model of " hands on, interactive science exhibits in a museum environment".

If the Exploratorium would have not planted the science museum seed in the 1960s for the whole world, its makes me wonder what would be different??... This museum was and still is a building block of the San Francisco tech industry that we know around the world today... I think that's a good example to think about. What if there was no young minds learning about relays and magnets at the museum... would we have Iphones today.... would we have Silicon Valleys famous wafers that brought us in to a crazy era of computing.... something to think about.....

The crew like Dave can still be found working around the clock, with his awesome drive and passion for teaching science... Its amazing, I only hope when I have worked 25+ years in a career I have an overwhelming drive like this crew still has for their passion.

This is a normal view of Dave working in the shop around the clock...

From machining to wiring to designing, hes flying around the shop some times power walking because hes so excited to get to the next thing...

One of the cool projects for the new location of the Exploratorium that I got to team up with Dave on was a really neat Bay Bridge model to teach about how the bridge moves. As you can see up above that's Dave and I standing next to the bridge concepts in the movie below.

Dave's concept was to build a small 1/500 sized scale of the bay bridge and it was to be designed to be outside in the salty air on the end of the museum's pier running parallel to the real bay bridge so people could look and shake the model and compare it to the real thing only a mile away to get a better understanding how it moves in the wind and how it moves with load on it. 

Here is a video showing the concepts based on the Golden Gate bridge to understand how to build the bridge and some info about the real bridge, you will get a good idea of the crew of minds behind this project. 

From day one I was pushing for Dave to design some really neat laser cut 316 stainless pieces with lots of details in them, so he did and thanks to Ryan at Seaport stainless it was totally a possibility to make complex little part to look like the real bridge.

The next project was to bend up all the little pieces on my press brake and run them thru the tumbler to make sure everything was kid safe and no sharp parts.

My little DiAcro press brake bending up the laser cut bridge decks.. 

it was a good Saturday afternoon of bending all the decks at my shop.

Once they were all bent up it was time to work on the other parts...

One of Dave's major ideas on the mini Bay Bridge was to show how important the center cement anchorage support is on the bridge so he decided to build a interactive piece to show with and without the support.

THIS IS THE BEST PART !!!

Open ( without support )

Closed ( with support as the bridge is in real life )

At the time I had so many exhibits being built in my shop...

But enjoying every second of it...

As you can see, it creates a great picture with the real bridge in the background.

Here is a quick fly by to see all the mini decks once we had it all together

I would defiantly recommend anyone visiting San Francisco to make a stop by the Exploratorium Museum and really see the 400+ interactive exhibits you can play with, truly a awesome a worthwhile experience and trip for all ages.

JT 

Dinner under the shuttle

Every once and a while I get to do something fun....

This was one of those things that I enjoyed. My buddy Art who worked with me for a while in my shop, got out of the Navy after 4 years and scored a cool job as a new prototyper at Applied Minds in LA, which is a super cool company that does just about everything.

They are a concept company with a lot of focus on Space due to some of the people involved in the company were either pilots on the shuttle or worked for Nasa. The team does all kinds of other cool stuff in the robotics and movie industry as well.

Artin has a good gig going and hopefully he can hold it down.

They threw a party and they did it big, Art ditched his date to take me with...


It was cool to hear the actual pilots of the shuttle we were looking at talk about it and all its weird things that made it a pain in the ass to fly.

Once I get some good photos with myself and the pilots I will post them up.

The beast - I LOVE NASA

The pilot spoke to the employees about the bad door that sometimes required extra love to close before take off.

The thing is kinda heavy and big so I could only hold the front.

 

Dinner under it make it hard to eat because I just looked up the whole time...

I have dreamed to be this close to it for so long that its crazy to get to see it now.

 

 

 

 

A few months back it flew past the Exploratorium Science museum where I work in San Francisco. Its such a big deal at the museum they shut down the museum to make sure everyone got to see it for its last flight, Science rocks!

Mars or Bust...

Tonight it was offical ....    I was extremely proud to be an American ......

About 30 of the smart tech ind. kids from around the Berkeley,CA area decieded to have a " Martians Party " to celibrate the landing of the new NASA Mars rover, yep a Nerd Fest ....

And if you know anything about me..... NASA and Aerospace stuff is my favorite stuff ever and yes I am a total nerd.......  So damn right I am showing up at the party dressed as an Martian from outer space!

This landing is very rad and it shows that if you put your mind to it and do the work it will work.... Good work to everyone that helped make it possible in every department big or small, it was a sucess!

I hope things like this get kids back thinking of the future without limits and that it takes a team to make a crazy thing like this work, from the grunts to the scientist.... everyone plays an important part in a future changing thing!!!

I have heard thru the machinist grapevine that the wheels have "JPL" in Morris Code so as it drives across the Mars dirt it leave the code, the origianl design with the actual JPL logo was just to much party for the dirt ... so in a last minute ditch effort they put it in Morris Code which is super bad ass and kind of top secret....

Matt from Meka Robotics and I

Matts Solar helmet transmitter he was wearing was really cool, I should have got some better pictures.

I looked more like a scrap metal hauler with a welding helmet on.... I was shooting for the Alien look

NASA live TV on the Wall for the room filled with people

Everyone was stoked !

I come in peace.....

We have landed !

Nasa.....

Its been my dream to build things that fly for years and years......

I am addicted to Aerospace and its ways of thinking....

It always crosses my mind when I walk thru the Aerospace junk yards of Southern California, of a time when craftsman across the USA, looked at the part in their hand and with pride said - " that the best work I can do ".

I have seen these amazing parts ( now considered junk) that were built in record times in the 1960s with overnight learned skills and unknown material sciences,  to preform one task...

Get to the Moon first... !

The people didn't look at the big picture of the rocket ship, they looked at the small picture which was the part in their hand and making sure they put 100% of their skills in to that one part.

This is the way I try to think when building stuff at MLS and all the work I preform...

Yes, its fun to think of the big picture... Example - Boeing 787 dreamliner,  but stop for a second and look at that plane.....

Theres thousands of parts and I can't build them all and take all the credit ( I wish ),  but if theres a thousand people like me with pride, just making one part for the project .... well then we have one hell of an airplane..

Who cares if its just a seat bracket or a stair part, the fact still stands it takes pride in everyones work to make a project amazing..

The San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge was built in months, start to finish  - 100% pride in an amazing project that still stands today.

This is what I am talking about....

A secret place........

When I first moved away from Minnesota to California,  joining Exile cycles and working on Discovery channel shows, I was a bit taken back and sometimes a little overwhelmed by the work load of on and off camera work.

I needed a place to hide....

I happened to run in to someone that told me about a very special place located in Los Angeles that would cheer me up and leave my brain twisted, the true location is low key and I don't know how much I should share but here is quick peek at one of the most happy places in the world for me!

My buddy Art, who use to work here moving stuff around,  now is on a Navy ship repairing jets and moving aerospace parts around just like when he worked here ( there you go Art, theres your fame for the month)

Remember I am an AeroSpace Welder and my love for NASA is very strong so this place is very special to me.....

This place is where NASA laid to rest so of its most well engineered " Space Race " projects of the late 1950 and 1960s.

You could call it a graveyard of Mercury, Apollo and Saturn rocket mission projects.

It is one of the only places that you can walk thru and NOT know what it does or what its used for.

There is about 40 rows in the building and two floors of just NASA stuff

over 20,000 feet of stuff!

Tanks and tanks and tanks

More tanks, complete rows of tanks

Titanium Tanks designed for fuel for NASA and the X projects

Rocketdyne J2 rocket used for the Saturn rocket and more Titanium tanks

One of the coolest things here!!

A back up rocket for the X-15 test projects 

This little beast pushed the plane to set the record of mach 6.7 - the fastest thing on earth 

North American X-15

Its only a dream to have it sitting in my living room

These are some of the tanks and parts used for the Apollo Command Module

This is a close up of the crazy Titanium welding that they did in the early 1960s 

Remember these guys wrote the book on Titanium welding, it was all trial and error

and what a project to learn on.....

 

Just looking at some of the prototypes they built makes my jaw drop

these guys did it all without computers and without crazy machines.

Nothing but a good set of hands and a smile

Control boards from the research centers and back up rockets

I worked at exile all weekend with Blake ( aka - random ), can't tell you what I am working on with these NASA tanks from 1958s Saturn project, but I can say its going to make a nice hot cup of wake me up in the morning...