Liberty Bell, Franklin Institute, and Independence Hall, Philadelphia

After living in Vermont for my entire life seeing Philadelphia came as a huge shock. In Montpelier the apartment buildings are the tallest things around. In Philadelphia there are huge buildings that look like they are entirely made of glass and made me dizzy.  While we were in Philadelphia we went to three places. First we visited the Liberty Bell, then we went to Independence Hall, and finally the Franklin Institute.

The Liberty Bell is way overstated, when I saw it the first thing I thought was, "That's it." I'm not

exactly sure what I was expecting, but maybe something more than a four foot iron bell with a crack in it.  The more interesting part was the museum section before the bell telling us what the bell stood for.  Over the years the bell symbolized many different things.  In the early 19th century it became a rallying point for abolitionists trying to stop slavery, and in the late 1800s it was a symbol of pride for our growing nation.


Independence Hall was next, and honestly it was my least favorite thing we visited in Philadelphia.  All it was, was a tour of the building where the Continental Congress convened.  We learned that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were signed there.  Independence Hall was without a doubt not not quite as interesting as the Liberty Bell but at least there was air conditioning.
The Franklin Institute had so many amazing things that I would fill up several pages trying to talk about them all so I will just say the highlights.  First of all there was the main exhibit. Every year or so the museum does a special exhibit with the science behind some sort of popular movie or historical event. This year they did the science behind how Pixar animation works. There was a whole room filled with computers and different sorts of interactive things that shows you how Pixar creates things to look as real as they do. My favorites were the lighting ones where you could change how it looked by modulating the color intensity and direction of light. It also explained of the challenges behind creating character movements and reactions to look like humans. We watched a video that some of the people who worked on Pixar had been interviewed for. They said that out of all of the movies one of the most difficult they had ever worked on was Brave. They said getting the main characters hair right was very difficult, and eventually they had to use an algorithm used to create springs and model her hair after that. 
Another cool part of the museum was the machines  section. My two favorite parts were a demonstration of how an Archimedes screw worked, (which I admit doesn't sound that interesting but since I had never understood how It worked it was nice to see a demo.) On a slightly more exiting note there was this giant grabber arm that you could operate, and pick up random foam blocks littered around a small area.  
Next stop: Indiana Sand Dunes