The Museum of Idaho

The Museum of Idaho located in Idaho Falls has traveling exhibits come at least once a year. In the past they have done the Titanic and some Pharaohs. This year they had a Da Vinci exhibit.


Da Vinci had a lot to do with everything. He dabbled with levers and pullies, along with gears and shafts.


He even constructed some war equipment. This one was designed to be drawn by a horse and go through the battle field slicing people. What I thought was interesting though was that Da Vinci always held a key component back on his war devices, so that these machines were actually never really built and used in his day.


Of course everyone knows that he was famous for painting the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, and that spread eagle guy. What I hadn't realized was that he became such an awesome painter because of his dive into determining how the human body works. He used to steal dead bodies to cut them open and see how muscles and bones worked together in the body. His practices were frowned upon so he had to do these things in secret.


Da Vinci looked into how to fly as well. His inspiration was birds, and thus a lot of the contraptions he built look wing like.


I also didn't know that he did quite a bit of work in the area of hydraulics. He had some boats and ways to walk on water, though I liked this idea of scuba diving.


They had a bridge built entirely of poles that people could take apart and put back together. I asked one of the museum watchers if people usually do it by themselves. She said people usually have someone help but that she saw a ten year old do it by himself. Well, I couldn't be passed up by a ten year old, so I did it by myself as well.