I used to go several times a year when I was growing up. No dinos in my memory. The main atrium had (has?) a giant Foucault pendulum that was at least 50’ high and demonstrated the Coriolis effect. I loved the train room but mainly I went to the planetarium show that was conducted by an actual astronomer. The last time I went (probably the last time I will ever go) they had a professional demonstrater who really knew no astronomy, but was just following a script. Disgusting.
I never saw a show at the Fels that wasn’t a prerecorded show.
I remember a dinosaur.
I took my son there, in december 1987 or 88 or 1989. We only went to the Franklin Institute. There was a large dino skeleton. On the ground floor, there was an exhibit of people treating dino bones, putting skeletons together, etc.
I also remember the pendulum. and the train.
At the downstairs level below ground, I assume), they had a large robotic dinosaur. It was green, and it was great. That’s the one I’m trying to find now.
I’ve called both the Franklin Institute, which is now open, and Drexel, which plans to open in about ten days,. No one seems to remember it.
I spent a lot of time there as a kid. Always had memberships. My dad would use their library for research (not sure they even have a library anymore, I recall there being a special elevator you had to take to get there. When I was a toddler I used to call the FI the “train library” and the Natural History Museum the “dinosaur library”. When I was older I took some science classes they used to give on weekends (now they probably would call it science camp).
When I started taking my kids there I was somewhat disappointed. A lot of stuff was replaced by glitzier, more “modern” exhibits (although many of the old ones were still there if you looked hard enough), with more emphasis on things being fun instead of actually educational. The heart of course was still there (my dad’s company built the machine that provided the heartbeat sound in the original installation) as were the Focault pendulum and the Fresnel-lenses lighthouse beacon. The big locomotives were still there, but the enormous HO train setup that was always my favorite part of the museum was long gone.
But my biggest disappointment was the Fels Planetarium. At some point they replace the magnificent Zeiss planetarium projector that looked like a gigantic alien insect and would project stars as tiny, sharp pinpoints of light on a pitch black background with a digital projection system which projected stars as fuzzy dots on a not nearly dark enough background. It could project other material such as video programming, but at no point could you fool yourself into thinking you were actually under the stars.
ETA: Definitely no dinosaur.