Science and Technology Centers are great for helping kids learn about science and technology. They can be really fun for adults too! We love it enough that we have invested in a membership at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. It has been well worth the $140 we spent on a family membership. A single visit would cost us $72 so it only takes 2 visits to start saving money. The membership also gives us access to the ASTC Reciprocal Program and gives us free admittance to over 250 different science and technology centers around the world. We visited several different ones in the South East of the USA during our travels this past winter.
Now that we are in Sweden we noticed that we could get free admittance to Teknikens hus in Luleå a Science and Technology center about 2 hours away from where we are staying. We were planning a visit but discovered that there is a newly opened center right here in Skellefteå. We did not get free entry, but considering the cost of gasoline, it would have cost more, to drive to Teknikens hus in Luleå, than the 320SEK it cost for the family to spend the day at Exploratoriet in Skellefteå.
Exploratoriet is by far the smallest one we have visited, but that doesn't mean that there is nothing to do. We had no problem spending the whole day exploring the different exhibits and trying some of allthe different activities they offered. We realized that there were enough different activities to fill the whole day, but that would give us no free time to explore so we decided on a few that looked most interesting.
We began our visit outside the building where the kids got to drive an electric mini Tesla.
Peter driving the mini Tesla.
After both kids got a chance to drive we went straight in for the next activity: Programming lego robots! There were 5 different stations with a laptop and an EV3 lego robot. In the middle of the room was a platform where the robots could complete different tasks. We tried 2 different tasks before the kids wanted to move on and one of our rules, when we visit museums or places like this, is to do it on their level and let them set the pace. This helps keep them interested and I'm convinced that they, in the long run, end up spending more time exploring and learning, than if we had made them stay after they lose interest.
Checking if we programmed it right to knock the ball down.
The forest is one of the most important resources here
so there had to be a section dedicated to that.
Controlling the flow of water in order to make 3 different
water-wheels turn requiers good planing.
I love seeing the gears turn in his mind!
I think we have a little engineer in the making.
The theater was both interesting and fun, but when the actors warned the kids
that the next thing could be both loud and scary,
my kids took it very seriously!
They almost missed the light bulb glowing in the microwave.
After watching the theater show about electricity they got to try making
their own electricity with first a wind generator
and then solar panels.
One of my favorite things was the augmented reality sandbox
that projected elevation lines and water
on the landscape they build.
We ended our visit in "the sun". It was the smallest planetarium I've ever seen - a dome only about 6m across. But the size did not matter. When the light went out the entire night sky was projected on the inside of the dome. We got a nice guided tour to several of the more visible star constellations.
All in all we had a great day and hopefully the Exploratoriet will join ASTC and the next time we visit, it will be free.