Indy Children's Museum Part IV OR Toys R Awesome

In part four of our look at the Indianapolis Children's Museum, we're gonna round everything up with exhibits that aren't only for kids, but really bring out the inner kid in all of us. This is the last in this initial series, so I thought we'd go out on a bang.

A Hot Wheels, hydraulics, and toys filled bang!

So crazy it'll knock you head right off your shoulders! Vintage style!

Remember when you were a kid and you had your collection of toy cars? They could have been models, Hot Wheels, Micro-Machines, or Happy Meal toys, but regardless of the type their designs very quickly left the real world and headed off into "You will never see an actual car like this in a million years."

Well it turns out a million years went by pretty damn quickly.

I can hear you saying, "Hot Wheels? For Real?"
My response: "For real, dude. For real."

This exhibit turned the tables on the idea of designing toys from full size cars, instead designing full size cars from the tiny toy ones. It's undoubtedly a very scientific process involving lots of math and artistic ability to get all of the details just right.

And the conclusion of this experimental design method? Awesome.

Why would you need two smaller engines instead of one big one?
Because AWESOME, that's why.

There was some blurring of lines. For example if a Hot Wheels design took an existing car and modified it for the toy car, then the people would take the existing car and give it the same modifications as the toy car. I realize that sentence is a little syntactically confusing, so allow me to illustrate with pretty pictures.

A friend in high school drove a bus like this. It was not nearly as cool.
...Or as pink.

This one is really just a hood modification and a paint job.
Oddly enough, also pink.

What really impressed me, though, was the car that as far as I knew never actually existed on any production line. I could be wrong, but dang...

This could be rolling out of the Alpha Centauri Motors factory as we speak.
Evidently they'd got some killer waves there, bro.

But say your child isn't a budding auto-enthusaist. Say they hate all things shiny and have a fear of flames being painted on the side of things. Say they love complicated machines that have no purpose other than to be awesome.

No worries! We got you covered.

A local museum where I grew up had one of these.
I spent literally HOURS as one of those kids.

"Great job, Willikins! Now what does it do?"
"Beats me, sir!"

And this was just in one corner of a huge room with tons of things to keep hyperactive kids occupied while they burn off all of the sugar they consumed from tasty treats downstairs in the cafeteria.

Kid 1: "This is how we get all of our drinking water."
Kid 2: "Yes yes, but how do we make a huge mess with those blocks?"

This model river features various systems of locks that teach kids how to
block canals and cause incredible economic havoc. Fun!

Kids: "Whhheeee!!!"
Parents: "Whoever planned this exhibit is a GENIUS."

But by far the single exhibit that made me giggle the most was located on the top floor, just past the carousel.

You heard me.

To get to this exhibit there were two routes: The one past the line of people to get on the carousel (the boring path) and the one through the hallways of wacky mirrors (the awesome path.)

One guess which one I took.

The mirrors were, of course, awesome, and neat. But to keep this post from getting too long, I'm making the artistic decision to cut it short and move on.

You see? I'm artistic!!!

What was this awesome exhibit? Toys and video games from the last few decades. Behold:

Other things may have also happened in the late '70s.
But only Pong counts.

Yes, that is a father thoroughly beating his son at Pong.
I'd feel bad, but the son probably killed him 300 times last night in Halo 4.

Kids, that thing in the center is a Walkman.
Like an MP3 player but with only album at a time.

"Hey! They made an arcade version of that game from my iPhone!"

This exhibit had two additional key features:
1)Parents telling kids what it was like when they were young.
2)Kids without any parents around enjoying the same games I did at their age.

Oddly enough, I gained a certain degree of pride in my childhood. Sure, we had to get our cheat codes from Nintendo Power or our friends, our portable music players skipped, and our handheld video games gave you carpel tunnel...

"See that book? You had to find a guy named Waldo."
"Couldn't you check the internet for his location?"

...But there was a line of kids waiting to play Super Mario Bros. The first one.

Also a group of parents forcing themselves not to say,
"No, jump on TOP of the sewer and you can find a Warp Zone!"

Overall, it was an incredible day, and an absolutely incredible museum.

When I was a child we lived about an hour and a half from Monterey Bay Aquarium. My parents bought us memberships, and a few times a year we'd head down to the aquarium. I have many fond memories of wandering around that aquarium as a kid. It was an awesome kids place that was close enough to be a regular thing, but far enough away to be special.

I went back with my wife a few years ago for the first time in over a decade. It was just as incredible as I remembered, and I spent the day with a ridiculous grin on my face.

As I wandered around the Indianapolis Children's Museum, I kept getting visions of that museum being a similar place for my children, even though they don't exist yet. And I was truly glad to have my own Awesome Kids Place About an Hour Away. (An AKPAHA.) My kids had better like it as much as I do, because I will drag them around it anyway.

But honestly? I think they'll love it.

And now, to avoid ending on a sappy note: All of the Lego Harry Potter sets in one place.

Wizards made of small plastic blocks? Madness!
...Awesome, awesome madness.

Thanks for reading the Indy Children Museum posts!

Indy Children's Museum Part III OR Old Things, Tiny Things, and Trains!

Annnnnnnnnnd we're back at the Indianapolis Children's Museum! This is the third in a four-part series about the museum. Cynical Reader will probably be grumbling about me padding out my blog with the series.

Possibly.

But there are so many fascinating things! For example, how to teach archeology to children without using a bullwhip or fedora.

Pictured: Not real archeology.
(But a very entertaining series that is completely copyrighted by LucasFilm/Disney.)

Hint: The answer includes underwater balloons and cannons.

Pictured: Real archeology!
(Well, a representation of real archeology... You know what I mean!)

When many people think about archeology, there's often an impulse to think about Egyptian things. Which, to be fair, is where a lot of archeologists spend their time.

If you're a Stargate SG-1 fan, those canopic jars just gave you the willies.
...If you're not, my geeky reference may have given you the willies.

But even then, their presentation reminds us that it's not all tiny brushes, big pyramids, and mummies. There's often putting relics back together and crawling through tiny tunnels.

And hieroglyphs. But I kind of weep for the kid
who bypasses the large puzzle to look at pictures on the wall.

Added feature: This is really a kid's only exhibit,
as you can tell by the awkward father not fitting in at all.

However, the world is much bigger than a chunk of desert near a river in northeastern Africa. And much of it is covered with water.

How on earth can we explain all of that to children before they get bored?!?

Answer: Conga line!

Ancient horses with weird tails!

Pirates!
(Recreation of Captain Kidd's shipwreck site.)

An actual frikkin cannon!
(Also an explanation of why it's still under salt water to preserve it.)

Gold! Treasure!
....and learning...? When did they sneak that in there?

All in all, I was super impressed with their archeology exhibit. It managed to concentrate on stories that could grab interest: Egyptian tombs, falsely accused pirates, buried warriors of a Chinese emperor...

...And do it in a way that gives a general insight into archeology while keeping it exciting.

And since, let's be honest, a lot of archeology is spent working very slowly and methodically, that's quite impressive.

Speaking of methodically, remember when you were a kid and painstakingly put together that model aircraft using glue, a box of tiny plastic parts, and an incredible amount of patience?

Me neither. I built Legos. (Slogan: "The impatient child's model set.")

But SOMEbody did! And holy crap, was it impressive.

That's a nice room! I think I'll take a seat in front of the fire...

....Oh. Guess I won't, then.

There was a whole gallery of these models!

I just...

I mean...

GAH!
HOW DO THEY HAVE THIS MUCH MOTOR CONTROL AND PATIENCE!?!

"Bah!" I can hear CR saying, "That's only a room! A really impressive miniature builder would build a whole house!"

Bam:

In your face, you mythical jerk!
(Also: I am never showing this to my imaginary daughter.)

Finally, I'd like to shoehorn a clunky transition into the last section, going from tiny things to huge things!

Yes, that is an actual locomotive.
No, I don't know how they got it in there.

Annnnnnd back to tiny things for the model of an old, 1800s town with model trains:

The local Starbucks is at the top of the hill.
Your house is at the bottom.
How badly do you want your latte?

"I like the ceiling tiles, but it seems a little too modernist..."
"How about a model train, sir?"
"Jenkins, you're a genius."

Seriously, though, these guys know their audience. From the dinosaur exhibit (See Part II OR Dinosaurs!!) one goes immediately to trains:

Oh yeah. I'm definitely on board.

But the whole train exhibit does more than just talk about steam locomotives and how cool they are. (Which, temperature-wise, isn't very cool at all...)

It ALSO goes a bit over life in the 1800s/early 1900s, when trains were a necessity for getting around, when technology was just starting to open up the world, when LOL was spelled ".-.. --- .-...", and OMG was "--- -- --."

"--- -- --. ,Vanderbilt is totally a Robber Baron!"
".-.. --- .-.."

So thanks, Indy Children's Museum, for reminding us that the past may be tiny, the past may be large, and above all the past may be old, but the past can also be really fascinating.

Indy Children's Museum Part 2 OR Dinosaurs!!

Annnnnnd we're back at the Children's Museum! As observant readers have no doubt guessed, this week we're talking about dinosaurs. Specifically the rather neat exhibit at the museum.

Are you ready? Doesn't matter! We're doing it anyway!

Proof that dinosaurs laugh at your unpreparedness.

At some point, like many museums across the country, the Indy Children's Museum built an OmniDome, one of those enormous movie viewing experiences that projected movies (usually IMAX) on an enormous dome designed to fit one's field of vision.

What does that have to do with dinosaurs? Well the Children's Museum soon must have learned that a far greater pull than a large dome is long dead large reptile-bird-things.

Also this makes NO sense if it's a movie theater.

Thus we have the dinosaur environment created by the dome:

The theater light and sound part of me squealed a bit in joy.

The incredible projection screen now shows various colors to give a sense of a changing sky, and the incredible sound system provides rather realistic background noises, from roars to rain that made several people reach for umbrellas (no joke!).

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

The dinosaurs paused in their meal to admire the sunset...
...proving even carnivores have hearts.

The dome itself was filled with various casts of fossils, and not just the carnivores, which as everyone knows are the blockbusters of fossils.

This is more of a romantic comedy:
A solid earner and interesting, but only to about 50% of the people.

Obviously an animated feature.

What I really liked, though, were the extras around the fossils. It wasn't just bones and fake plants. There were caves children and small people could crawl through to look out of bubbles in the middle of the exhibit.

Photo credit: My lovely and much smaller wife.

Interactive exhibits taught us about what dinosaurs may have smelled like, eaten, etc.

Also very important lessons about science:
"Since fossils can't tell us [what they smelled like], we guessed."

They also went into various aspects of the paleontological process like putting casts of skulls together.

Recommended age for this jigsaw:
25+ with at least one Phd.

Paleontologists and bachelors: The largest users of microwaves.

Despite the serious nature of the paleontologists currently working there...

Yes: Actually paleontologists doing actual work.
...and trying really hard to look serious.

...The were also willing to have fun with things.

Riddle me this, Batman?!?

As exemplified by their possible answers:

This theory brought to you by ABC and early '90s sitcoms.

Overall, it was quite an enjoyable exhibit. There were also several interactive exhibits, including one where children could put on a tail and gloves to see what it would be like to move eggs around as dinosaurs.

(I would show pictures of that, but the only ones I have are of my rock drummer brother-in-law in the getup, and I'm holding those for possible blackmail.)

But I will leave you with this final piece of awesomeness:

The Indianapolis Children's Museum is the only children's museum who got to name a new dinosaur species. And their choice made the geek in me proud.

Yes. THAT Hogwarts.

Until next week, stay fascinated!