I have heard about the new museum in SLC called
The Leonardo
, but had no idea what to expect what I went. I had heard it was unlike any other museum, but I didn’t know how. If you’re like me and want to know what you’re getting into before you commit to an activity with kids, hopefully this post sheds some light on what to expect and how incredible this museum really is.
When you walk into the museum, there are all of these feathery looking things hanging from the ceiling all over the lobby. It was beautiful, and I initially assumed it was just art. You should have seen my face when it moved. These are motion sensitive, so it looks like the whole thing is alive. You can move your hand up toward it from under it and it will move away from you. It’s an incredible exhibit that combines art and science, and you don’t even have to pay to see it since it’s before the ticket counter.
Another thing that impressed me in the lobby was this wall of lights. Again, at first I just assumed it was art, but one of the people who work at the museum explained it represents the world. This picture (above) doesn’t show the whole thing, but once he pointed it out I could clearly see where each continent was supposed to be. The lights chart a bunch of different things like weather patterns or seismic activity. The whole thing is hooked up to a twitter account, so he pulled out his smart phone and used twitter to make it show seismic activity. I was fascinated. I loved being able to interact with the exhibit in the sense that we were controlling it from our phones via twitter.
On the main floor, they have a bunch of exhibits that have to do with places. The picture above is one of 3 screens you can control to learn more about places. My nephew in the picture is looking at Utah, and demographic facts would pop up on the screen explaining about the place we were viewing. There was also a coloring center near by where people could see how many states they could draw/name from memory, and a place where you could design your own place, adding rivers, bridges, trees, boundaries, etc.
One of the people who worked at the museum explained they have exhibits that are a work in progress. The exhibit above represents algae growing, and over the next several months will grow and change.
Lily loved that there was always something new, exciting, and different to look at.
, you have the option of participating in a study on genes. They can swab the inside of your cheek, and run tests on your DNA. Then after 40 minutes (in which time you can look at more of the museum) they tell you what some of the traits you are likely to have due to your DNA. It sounded fascinating but we didn’t have time to participate during this visit.
The kids loved playing with the green screen technology. They could see the same screen we could, so they had fun holding up green things to make part of their bodies disappear on screen.
This area was devoted to stop motion. Not only could you learn about stop motion and how it was made, but you could use the props and materials they had available to make your own stop motion movie. If you had your own flash drive you could even save the movie to take home with you. There were several of these stations, so kids could work for a while on their movie without holding up the rest of the people who wanted to participate. (Stop motion is the technology that made movies like Chicken Run and Wallace & Grommit)
The day we were there they had the US Adaptive Bobsled Team there to meet with everyone. Not only were there props the kids could try on (helmets, etc.) but the team did a really good job of getting the kids involved.
Above one of the members of the US Adaptive Bobsled Team helps my nephew try out something they use to practice their balance. I was in awe looking at the metals around their necks realizing these guys are the real thing!
They had a whole section devoted to learning about prosthetics. We learned about what prosthetics used to be like, what they are like now, and where they are going. In the picture above, one of the people who work at the museum shows us how to hook a sensor up to our arm to make the prosthetic hand turn on/off a light switch.
Lily liked using the headphones to watch the various videos which were set up to teach us things.
They let us try on a few prosthetics.
I was really impressed with how many people who worked at the museum were around to help. They helped us a lot – which was really nice to have the one-on-one interaction to help us learn.
Once we had put on our prosthetics, there were ramps and stairs we could practice walking on, with railings all around to help us keep our balance.
The exhibit above was cool because 4 people could interact at the same time. You would touch the screen and it would create images on the screen on the wall that went to the music. All 4 touch screens produced different images, so it was fun to play around with each one or use all of them together.
This was probably the favorite thing of all of the kids I saw. It was kind of like Kinect for the XBOX in that when you moved then it sensed your movement and made your character on the screen move, but it was a lot more sensitive to movement. My nephew is moving, and it is making his character (dressed up as a knight) move with him. The kids had a ton of fun dancing and twirling and jumping to make the character move.
The kids also loved the part of the museum that had a huge Google Earth projected on the floor that you could control by jumping on the control pad. The kids would crawl around their neighborhood, pointing to parks and houses they recognized.
They have an art studio in this museum where real artists come and work for a few weeks. You can see what a real artist would look like while they work, and ask them questions if you want. The people who worked there said the artists who come do all different types of art. Some are very clean and keep to themselves, and some spread out and use the whole room as their space.
In the same area as the artists, they have numerous art projects the kids can participate in. They have people who work there assigned to teach you how to do things. I think I could have spent 4 hours just in this part learning how to do art and practicing my techniques!
Believe it or not, I didn’t cover a lot of what we got to see there. It’s not a museum you will get bored in. You’ll want to go back again and again to really get into everything they have available. It would be a great museum for a big group with various ages, because they have so much to do and have so much variety there would be many things that would interest everyone.
209 E 500 S in Salt Lake City
So…do you want to win tickets to go check out
The Leonardo 2 winners
will receive a
family pack of tickets
including tickets for
2 adults and 3 children!
TO BE ELIGIBLE: You must be a public follower of this blog. I will check. (To follow me, just click “Join this site with Google Friend Connect” on the left column of my blog.)
TO ENTER: Tell me what exhibit you think looks fun.
EXTRA ENTRIES: You can get 1 extra entry for each of the following:
-Share this giveaway on your blog, twitter, or facebook with a link to this post (1 entry each)
-Subscribe to Utah County Mom via email (enter your address on the left sidebar)
Leave a separate comment for each entry for this giveaway.
This giveaway is for locals only – within a reasonable distance from this museum in SLC. Each prize package is for pick-up only at the museum.
This giveaway will end at 11:59 PM (Mountain Daylight Time) on December 26, 2011.
CONGRATS TO SHANNA AND ASHLEIGH WHO WON THIS GIVEAWAY!
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