Monday 11 April 2011

Technopolis - a fun day out just South of the border!

Just across the border into Belgium on the outskirts of Mechelen, Technopolis is an exciting interactive science centre with many fun and interesting exhibits to discover. On our visit the children and adults alike had enormous fun; pedalling a vehicle with square wheels, making man size soap bubbles, catching shadows and printing our own currency! There is so much to do there it would take several visits to see everything and press all the buttons/take part in all the activities.

The centre has 7 areas and a science garden plus the current themed exhibition - Plantastic, the wonderful world of plants! The 7 areas include space travel - where you could re-enact walking on the moon, air and wind - where you can pilot a virtual plane flight and action/reaction where you can ride a bicycle through the air!  In the house section you can lie on a bed of nails, at building blocks you can produce an identification image on the computer and in the invisible section you can use smoke and mirrors to make someone disappear (I’m not sure who wanted to make whom disappear more - the kids or their parents!!)

The waterside area held the younger visitor’s attention for a long time, splashing, squirting and pouring, all in the name of science. There was also an excellent science centre for the 4 to 8 yr olds where they could build a house out of enormous rubber lego blocks or shop at a supermarket and find out where food comes from.

We had a great day there with our young children and we also took along our 14 year old nephew who enjoyed it so much he’s told us he has to go back when he next comes to stay. So it really is fun for all ages (especially the dads, many of whom were spotted taking part just as enthusiastically as their offspring!)  Our only criticism was the café which was hopelessly disorganised and chaotic and took hours to serve everyone with poor quality food - a pretty fundamental flaw for a café!

So, in summary, it’s a great place to visit and you probably don’t even need to take the kids with you to enjoy it - but take a picnic!

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