Among all the places of interests we’ve brought the kids to, the Science Centre is pretty much the geekiest of them all. In fact, it’s probably the epitome of geekdom. Tru has been intrigued by dinosaurs of late and we decided to take him to the dinosaur exhibition there. I figured I’d cultivate some Asian geekiness into him at an early age; get him interested in Science and all that.
There were easily hundreds of exhibit stations with more science packed into it than Einstein’s brain. Naturally, I got bored after a grand total of 3.26 minutes and went around touching the dinosaur bones. Speaking of which, the dinosaur display was a tad disappointing. It was really small, with only 4-5 dinosaurs.
This best exhibit was this mirror that transforms faces into pirates and cowboys. It wasn’t like a fixed frame where you had to align your face to the props but really a mirror so even when you move, you still see a pirate looking back at you. If you know what I mean.
And Kirsten looked terrifying with the ghostly makeover.
While it was mildly entertaining for a while, the sheer number of exhibits and the geekiness of it was totally overwhelming. It’s like they were trying to squeeze in so much educational value into it that somewhere along the way, they lost sight of the importance of having fun.
Let me illustrate with a graph.
I’m all for learning through play but come on, we do enough of learning in school and the level of learning has to be proportionate to the amount of fun involved or else it gets painful. And the Science Centre is dangerously close to becoming painful. That’s coming from someone with a moderately high geek factor. I am Asian after all, and I do like me some challenging mind benders from time to time. But this place is hardcore, so unless you’re the hardcore type, you’re likely to get bored after a while.
That being said, the CSI exhibition seemed like fun. Maybe we’ll go without the kids one of these days.
