Hands-On Science Center Gets Twins’ Thumbs-Up
The previews for the big-shots are over. So when the new California Science Center in Los Angeles opened to the public Saturday, it was time for the little people: kids like 8-year-old twins Brittany and Brandon Pool. With their father, Times staff writer Bob Pool, trying to keep up, two energetic second-graders took the museum on a test drive.
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“The mayor? The mayor’s here!” Brittany exclaimed as Richard Riordan was introduced to early arrivals in the Sky Court, a soaring atrium in the middle of the museum. Three stories up, Riordan was astride the High Wire Bicycle, ceremoniously opening the center by pedaling across a suspended cable.
“I hope he doesn’t fall off,” Brandon said. “At least there’s a net,” his sister replied.
The mayor slowly pedaled out and back for photographers. Then he pedaled out again. “Let’s go. This is boring,” Brandon said, setting out to investigate a frothing cloud of steam pouring from the ground outside the atrium’s doors.
The steam vent is an exhibit we never quite figured out. A crowd of children was cavorting in mist produced by a fog machine hidden beneath its marble slab. “Woooooo!” yelled Brandon. “We’re ghosts.” Brittany tugged on her father’s sleeve. “You can come up here. Grown-ups are allowed.”
Not quite. Tony Budrovich, the museum’s deputy director of operations, hurried out nervously. “We haven’t put the nonslip stuff on this yet. So we have to stay off,” he gently told the kids.
No problem. Brandon and Brittany were already heading off to find the Discovery Room, a hands-on exhibit area they’d heard about. They hardly knew where to start when they got there.
Bouncing from exhibit to exhibit, they raced tiny cars operated by magnets hidden beneath a table and then noticed a room where they could dress up in pint-sized firefighter, police and letter carrier uniforms. Brandon clamped a red plastic fireman’s helmet on his head. Brittany picked a police officer’s hat.
On the other side of the museum, past a huge aquarium displaying an in-your-face jellyfish, the children found the World of Life--a huge exhibit area crammed with interactive biology displays. In the cell lab, the twins split up faster than an amoeba.
Brittany headed for a row of giant microscopes while Brandon wandered over to the Surgery Theater, where a clever TV projection system simulated an actual lung operation on a life-size dummy lying on an operating table.
“This is disgusting, Dad!” Brandon shouted as the dummy’s chest was seemingly sliced open and organs were pulled from it. “Oh, that’s so gross. Dad, want to see it again?”
He excitedly dashed out to look for his sister. “Want to see a surgery? It will make you barf!” he informed her gleefully.
There were a few first-day disappointments. A major one was when the kids mistook an ATM machine near the entrance for one of the center’s high-tech exhibits.
An intriguing exhibit that uses golf balls and movable tubes to demonstrate gravity was jammed, and a museum official was poking at it with a wire coat hanger trying to get it to work.
Three of the five computers in the Life Lab were broken--they had taken an unexpected pounding from early visitors, staff member Carla Bitter apologized with a shrug.
Museum officials recorded 14,000 visitors Saturday. The crowd prompted Brandon and Brittany to pass on the lengthy line to the Space Docking Simulator, a virtual reality exhibit that spins museum visitors head over heels. But they were determined to visit Tess, the 50-foot woman.
She’s the animatronic star of a 15-minute show that uses cartoons, videos, flashing lights and sound effects--along with pulsating strobe and chaser lights--to explain how the body works.
“This is so cool,” Brittany said as the show ended. “We can come back Monday, when it won’t be so crowded, and see her again.” Said Brandon: “She’s the best thing I’ve seen. That’s because she’s a robot.”
Although many of the exhibits were geared toward older children and adults, the kids were both eager to return as soon as possible--next time bringing friends.
On the way out the kids steered us to a McDonald’s outlet in the back of the science museum. Brittany and Brandon insisted that we stand in different food-ordering lines--just in case one line was moving faster than the others.
Kids have the science of fast-food lunch down pat.
