Monday, April 14, 2008

Taking in the Technology

A recent visit to the revamped MIT Museum prompted this piece for the Boston Globe's new Saturday Sidekick section. All five of the kids -- ages 14, 12, 9 1/2, 3, and 17 months -- loved it, and we were there for more than an hour before our preschooler began asking what we were doing next (as any of you with preschool-age children know, that's a long time).

April 12, 2008

Technology for tots - and teens

Lylah M. Alphonse, Globe staff


When your oldest kid is a teenager and your youngest is in diapers, finding activities that won't bore either of them to tears can be a challenge. But the kid-friendly, hands-on exhibits in the new Mark Epstein Innovation Gallery at the MIT Museum thrilled all five of our kids. Our toddler glued his drooly self to the zebra fish tanks; our 3-year-old asked to adopt Kismet, the "sociable robot" from the 1990s; and our older kids practically camped out in the cool holography exhibit and in "Flashes of Inspiration: The Work of Harold Edgerton," where they ogled iconic images captured with the help of a stroboscopic flash.

History buffs will be interested in the retrospective on the university; wannabe engineers will be fascinated by Arthur Ganson's mechanical sculptures; and geeks of all kind will be happy to know that, if you take a wrong turn on the way out and accidentally stumble upon MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club, you can play a Tetris-like game on one of the model skyscrapers while the non-directionally challenged adult in your party figures out the way back to the elevator. Ahem. Not that we got lost or anything. [
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