Inspired by my friend to go check out Scienceworks – a place, neither of us having been there, a spontaneous adventure was born! What is Scienceworks? Well, I think Wikipedia says it best:

Scienceworks is a world-renowned science museum in Melbourne, Australia. It is a venue of Museum Victoria which administers the cultural and scientific collections of the State of Victoria. It is located in the suburb of Spotswood.
Opened on 28 March 1992, Scienceworks is housed in a purpose-built building “styled along industrial lines” near the historic Spotswood Pumping Station, constructed in 1897, whose steam engines form an associated exhibit.
Displays and activities offered by the museum include hands-on experiments, demonstrations, and tours. The “lightning room” is a 120-seat auditorium that presents demonstrations about electricity, featuring a giant Tesla Coil, capable of generating two million volts of electricity, producing three metre lightning bolts. Melbourne Planetarium is housed on site.

First off, there was a machine that challenged you to play noughts and crosses. You’re playing against a machine!

Can you win? Absolutely! If you know the trick to beat it (start in any corner and choose another the diagonally opposite corner. Then when they try to stop you, you hit one of the two other remaining corners. Easy win. Unless of course, the opponent knows what you are doing…). Except that the machine was made way back in the past…

There were so many sections in there, with hands-on exhibits!

I liked all the old school calculators, I mean, seriously, to be able to use those things and come up with some of the most ingenious things we have in the world today, is in itself, a miracle.

The exhibit on money and trades around the world was completely fascinating!

Fiji has whale necklaces. Whale necklaces.

The other fun thing was to see how children’s rooms had evolved through the decades. The 70s, 80s, 90s and 2010s… although, the only picture I managed to take was the one for the 2010.

I have no idea about any kid that lives in such an amazing sprawl. Maybe it’s the burbs in me talking… but dayum. Plus, if this was an apartment styled living, why do they need a bicycle?

The next exhibit was the Maker Bot section. 3D printing. I could have stood there for hours on end just watching the machine work.

Plus, they had some cool designs on show! Though the white Tardis… not a fan. They should have done it in blue and then you could have painted in the rest. I think my nerdiness is showing.

After looking at the Robots in everyday life, I was wondering if we managed to have flying cars like so many people envisioned. Though seeing K-9 was a great memory, along with the guys from Forbidden Planet and Lost in Space.

R2-D2, especially with the remakes of the latest Star Wars movie… eh, not so much. You also have to hand it to the guys from Swinburne University – they designed (and donated) the fastest rubix cube solving machine. It was completely impressive to watch.

Lunch time saw us having a coffee and pie. Cause you know, pie. The pie was good but the coffee was even better. I was honestly surprised at how good the coffee was inside a location. Definitely recommend the coffee here!

Next stop was the Lightning Room. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t take any photos during the show. Also, that would ruin the fun of the show. Should you go? Yes. Plus, lighting strikes are really really loud. Their internal Tesla Coil… I hope you can cover your ears completely!

Just around the corner was the Steam Powered exhibits. It was phenomenal just to see how far we have actually come with technology. What I really like was the armour plated car.

Then the spotswood pumping station. This station until the 1960s, was used to pump sewage away from the town of Melbourne and it’s surrounding suburbs. It’s hard to imagine not having working sanitation. Like completely non-working sanitation.

But what was even more fascinating was the change in all the jobs that needed to happen. As I am personally going through my own career change, I cannot even begin to fathom how difficult it would have been for so many of these people to find jobs with the introduction of the pumping stations.

First, you needed all these men to get the coal off the carts, then you had to get the coals into the boilers. But before then, you had people who went around and collected people’s waste that were left in big buckets. This got me thinking, perhaps, with all the changes that are currently happening, we should be looking to the past to see how people dealt with this kind of paradigm shift. Besides, what was even more interesting was how far down the station extended. Me, being me, decided to look over the railing. For anyone that doesn’t know, I am afraid of heights. That look down made me literally weak at the knees. Thanks for filling me on that drop Zee!

After that we went to the planetarium and watched the show on offer and heard the talk on what was out in the night sky.

Also, if you see the blue dishes on the field in the photo below? That is where you whisper in one end and you can hear what the other person says absolutely clearly on the other side. Freaky physics for the win!

Back into the futures exhibit and you can play a laser harp – by running your fingers over the invisible light beams

Laser Harp Anyone?

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Or you can augment yourself with bionics.

Bionic Augmentation. Yes, I am too tall for the Screen.

The possibility of living on a space station and using computers to generate what aliens could look like!

All in all an epic day. And one I would highly recommend going to!

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Train Ticket: Adult – Weekday – Zone 1+2 = $8.20 (2017 fare)
Museum Ticket including Lightning and Planetarium Shows: Adult – $24
Eating inside: $10.00 (approximately – I bought a few things, I could have skipped some to lowered it)
Total: $42.20

You can lower the cost by travelling to the museum on the weekend (save $2.20). Bring your own bottle of water and fill it up inside.

TDT: 4.0/5.0 (I wish I had more time in here)