San Jose Tech Museum

One thing I wanted to make sure we did over the holiday break was visit the Tech Museum in San Jose to see the Star Wars exhibit.  The exhibit leaves in Feb. so this was our last chance to go check it out...and it did not disappoint!  Wow, so many cool Star Wars artifacts, displays, experiments and videos.  There was no flash photography allowed so all my pictures are either very dark or didn't come out at all.  But Timo loved it and we had to look and each and every little display as to not miss a thing.

Cameron took a whirl on the hover craft rider thing...not being a Star Wars buff, I'm not sure which movie this is from but she had fun on it.

After Star Wars we headed into the museum to get our tech on!  We started downstairs but only had a little while before we had to get to the IMAX to see Flight of the Monarch Butterfly.  Awesome movie...even better with popcorn and lemonade!

We had to go back downstairs to finish everything we didn't get go and I mean EVERYTHING.  The kids had to stop at each station, push each button, read every direction and figure it all out.  We learned about robots, underwater navigation, the Mars Rover, saw how Furby was built, rode in a roller coaster and so, so, so much more!

We made our way upstairs to the science lab and Cameron got a new burst of energy...she LOVES science. The kids actually got to be scientist and work with all the equipment to make a glowing bacteria (I think that's what they did).  They took a glowing strand of DNA from a jellyfish and added it to a cell of bacteria, had to let it grow overnight and we checked our experiment the next day via online code and it was glowing!

"Mommy, maybe one day, can I have one of these for my room?"

The last experiment we did was the Candy Cane Crunch test.  You had to build a house of of paper and tape that would protect a candy cane from being crushed by a stack of presents.  Oh boy...it was so much harder than I thought!  After an hour, yes and hour, of rolling paper sticks, taping paper and taping more paper, our projects were done.  Mama was getting a little weary toward the end and just wanted them done! There was a staff guy walking around that kept talking to Timo about his big house.  Most were building pyramids type structures, small and sturdy to protect the candy...but not Timo.  His life motto is bigger is better!  The staff guy was very doubtful but was so impressed with is it passed two of the three present test!

Cameron's tee-pee passed all three present test and her candy cane didn't break!  There were only about 5 kids that passed the crunch test out of about 25 kids.

To say we took full advantage of the Tech Museum is an understatement...after 7 1/2 hours there, we closed the place down at 7pm!  We were all tired and hungry so Chick Fil A was the icing on the cake of a great day for us.  Anytime I see two passed out kids in the car...I know it was a good day!