We started our Sunday morning by heading to Federation Square to ACMI, formerly the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Australia's national museum of film, television, video games, and art. The interaction exhibition had objects and experiences that blew us all away.
Seeing this wall of the evolution of video game controllers bought up so many fond memories. From the first Nintendo to PlayStation 4, the wall had it all.
One animation, in particular, which was a crowd favourite, was the zoetrope with the main Cuphead characters. Don't know what a zoetrope is? It's a pre-animation illusion device made by spinning a top with a sequence of photographs or models in motion to simulate motion using strobe lights. Look below at the video; it was much better in real life than what the camera picked up.
We also strolled through Memory Garden, an interactive and immersive display of Australian home videos from the 1930s. Light beams were projected from the ceiling that animate when you hold out your hands. This was very cool!
After ACMI, we headed to Scieneworks, a popular technology museum. Everyone loved Sportsworks as we explored the science of sports, how human bodies work, and sports equipment technologies. We got to leap, run, throw and row. We raced against Cathy Freeman, tried out for soccer goalkeeper, and zoomed down the slopes in a snowboarding simulator.
Next, we followed the yellow lighting bolts on the ground, which led to the Lightening Room, where we were to watch a 40-minute presentation demonstrating energy transfers and transformations involving electricity.
We learnt about static electricity, conductors and insulators, electric circuits and safety switches. Some of the presentation's highlights included making light with a piece of pickled onion, a spectacular demonstration of lightning strikes and tips for safety strategies in lightning storms. One safety tip in particular we learnt was that if you were caught outside with no safe shelter, you must crouch down in a ball-like position with your head tucked and hands over your ears so that you are down low with minimal contact with the ground.
The next stop was the Planetarium, where we got to recline back and look up at the domed ceiling and watch a show about the planets in our solar system and star constellations. Between the surround sound, the spectacular colour and movement like never before, it was an experience we would never forget.
Our tummies were starting to rumble, so we made our way over to our last stop, Grazeland. There were over 50 shipping containers repurposed into food stores. There were so many options to choose from, making it very hard to decide what to eat, but most picked pizza. As we ate our food, we had the West Gate Bridge with the Yarra River and the CBD skyline visible in the background.
We had a fantastic day, and we all learned so much!
- Brooke and the team at onesocial :)
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