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ThingsIWantToSeeRe:Indy Children's Museum (Score:4, Interesting) The Indianapolis Children's museum is weak for both children and adults compared to either St. Louis or Toronto. Indianapolis is comparable to CoSci in Columbus OH. My family and I love zoos and museums. Our annual family vacations have included museums/zoos all over North America and the U.K. over 20+ years. The St. Louis Science Center is free and very good. The Ontario Science Centre in Toronto is the best science museum in the world; it takes 3 days to see everything. I particularly like the perpetual motion machines. They have exhibits of machines that inventors claim exhibit perpetual motion - it's a puzzle for you to figure out the trick to each one... where it gets its energy. I love to listen to the school kids on tours theorize how each machine works and debate with each other. It is great to hear 14 year olds talk about laws of thermodynamics or the Venturi effect. IIRC, one really tricky one works based on the surface tension of soap bubbles, but you eventually have to blow more bubbles ;) The Air Force museum in Dayton Ohio is bigger and better than the Smithsonian Air & Space museum. At the Smithsonian, the exhibits hang from the ceiling out of reach. At The AF museum, you can touch the airplane that bombed Nagasaki, stick your head in a Gemini capsule that orbited Earth, climb into the bomb bay of a B-29, hand turn a Nazi jet engine prototype, view the Red Baron's medals, kick the tiers of fighter jets, etc. The Field Museum in Chicago is fairly good, but the Natural History Museum in London U.K. is the best in the world. The London Transport Museum is also great. St. Louis, Minneapolis/St. paul, and San Diego have the best zoos, but Indianapolis has a nice zoo too. I have recently been to zoos in Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Cincinnati, Toronto, Wheeling, and Des Moines. All were nice in their special ways but not great. I have never seen a planetarium that impressed me, but I'll keep looking. Chicago Museum of Science and Industry Exploratorium in San Francisco Computer History Museum (an hour's drive from the San Francisco Bay Area, set aside 3 hours) Atomic Testing Museum (10 minute cab ride from the Strip, set aside 3 hours) |