Technorama Winterthur

Who knew that science could be so much fun? Of course, I did! But a friend of mine told me that in Winterthur, Switzerland, you could touch the science. I mean actually touch it! The land of innovation found a great way to further the research interest und scientific talent of its young generation: they opened a Swiss Science Center Technorama. Here, the children can have a hands-on experience in biology, chemistry, physics; they can participate in various workshops, and watch shows about the earth, gas, and lightning.

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The initial plan to go to the Technorama involved me meeting up with my friend (the one who suggested that we should go there) and her baby. Unfortunately, they couldn’t make it but we decided to go anyway. Our son is quite young – he is only four. I thought that despite his young age he would still be interested in some of the exhibits. But I also suspected that he would lose his interest after a couple of hours. To be honest with you, I thought I was keener on seeing the exhibits than my son. God, I was wrong! From now on I promise to never underestimate the mental acuity of this little man. We spent six (!) hours there and only left because they were closing.

We started on the top floor with the optics. I guess it’s quite difficult to grasp the idea that the light can be broken into the spectrum. I don’t know if my son can remember this in two weeks but right now he’ll willingly tell you what part of the spectrum you’ll see through a red or blue glass.

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Having touched and played with the plasma exhibits, we went on to explore the Singing Wood Exhibition. Due to the acoustic nature of this exhibition – and partly to my being an utter nerd – I won’t show you any pictures of this area. We made lots of videos while playing with the devices, laughed, and goofed around.

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The next stop was at the special exhibition “Wind Power”. Did you know you can hold an object in the airstream? It was unbelievable! I felt like I’m David Copperfield. The same you can do with a water stream, which we learnt in the next area called “Water, Nature, Chaos”.

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Our exploration of tornado was interrupted with a real blast. It was lightning! We ran to the railing and realized that it was the Nature of Lightning show. It was marvelous and frightening at the same time because you heard all the physical characteristics of those phenomena. I wish us all never to experience those phenomena at first hand in the real life. Please, be safe and never hide from a thunderstorm under a tree.

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I think I shall stop here and simply highly recommend going to the Technorama science centre.

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