Rainbough Phillips

Review of Thinkery

Seriously, Austinites have no idea what a children...

Seriously, Austinites have no idea what a children's museum or a science and technology museum should be like. This one is both poorly designed and poorly run. It's very pretty and the "toys" look very cool, but museums are supposed to have order to them. A great science museum, even one for children, manages crowds. It directs people through the museum so that large numbers of people can see and interact with different exhibits without individual exhibits being overrun. I grew up with an Awesome children's museum in Atlanta. It was nothing like this one. There were activities for adults and children to do together, a design that made sense, and encouraged visitors to move around. There is no point in even charging adults admission to this place. You are paying for the privilege of keeping an eye on your own child in a massively overrun playground. Ever been to that really cool playground that has so many kids at it, that no one can really do anything, and your kid wants to leave after 30 minutes. That's The Thinkery. I thought I would be showing my kid giant bubbles, and magnetic dust. Instead, he waited and waited and waited to get to play the water organ, only to have the bigger kids push in front of him. He waited his turn for the light bright and had bigger unsupervised kids yelling in his face, and taking the pegs from him. He was dying to play with the RC cars but it turns out 5 is "underage" and the line was too long anyway (at least there was a real line - the only one I saw during the trip). Who ever heard of 5 being too young for an RC car? This place was a nightmare and a waste of money. Can we please have a real science and technology museum for kids in Austin? Maybe someone who has designed a real museum can build one.