Children’s Museum of Science and Technology

It’s September and a Sunday but they are not open. Way to disappoint children you bastards. I imagine the inside shows an equal lack of competence.

This place is disgusting, uneventful, and depressing. The small animals that they have here are not taken care of and in poor conditions. The staff was rude and shouldn’t be around children if they don’t like them or want to deal with them. Many activities were incomplete or out of order, and the ones that worked were not educational at all and just plain boring. They charge the entry fee of $ 5 even for the parents, as if the adults get anything out of it at all. When I first arrived, I asked if I could look around a bit to see what activities there were and the bitter girl at the front desk said «No.» to my completely reasonable request. I have been to plenty of children’s activity centers and they have all let me take a quick look around before paying for the service. This was the only place to ever say no to that request, and I think there’s a reason for that. I don’t know how they can feel alright with calling this miserable establishment a ‘museum’ in any respect. The only thing I learned here was to not come back.
I wish I could give zero stars…

I’m a bit ambivalent about this modest, small museum, having never experienced the previous incarnation and having more experience with larger children’s museums. It’s nice to have smaller museums in close distance to take the kids, but on the other hand even for the size I’m not sure this place is doing anything but phoning it in.
I’ll start out with the nice. For $ 20 we got four of us in the door (although not into the small planetarium). It was arranged in a circle, and they had activities for the younger kids here and there as we went along. The kids did have fun, albeit a sort of muted fun. The addition of live animals, in however strange a context, is nice and hearkens back to the classic natural history museums of yore, which was very cool. (Watching the lobster be fed was a real highlight.)
But I’ll start trotting out the objections. FIrst off, the educational design: there isn’t one. It’s like a number of small ideas for exhibits strung together, heavily influenced by whatever external sponsor put up money for it. There’s a little local ecology, a little space, a display case on nanotechnology, a «weather» center sponsored by a TV channel, an extremely simplistic display on alternative energy sources, et alia. The computer screens (the ones that were working, which was few) were designed very amateurishly (and, my four year old managed to grab some files with the mouse on one display which had broken out of its protected mode and would’ve deleted them had I not caught him in the act). The exhibits were neither unique nor especially engaging, and it wasn’t really clear they were all that educational.
The displays themselves were a little weird. Such as the LL Bean-​labeled lego sign for the weirdly-​festooned-​with-​wood-​blocks owl cages. Or the «butterfly house» that was sort of like an oversized dollhouse stuck out. Or the old standby parabolic penny drop, with nary a context or explanation. A random old bell that kids could whack to their hearts’ delight, with not even a label explaining the history of the bell.
Second, I counted a dozen exhibits that were partially or completely broken. That’s just very bad for a smaller museum, and shows a lack of interest from the management.
Amenities: the «snack bar» consisted of two vending machines and some seating. There looked to be what was once a small hot food area but there was no sign of life; and the one-​serving coffee area was bereft of any actual coffee or cups. I wonder why they even bothered to advertise it as one walks in. The three-​facility restrooms were a bit undercapacity even on a modest Saturday afternoon.
Staff: the front desk staff seemed absorbed in one another and/​or their computer screen on the several occasions we had to use their services; my son had to stand for a good five minutes to get their attention when he completed their scavenger hunt. The only «interpretive» staff in the actual exhibits was the lady feeding the lobster and the snails; when she was asked questions by several kids she said she didn’t really know anything and didn’t normally feed the animals. She was nice enough, but it’s a, you know, educational institution, right? Some basics about the animals can’t be that hard to learn.
I am loathe to badmouth a non-​profit, and the kids had their moments of amusement, but this was really a below-​par museum even for the size and type. I find it hard to believe they have members, much less contributors. Very sorry but I polled the room and we all came to the conclusion two stars was warranted, perhaps even generous.

So I think that I love this Museum because I went there with the group of kids that I work with. They are ages 7 – 12 and they had a lot of fun. We signed up for a presentation about life cycles that they fully enjoyed. They got to play a game pet animals and learn about what eats what. The lady who put on the presentation was incredible. Afterwords we had been signed up for a planetarium show that taught us all about becoming an astronaut it was really interesting and perfect for the kids.
The Museum its self was kind of small, it had a lot of things for the kids to look at but it doesn’t take more than 45 minutes to exhaust all of the things you can look at touch, and play. I will say that if you have a smaller kid who likes hands on I think this Museum is perfect. It has a room with a bunch of animals, a chance to read a weather report and see it on the big screen, and lots of buttons to press.
I would definitely take the kids next year back for the program, it was really interesting and the staff was extremely friendly and helpful.

I can’t remember who told me to come here but they’re dead to me now.
The museum features a slapdash collection of things, several of which are out of commission.
A bell. Kids can ring a bell. The bell is next to a snake. I felt bad for the snake because every five seconds some kid was ringing a bell next to its head.
Some fish.
A television «green screen» which allows kids to see themselves superimposed over a video of weather. You can do this with iChat without having to leave your home.
Some mirrors.
A display on solar energy. And one on wind energy.
Some animals confined in small cages, living out their lives under fluorescent lights and the gaze of children.
Some computers with educational games, like the computer with educational games you have at home.
A planetarium show that costs extra, even though you paid $ 15 for your two kids to see the above.
Within minutes the kids were ready to go. My 5 year-​old called it «the boringest museum.» Not the best English, but you get the idea.

I’m not a fan of the «new» children’s museum. I used to love taking my daughter to the one in Troy that was near RPI.
We’d been too many times or it fell out of her favor as she grew so we hadn’t been in years and decided to give the newer location a try.
It’s now a one floored place vs the I think ¾ floors of the original and is shaped in a circle.
When we arrived there was an animal show, which was a bit too wordy and not enough animal action for my little one so we didn’t stay for it and kept walking. They had a traffic light display, which didn’t entirely work. There was a green screen weather thing. like you see on the actual news for kids to use. My daughter wanted to use it, but seeing it was the big attraction there the line was quite deep. So we passed. There was a small outer-​space area with prisms shined on the wall (yawn), a light up battery/​lightbulb display. only one of it, and then we turned the corner and were already back at the beginning. We decided to check out a planetarium show seeing we didn’t want to leave so soon. The show itself was ok, I think the original had better shows and was more exciting, my daughter and the other kids seemed to really enjoy it so that’s all that mattered. The planetarium does cost extra which seemed to be a bit of an issue for some of the other parents. They already thought admission was too much for what the museum was and didn’t want to pay extra for the show. It wasn’t much extra, maybe $ 1-​$ 2 so I didn’t mind.
We finished up our visit in about an hour and had to really stretch out the time there or it would have been a half hour. In the original location, we could spend a better chunk of a day there. They had everything from a mini Indian village to a sand art/​playhouse for the kids to play with. also simple things like felt tables and big erector sets and sort of a wall sized light brite.
My daughter loves science and animals but has more fun at home with her rock and mineral collections and a shovel or time with her microscope.
It’s too bad, because like I said once upon a time it was a favorite activity for my daughter and I. Maybe she’s just grown out of it. It did seem the little, little kids were enjoying it more.

Perhaps it’s a little unfair for an adult without children to review a children’s museum. But I’ll give it a shot anyway.
I went here Friday as a chaperone for a first-​grade class field trip. The kids loved it. They got to learn about life cycles, pet a snake, pet a turtle and attend a planetarium show.
They also loved being able to run around checking out all the hands-​on activities. They especially loved the exhibit that allowed them to try creating their own television weather report — kids are really into seeing themselves on camera apparently.
I think this would be a great place to take the kiddos on a snowy day when you’re tired of being cooped-​up. The museum staff is really terrific.
My main complaint is that admission prices are a little steep. I understand that they need to keep the place running, but I hope the price doesn’t deter too many people from going.