Perot Museum of Science

Amelia, John, and I enjoyed a fun day at the new Perot Museum of Science on Labor Day. The Perot Museum has actually been open for almost a year, though this was our first chance to visit. The museum was insanely crowded when it first opened late last year and the ticket office still sells timed tickets to keep the number of visitors to a reasonable level. 

The exterior of the museum is remarkable. The building sits next to a highway in the center of downtown (most of the skyscrapers in downtown Dallas are behind the vantage point of the person who took this photo), so you can't help but stare at the building in awe as you drive along the highway. The diagonal block on the side of the building is a glass enclosure for the escalator that takes visitors to the top floor of the building.

Amelia and John are in the photo below, riding the escalator up to the top.

The museum is fabulous. We were there for about four hours and did not get a chance to see everything we would have liked to see. Nearly everything has a hands-on component to keep things interesting, especially for the children. I didn't take my good camera so the photos below are from a vintage iphone, but they'll still help me tell the story.

One of my favorite areas was the bird hall and one of the coolest features was this 3D flying simulator. John thinks it was similar to an XBox 360 with motion simulation, which of course I have no idea what that is, or how he would know what that is. But anyway, the visitor stands in a special spot on the carpet and somehow the camera records the person's movements while they simulate flying like an eagle above the mountains. The participant watches an animated 3D video of a bird flying that is making the same movements that he is making. For example, if John were to lean to the left, his bird would arc to the left. If John bent his back backwards, the bird flew up into the sky.

Amelia's arms were longer than the wingspan of all but the two largest birds.

The museum had a dozen dinosaur skeletons on display in the massive hall on the top floor.

We all enjoyed the Sports Hall, especially John. Check out this video of John racing against a professional athlete. The line to participate in this exhibit was 20 minutes long, yet John wanted to enter the line and run the race over and over again...

Another area of interest for our family in the Sports Hall was the video area. Participants could engage in a variety of activities, from throwing a football (John is doing this below) to kicking a soccer ball (what Amelia did) to performing a cartwheel. The participant was filmed performing the activity and then he/she could compare his/her performance in slow motion against a pro. Below is John's video of him throwing a football as compared to Roger Staubauch, formerly with the Dallas Cowboys.

That was way cool to compare and contrast on video versus a pro.

We loved the exhibits at the Perot Museum and look forward to visiting again in the future!