Questacon 2017

***Most names have been removed to protect the innocent.***

As I look back on my birthday in 2017, I remember it was AMAZING! Have you ever been to a museum where you can touch EVERYTHING?! Well, that’s where I went for my birthday, [eafl id=”1682″ name=”Questacon” text=”QUESTACON”]!! Questacon is a hands-on, activity-filled science and technology museum that is so fun for all ages and is located in Canberra, ACT (Australian Capital Territory), Australia. Even my 2-year-old sister Niyah had a blast! Today I am going to tell you about my amazing experience to Questacon.

As we were waiting to go inside Questacon, (my uncle forgot our free guest passes for our tickets) we slid down the very long handrails by the entrance of the building. My cousins S and R slid down the rails till their stomachs hurt! Ellie and S slid down the slower (beginner) rail, while R and I slid down the fastest (expert) rail. Finally, Uncle D arrived and we could go inside.

First, we headed into the “lobby” sort of thing. We had to get our tickets for all of the activities. We went to a counter made of marble, the lady behind the desk gave us our tickets. “Thank you.” my mom said. We walked up a very long spiraling ramp, all the way from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor. The first thing that caught my eye was a group of little desk areas and a glass box. “Wow look at that glass box!” my cousin A exclaimed. In the glass box, there was a little tray of sand. There were lines in the sand and a metal ball MOVING!!! “How can it do that?” S asked. We looked at the bottom of the tray, it had magnets moving around attracting the metal ball!  There were many other amazing things to see and touch on our way up the ramp!

Next, we headed up to the top-level.  There was a new, for us, exhibit there!  It was called Above and Beyond. (I think it was actually ending soon as the website shows a new exhibit called Awesome Earth – now I want to go back!)  The moment we walked into the room, I felt like I was floating! It was all dark and galaxy-like. It was amazing! There were a TON of people playing games, looking at awesome models of space thanks to [eafl id=”1685″ name=”Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum” text=”Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum”], [eafl id=”1683″ name=”NASA” text=”NASA”] and [eafl id=”1684″ name=”Boeing” text=”Boeing”]! But I went straight to the Plane Flyer 22 – or at least that’s what I think it was called. It is a computer game where you make an airplane and then be a piolet and fly it!

Later, we went down to a nice room called Fundamentals. It had a ton of cool things like a swing that draws (or a harmonograph if you want to be specific), models, blocks, gel bubbles, and so much more! My brother Quinn took me to the swing that draws. The lady who worked there put two pens in holders. The pens pushed down on the piece of paper on the swing. The swing was about the size of a dinner table. The lady pushed the swing so it swayed and the pens made a really cool swirly design, and we each got to keep a drawing!

Next, we went to Excite@Q where there is FreeFall. Excite@Q is a really nice room with all sorts of things like a cool FreeFall Slide, scarf machines, a pink air blower, and so much more! My cousin R wanted to go on the FreeFall Slide, so I decided to watch him. He put on an orange jumpsuit over his clothes and then read the directions on the board. The FreeFall Slide is like a warped wall with a little curve motion at the bottom. It is about 12 feet high (it’s actually 6 meters high, so once I figure out how to convert that to feet I will let you know!  Ahhhh, I was so nervous for R!  As he approached the wall, I got a little shaky!  It was sooo high!  He hung from the bar above the 12 foot drop down! Ahhh! It caught me by surprise……He DROPPED! It was really quick so I didn’t have time to close my eyes!  It looked soo fun, but I was definitely NOT doing it!

Last we went to The Shed . There was giant Jenga block building, paper cup cutting and flying, and lego building! It all looked so awesome! I went straight to the paper cup station. I got a paper cup, took the scissors to it, and……snip, snip, snip, I cut little slits all the way around the top of the paper cup! I cut a hole in the bottom of the paper cup so that the air could come through. I took my cut up cup to the fan in the table, I turned on the fan and the cup flew up to the ceiling!

I hope you enjoyed hearing about my amazing birthday this year! I know when I walked out of Questacon that afternoon, I had one of the best birthdays I have had in a very long time!

See ya!  Kirra

Disclaimer – this post may contain affiliate links, which means that at no cost to you, my mom may receive compensation…hopefully she will share a little with me!  Cheers!