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Bring the Family
WHO: Globe Magazine staff member Lylah M. Alphonse and her five kids, ages 1 to 14
WHAT: Taking in technology
WHERE: The MIT Museum, 265 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge. 617-253-4444. web.mit.edu/museum
When your oldest kid is a teenager and your youngest is in diapers, finding activities that won't bore either of them to tears can be a challenge. But the kid-friendly, hands-on exhibits in the new Mark Epstein Innovation Gallery at the MIT Museum thrilled all five of our kids. Our toddler glued his drooly self to the zebra fish tanks; our 3-year-old asked to adopt Kismet (right), the "sociable robot" from the 1990s; and our older kids practically camped out in the cool holography exhibit and in "Flashes of Inspiration: The Work of Harold Edgerton," where they ogled iconic images captured with the help of a stroboscopic flash.
History buffs will be interested in the retrospective on the university; wannabe engineers will be fascinated by Arthur Ganson's mechanical sculptures; and geeks of all kind will be happy to know that, if you take a wrong turn on the way out and accidentally stumble upon MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club, you can play a Tetris-like game on one of the model skyscrapers while the non-directionally challenged adult in your party figures out the way back to the elevator. Ahem. Not that we got lost or anything.
[Lylah M. Alphonse]
Monday from 6:30 to 8 p.m., the museum hosts a toy product design program, where kids age 5 to 18 can play with models of what may become the hottest toys of the future. April 27 is Family Day, with free admission and robot-guided tours of the Innovations Gallery starting at noon.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
