Journey to Switzerland Day 7

The magnet exhibit


The largest Plasma Ball in Europe

Day 7 : August 5th

We visited Technorama, the Swiss Science Center in Winterthur today. We hopped on the train around 9:30 in the morning after eating a simple bacon and pancakes breakfast at the house, and we arrived at the center as it opened at ten o'clock. For a small admission price of $19.11 per person, we were able to experience the interactive exhibits. There were over 500 exhibits that were dispersed over the three floors of this enormous building. Some topics included magnetism, eletricity, water, nature and chaos, and automation. In the first few hours we were there, we didn't even make it to the second floor. We knew right then that this was going to be an all day trip.

At noon, we stopped for lunch at McDonalds (yes, they have them in Switzerland too). We all shoved down double cheese burgers, eager to get back to the Swiss Science Center. Those exhibits were fascinating! Katie Stanton was the only one in our group who despised science with a great passion, but even she had a great time. The hands-on activities really made the learning experience thoroughly enjoyable.

We had a blast at all the exhibits, but we all had to agree that one outshined all of the rest. The Light and Vision exhibit was fantastic. There was one activity in the Perception section where you would stand in front of a wall where a light was cast. We all turned around, expecting to see a dark shadow, but in its place were shadows colored in bright reds and greens. In this section there were many mind blowing optical illusions as well. We were able to use our hands to attract crazy beams of light with the largest Plasma Ball in Europe. Today's unlucky event for Katie Burnet was that she was hanging around the eletricity exhibit too much and developed temporary side effects. On the entire way back to the house, Katie's hair stood on end no matter how many times we furiously tried to pat it back down.

When we were finally finished "oo-ing" and "ah-ing" at everything in the Swiss Science Center, we traveled home by train. Because of this experience, we now see science in a totally new way. We were just in time for dinner, and Mr. Carter had hot roast beef sitting on the table. It was delicious!