A range of new, exciting and interactive exhibits is in time for half-term (18 February). The new Wow Zone is part of a £1.5 million investment in the region’s biggest science centre.
Visitors will be able to get hands-on with brain teasing exhibits and impressive demonstrations that they can control. As well as being fun and engaging, the exhibits explore how forces, chemistry and physics are used in everyday life.
Highlights include using hydrogen and oxygen to blast a ping pong ball up to the height of a two-storey building and a 6-metre-tall ‘Big Machine’, complete with levers, pulleys and conveyor belts where visitors can work together to continuously move grain-like pellets around the exhibit. Local connections include discovering how a lightning bolt caused the head of Earl Grey’s statue, in Newcastle’s city centre, to fall off, and how the oldest single-arch railway bridge in the world, The Causey Arch in County Durham, was built.
The investment also includes a boost for the region’s biggest planetarium with the installation of Digistar 7, the world’s most advanced planetarium system that uses state of the art projectors and stunning imagery to create a truly immersive experience for visitors. This half term, visitors can enjoy a range of shows including a presenter-led experience that focusses on the constellation Orion and its history and mythology.
Alongside the new exhibition and planetarium upgrade, our team has developed new shows for its theatre and the digital Sphere – a large-scale spherical projection screen which uses 3D videography. It allows visitors to explore the wonders of the planet and to find out more about complex issues such as climate change in an accessible and informative way. For half-term, visitors can follow a tiny bird, the Arctic Tern, as it migrates across the world.
Chief Executive Linda Conlon added:
“The science centre aims to enrich lives through science so that people can discover its relevance to their own lives. We’re really excited about these new developments, especially Wow Zone, which we hope will add an extra dimension to our visitors’ experience.”