Discovery Centre goes HD
The Powerhouse Discovery Centre went HD this afternoon – that’s Harley Davidson not High Definition.
We had a fun afternoon at the Centre’s fifth Birthday celebration. The Centre opened its doors and let us take a peek behind the scenes, including viewing some areas normally reserved for older children and adults. In many ways the Discovery Centre is like one of those quirky museums you sometimes stumble upon in a small town or the back street of a city – something created by an eccentric collector. So tin toys rub shoulders with costumes from the Sydney Olympics; an enormous steam ploughing machine sits near some girders from the Harbour Bridge (how did they get bent?); a Galaga table-top lies underneath a 1950s experimental rocket from Woomera. The eclectic range makes the whole thing charming.
To celebrate the Birthday, there was a wonderful show: Sonic. Boom! Boom! Drums, brass instruments, audience participation, opera singers, and six Harley Davidsons combined to make a great deal of rhythmic music. Lovely stuff.
The highlight for the kids though was the chance to take a ride on a Harley around the surrounding streets. They all came away with disturbingly broad grins after their first and, if I have any say in it, last motorbike ride.
The highlight for me was playing Galaga – nothing brings back memories of my teenage years like sitting at a tabletop and realising I still remember how to play a game which stole away so many of my hard-earned 20-cent pieces.