Chicago Museum of S&I Star Wars Exhibit

[Esdeebee]

We recently joined the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, in large part because we wanted to go to the Star Wars exhibit running there now, and membership included 4 tickets to the exhibit. Last Sunday (November 4th) we drove up to Chicago and visited the Museum, including the exhibit, titled STAR WARS: WHERE SCIENCE MEETS IMAGINATION.

The exhibit was pretty interesting. There were many models of the ships used in the films, and some models of sets, too. I found these to be the most interesting parts of the exhibit, but of course my kids were into the interactive portions. These included a short ride (solo) on a real hovercraft, a part where you could make your own maglev vehicle and run it on tracks, a part where you put together a version of R2 and then set up and loaded a simple program into him to make him do a particular action. Another allowed you to design an "outpost" with quarters, fuel dumps, all sorts of buildings (we never really figured out what the heck we were doing on this one).

There was also an animatronic exhibit where C3PO and a filmed image of a real robotics expert interact and discuss robots, in the context of 3PO's annoyance with R2. Three or four real robots were part of the presentation.

The last part of the exhibit dealt with the replacement of Luke's and Anakin's hands, and the medical progress that is being made in replacing limbs and organs. Of course they had something for a Jarvik heart, but they also had an artificial eye and a cochlear implant (which was of interest to me because on November 6th my mom had one done, the same one that was on exhibit there and at Epcot also). They had an exhibit on an artificial knee that works much better.

We missed getting tickets to tour the mockup of the Millenium Falcon, but it's there too.

It's a pretty cool exhibit and I'm considering going again before it ends.

[aimster]

I really wish this thing would come where I am.

[SusieP.]

Wasn't it cool? We had this exhibit in Los Angeles earlier in the year. I missed out on going a second time, but we really enjoyed it.

[Esdeebee]

Originally Posted by SusieP.

Wasn't it cool? We had this exhibit in Los Angeles earlier in the year. I missed out on going a second time, but we really enjoyed it.

It was quite interesting, with a great mix of education and entertainment.

On further reflection, I thought the animatronic show with Threepio and the robotics expert was the highlight. I think my kids thought it was getting to ride on the working hovercraft for 20 or 30 seconds.

[Esdeebee]

Originally Posted by aimster

I really wish this thing would come where I am.

Do they have a schedule of where it's going to be in the future? I think it leaves Chicago in January.

The museum said they've had to expand their hours to accommodate the demand for the exhibit. Quite popular.