I have heard about The Leonardo museum on the radio before. It’s a recently opened place in Salt Lake City, with praises sung to it by the people on KSL News Radio. I can never tell if they talk about a place because they genuinely like it, or simply because they are paid to, but when Symantec announced that they would sponsor a “Day at the Leonardo” for Symantec employees and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Utah, allowing them free entry, it seemed like a good chance to check the place out.
It’s located in downtown SLC, just a few blocks from Temple Square, next to the SLC Library. Driving to it was a challenge, as I don’t frequent the one-way streets of downtown enough to know which ones go in which directions. So, after a few times of circling about the area, I found a place to park outside it, and we went inside.
The building itself looks like an old office of some sort, and is pretty uneventful on the outside. Once we got inside, though, it had more character to it. The ground floor offered the usual ticket counter and gift shop, and we went through the special line for Symantec guests, getting a wrist band and some details on the events (we missed the official Symantec party upstairs, but there was probably food remaining.) We then turned and started exploring the exhibits.
Here is what I thought really added value to the place: everything in the museum is designed to be “hands on.” We walked through the entrance to a table, where a girl was demonstrating lasers. Instead of simply showing them off, she offered to let the kids play with them. She had an assortment of laser pointers, and various mirrors and lenses (concave, convex, prismatic, etc) and let the kids play with what happens when you point them through the different lenses. She had a paper maze that they had to get a single laser through, by setting up the different lenses and mirrors to bounce and bend the beam around, until it came out on the other side. She also had some gelatin set up that they could cut into different shapes, to make their own lenses.
We were next to a couple other exhibits, like a Symantec-sponsored one showing an interactive map of Utah and various statistics of it, and something similar that had the user put their foot on different “buttons” projected to the floor, to move about on the display. These were too difficult for the kids to use, as they required a lot of reading, but we found another girl showing off algae and how it is used to create a gelatinous substance. (This was right under a large display of what appeared to be plastic, bent and warped to form a large floating display overhead.) The kids got a chance to squirt different coloured goo into buckets full of water (mixed with some calcium compound), that when the goo touched it, it solidified instantly into a mass like goopy noodles. They could pull it out and play with it, or squeeze it if desired. Getting their hands on (and wet) with this display was another aspect of fun.
There were more displays that we didn’t take them to, but they did pause at the building block ones to create some simple buildings, and then they got caught up in the art room, where they could use various pens to draw on cardboard and make little items or designs. I never knew that the Sharpie company made paint in a pen! They stayed here a lot longer than expected, until I left to find the restroom, and Chloe tried to follow me, and then Dinah tried to follow me and ended up accidentally exploring the second floor. (We never knew what was up there, specifically, but I heard there was a display of snowflake-like objects.)
We then went up to the third floor, to find there was still food available, and some drinks (cucumber water, anyone?) and ate for a few minutes. We noticed the kids acting antsy, and were losing their ability to behave, so we decided to leave. I’m sure we’ll go back, if we find a good offer for a family pass or annual pass or something, although their advertised “annual family pass” was only good for a family of four. Really? In Utah?