Curious about everything
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Paper planes, tiny plastic figures aboard napkin parachutes and even paper rockets zip across the room. In the background, a group of children play on a huge water slide. I’m transported back to my childhood, almost forgetting that I am in fact an adult and here to work. Welcome to experimenta in Heilbronn.
A paradise for explorers
'experimenta' is an interactive museum where discovery unfolds across multiple floors. The journey begins on the fourth floor, where visitors explore the four classical elements of our world: earth, air, fire and water. One floor down, the focus is on visual memory and body awareness, while the second floor presents a wonderland of optical illusions and hidden-object puzzles.
A total of 275 interactive stations allow you to experiment to your heart's content – trying things out, pressing buttons and pulling levers. A wristband you receive on entry is your constant companion – a 'digital rucksack'. A quick tap of the wristband at many stations logs your progress, saving your creations and experiences. At the exit, you can have everything sent to your e-mail address as a digital package.
Fascinated by the everyday
On the first floor, the exhibition’s final stop celebrates everyday objects that rarely capture our attention. Did you know you can make a melon explode using nothing but rubber bands – as long as you stretch enough of them around the fruit? Or, that a wine glass can shatter into pieces if exposed to sound waves at just the right frequency? These and many other captivating slow-motion experiments play out on an interactive screen.
Visitors can also carry out a series of tests with everyday materials. How scratch-resistant are wood, steel or concrete? What sounds do these materials make, and how well do they absorb force? The latter can be tested, for example, by jumping from a small platform onto a set of scales. A layer of carpet or plastic can be placed on the scales to demonstrate how much the impact is cushioned by different materials.
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Nothing is set in stone
The exhibitions on each floor are thoughtfully designed and offer so much to discover that a second visit is well worth it. Beyond the main exhibition, there are films and live shows included in the ticket price. Currently, a special exhibition titled 'AI Insights & Outlooks' is on display in a dedicated gallery. It traces the history of artificial intelligence back to 1940 – when the first attempts were made to create robots that could move autonomously towards a light source.
Curious visitors can try out specific AI applications for themselves, including a text generator that creates song lyrics based on your chosen topic, type of text and mood. I opted for an inspiring space-themed poem in the style of Shakespeare: "The stars dance softly in the night – a spectacle made for eternity." With these lines in my digital rucksack and a renewed enthusiasm for the everyday, I left experimenta.
An article by Lukas Lenz from the DLRmagazine 178. Lukas Lenz is a working student in DLR Communications. Despite the considerable temptation to build paper aeroplanes and try the water slide, he still managed to write this museum report.