Exhibit Themes
Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination is organized around solving human needs with two technology themes: "Getting Around" and "Robots & People."
Getting Around (transportation)
After examining Luke Skywalker's landspeeder and other hovering vehicles from Star Wars, exhibit visitors find out how things move without touching the ground in the real world, from models of flying cars to commercial spaceplanes.
Robots & People (getting along with even smarter machines)
Visitors meet C-3PO and R2-D2 and explore how people relate to the droids in Star Wars. The exhibition also features the creation of real-world robots that navigate and sense the world around them while communicating in increasingly sophisticated ways.
The exhibit culminates in two multi-station Engineering Design Labs where visitors design, build and test solutions to challenges.
Maglev Engineering Design Lab
Visitors experiment with magnetic levitation - imagining, creating and testing a floating maglev car by propelling it along a magnetic track.
Robot Engineering Design Lab
Museum-goers become robot designers. Select wheels or treads, choose different kinds of sensors, and many other custom choices!
Star Wars Artifacts
Luke's original landspeeder from Episode IV is on public exhibit alongside scale models of X- and Y-wing starfighters and TIE fighters. Visitors will also see an original Yoda puppet from the classic trilogy and Darth Vader's actual helmet from Episode III.
Building Communities and Augmented Reality
Visitors build a spaceport, moisture farm community and walled Jawa town. Placing cards on a table - the physical landscape - a computer superimposes a building on a site in virtual reality and real time.
Real World Starships
Visitors will see actual vehicles and prototypes researchers and engineers in our own world have developed.
Real World Robots
Today's task-oriented robots and humanoid robots like QRIO are on display in the exhibit. Visitors will get to see a floor-vacuuming Roomba that can sense its surroundings and plug itself in to recharge, as well as early ancestors such as the Johns Hopkins Beast, developed in the 1960s.
Take a ride in the Millennium Falcon
Experience a full-size cockpit replica of Episode IV's Millennium Falcon! Visitors watch a multimedia presentation featuring imagery from the Hubble space telescope that explores what we know about our own galaxy in a breathtaking journey to the edge of the Universe.
Featuring a proprietary sound system from Bose Corporation, the recreated cockpit debuts the technologies of 3Space™ audio systems, providing visitors with a realistic three-dimensional audio experience.
Millennium Falcon tickets are $5 per person.
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:
Photography, sketching, and strollers are permitted inside the exhibit.
Masks and weapons (including prop blasters or lightsabers) are not permitted inside the exhibit.
Food, drink, or disruptive behavior are not allowed inside the exhibit.
Star Wars Airchair Ride requirements: Visitors must be at least 5 years old and at least 42 inches tall to ride. No open-toed shoes or sandals are permitted.
