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Day at the Museum {Future Park @ Powerhouse Museum} | Kid-Friendly Sydney

Last week we packed the kids in the car and headed in to the city to check out the Future Park exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. A friend of mine had told me about the exhibition and how much fun it was and I knew as soon as I looked it up online I just had to take the girls.

When I was a kid a trip to the Powerhouse Museum was always a highlight of the school holidays. There was just so much to see and do, and the best part? They always had interactive and kid-friendly exhibits of some kind or another.



25 years later and it's still just as much fun as it was when I was younger. This was the girls first trip to the Powerhouse and it didn't disappoint. We chose to drive in for the day rather than catch the train (if you live in Sydney you'll understand why!!!) and after checking the Powerhouse website I discovered that they have a deal with two parking stations close-by for $15 all-day parking. All we had to do was validate our ticket at the front desk of the museum and our parking was capped (saving us over $20).

Entry to the Powerhouse Museum is free for kids under 16 and $15 for adults. The Future Park exhibition costs extra though, but when you buy a ticket for Future Park it gives you free entry to the rest of the museum. Entry to the Future Park is timed so as to keep the crowd manageable, so when you buy your ticket online before you go (recommended as the tickets available on the day sell fast) you can pick the time that best suits you and the kids to go in.



We chose a 1pm entry and arrived at the museum at midday and had lunch in the cafe. The cafe was pretty reasonably priced, they have burgers for $8 and they were quite good. We ate at the cafe beside the playground, and there is plenty of seating so you can take a picnic lunch along if you'd prefer to pack your own.

We got to the Future Park line-up at quarter to 1 and ended up being let in only a few minutes later. There is not a lot of space inside the exhibit so the timed entry works well, and there is no limit on how much time you spend in there which is just as well. We ended up spending just over 2.5 hours in the exhibit.




The Future Park exhibition is interactive. When you walk in you see walls with all kinds of charcaters wandering around them. Those characters come from the people that you colour in and then scan. Once you've scanned your coloured picture it will then pop up on the wall and you can follow them around and tap them to get them to jump and do different things. There's also a second room with a transport version of this where you can colour in pictures of UFOs, emergency vehicles, planes, trucks, etc. This was our favourite part of the exhibition.

After we'd seen all there was to see in the Future Park we headed in to the museum proper to check out the permanant Space exhibition and the Experiments section. The Experiments section was another favourite as we got to play with different things and learn about how magnets, electricity, light and other things work in a practical way. There's also a big touch screen where kids can "mix" chemicals and conduct experiments. It was very cool.



On the way out we stopped at the Tinkertorium, a hands-on construction zone where Dave and the girls used different materials to make "cars" to race on a ramp. This is open throughout the school holidays and is also free.

We stayed until the museum closed and we honestly could have stayed much longer. We'll be buying a membership to the museum so we can visit whenever we want, and a museum membership also gives you free entry to the Sydney Observatory and the Museums Discovery Centre at Castle Hill, so well worth the money!




The Future Park exhibition runs until the end of April so there's still plenty of time to visit. A family ticket for 2 adults + 2 kids, or 1 adult + 3 kids will set you back $74 (we paid for our own tickets & visit, this post is not sponsored in any way) and includes entry to the rest of the museum.

 Have you been to the Future Park exhibit at the Powerhouse Museum? Do you have a favourite museum or science centre to visit where you live?







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