iTechnisches Museum Wien (Vienna Technical Museum)Penzing
In Bewegung
Hands-on show on how mobility works, for ages 8 to 14: a timed giant slide, 30 interactive stations and animal movement examples with the Natural History Museum. Allow 45 minutes.
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At the entrance you race down a silver slide that clocks your speed and emails you a photo of the run. Then the museum asks whether you can move one and a half tonnes with your own muscles.
It's a hands-on hall of 30 stations, open since 2014 and closing on 29 November. You set a truck axle and a railway wheelset turning, test what you can make out at twice the speed of sound, and stick dots on your knees to watch your own walk in a treadmill mirror. Animal examples come from the Natural History Museum. You can post a card by pneumatic tube. Vienna had 82.5 km of tube post around 1913; this line is shorter, but a stuffed animal can ride along as pilot.
It's built for ages 8 to 14, and the museum suggests 45 minutes. It's on Level 1, in the €18 ticket, free under 19. Birdly, a VR flight you steer by flapping your arms, costs €3.90 extra from age 10.
Look for
The silver speed slide
The show starts with a slide that measures how fast you went and takes an automatic photo of your run, which you can have emailed to you.
The truck axle and the rail wheelset
Set a lorry axle and a railway wheelset turning by hand, one after the other, and compare what it takes to get each moving.
The walking treadmill
Stick dots on your knees and ankles, start the treadmill with a button and watch your own gait in the mirror in front of you.
The tube post
Send a postcard down the pneumatic tube line, with a stuffed-animal pilot if you like, then get it stamped at the information desk.
Birdly, the VR flight
Steer a 3 to 4 minute virtual flight over cities, underwater worlds or dinosaurs by moving your arms, with wind blowing in your face.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Rainy Days
- Teenagers
About 45 min
Skip if
You have only under-8s with you: the museum pitches it at ages 8 to 14.
With kids
Aimed at ages 8 to 14, and under-19s get in free. The museum's free German companion booklet has the treadmill dots, a tube-post postcard and a slide certificate to print.
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Image credits
5
- In BewegungCourtesy of Technisches Museum Wien (Vienna Technical Museum)
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- Technisches Museum Wien (Vienna Technical Museum)C.Stadler/Bwag, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0