Nido Fortified Science Discovery Center Preview

I was fortunate to accompany this blog's webmaster Fleire Castro, her husband Mark and son David, to a trip to the Nido Fortified Science Discovery Center. 

The center promotes itself as the first interactive science theme park in the country, although I would not call it the first educational theme park here. I have fond childhood memories of the old Ripley's Believe it or Not! Odditorium in Shangri-La Ortigas myself, and of course other amusement parks have educational sections in them in the past. Given the recent launch of the Mind Museum, it seemed interesting to take a look at what this facility has going for it now.

AT THE ENTRANCE

TechKiddie webmaster Fleire Castro and her darling son David at the entrance to the Science Discovery Center

Not really sure if this is a genuine spacesuit, a practice suit (they made many that never went to space) or just a replica

Mark and David putting in the tickets to enter Discovery Center

Unfortunately, it seems we were only able to experience part of the Nido Fortified Science Discovery Center since we only did a walk-in. The facility was apparently made for fully guided tours. A lot of the amazing things in the tour were not explained to us when we were there, and honestly, I found out more about when I looked them up after the tour. We were able to see most of the facilities, and reviews of each section will be provided below.

The first two things we run across at the entrance are the AR reality game and the Gravitram

Augmented reality game at the entrance. Moving your shadows close to the insects makes them move away. Contrary to expectations, you can't kill the insects. Instead, you can move food that keeps getting generated to bring them to a certain spot. 

Gravitram up close

Gravitrams are kinetic ball rolling structures that have balls going across cold wires shaped like tubes. It all looks like a giant pinball machine gone awry. Watch a gravitram in action here.

What makes the Gravitram at SDC unique is as the ball falls down the hole at the bottom, it takes forever to fall. If you want to know how that looks and why it happens that way, you'll have to go there yourself :)

SMART MEDIA CITY

The Smart Media City section is the first real section, or 'gallery', we see. It's full of educational games set up in small PC and tablet mockups. I think I would have had more fun with them if I had the time to play, but we caught up to the place just before closing hours. On the surface, it looked like their PC games were of the graphic adventure genre.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Yes, they had the Windows classic series of 'games', Microsoft Flight Simulator. It was worth trying out for a little while. They had chairs and the cockpit set up conveniently so that you could try flying your plane yourself. Of course, this can't be expected to be that authentic a simulation, but considering this was for kids, that was OK.

The author (clearly) faking enthusiasm

TRANSPORTATION NATION

Transportation Nation really wasn't much of an exhibit. All they promised to offer on the site was a Segway, a Wheel Surf and a Shell Vintage car. To make things worse, the Shell car wasn't even there! I do hope the car is only going through restoration, and that it hasn't been compromised by being on exhibit or anything.

For all its worth, the Segway.

For all those who don't know what this is, the Segway is a two wheeled self-transportation vehicle from 2001 that was supposed to revolutionize the way we moved around. Eventually, safety concerns and prohibitive costs kept it from catching on, but it enjoys limited use in tourism. Fleire's family were actually able to ride a similar device near SM Mall of Asia earlier in the day.

And here's the Wheelsurf, a brand of modern day monowheel.

Here's a picture of an earlier monowheel, dating 1933.

Anime fans may recognize the monowheel from the movie Steamboy:

Like the Segway, the monowheel is a hobbyist toy more than anything else, but unlike the Segway, it is non-proprietary and reinventions of it keep propping up. The latest of these is the McLean V8 Drag Wheel, which was just created last year.

When you're done looking at the vehicles, try to keep an eye out for these. They are Pag-Asa's weather monitoring equipment. Yes, the same equipment placed in high risk areas. It's a shame that once again, not being in a tour meant no one was going to explain this for us.

GROSSOLOGY

Grossology is a faux arcade setup, where each arcade game is educational in nature and free to play. They also have this gross theme going on with all the games. Again, nothing that special, but enjoyable for a little while. There are no pictures but they also had this giant Grossology quiz game.

Mark and David bonding moment

This game, which resemble coin luck machines in arcades IMHO, release different sounds and smells when you press the buttons. You can actually put your hand in one of the openings at the side to smell the thing you heard.

Giant sized Operation!

This little shadow game pictured below is called Fear Factoids. We found this at the very end of Grossology, near the planitarium. The blurb at the bottom explains giant cat's fight-or-flight response system, while you try to keep the fruits falling from the tree away from the cat so that he or she does not get scared.

If the cat gets hit with too much fruit, it's gonna come after you! The science being explained here might go over your child's head while playing this, so make sure to explain it to them.

DIGISTAR PLANETARIUM

The Castro family and the author

Finally, we got to the highlight of our visit: the Digistar Planetarium, and the feature presentation, Ultimate Universe, directed by Mike Murray. We were not allowed to take photos or video of the film although we have photos of the facility itself. We have little experience in it locally before this, but fulldome format film has been around for a little while now, mostly in the service of presenting short cinematic educational features. As best as I can tell, we were watching single projector film.

We didn't have good pictures of the actual spherical dome the film was projected on, but this video should give you an idea of what it looks like.

                    

The film itself was an overview of galaxies, planets and celestial bodies. Each cosmic event was explained as we saw it in rich detail. If your kid is a fan of astrology, they will get a kick out of this show. Bear in mind that planetarium features are changed every hour, so you'll want to pick which movie you want to see carefully.

After watching our little movie, we went up to the second floor to see the rest of the exhibits. Sadly, we don't seem to have good pictures of Spaceship Earth, but it's basically a hollow mockup of the planet, with a polar bear/ ice caps game/educational segment inside.

VIRTUAL REEF

The Virtual Reef might interest you; it's a mockup of what the coral reefs look like up close. If the pictures seem too dark, that's only because of the contrast between the darkness within the room and the small lit diorama displays surrounding it.

Mr. T

Mr. T is a little interactive segment at the end of the reef. This talking fish will answer any questions you ask him, but it's a guy with a microphone hiding at the back of an animated thing. 

ROBOT CITY

Now, my favorite part, Robot City!

Astroboy

The Maestro. This musical robot was supposed to play music for us, but its fingers didn't raise up even as the programmed song started playing. I guess we were supposed to play along, but it didn't look it would when we tried.

You know what this is

Robot (Model B9) from late '60s sci fi TV opera Lost in Space. His kid brother Robby was also there.

Robot's bro Robby The Robot, who's appeared in numerous media, starting with 1956 film Forbidden Planet

Robo-Test. On display but under repair

Another really glaring bad spot in the exhibit. This setup would allow us to move the robots around using joysticks, but it was broke when we were there.

At least the joysticks look nice.

CITY SCIENCE

This is one of many dioramas, this one I believe in the City Science section demonstration different forms of energy sources. This is another one of those things that might not grab your child's attention that well, but they're very nice so it would be a shame if they missed it.

City Science also has an earthquake simulator, allowing you to simulate the feeling of an earthquake while a deadpan narrator explains everything going on. Grownups, you could have fun with this.

This is the earthquake simulator narrator. She's got composure.

The author gets nauseous easily.

The final stop, and one I found jarring, was a fully functional Xbox Kinect, apparently for the kids to cool off after a rough day of learning. I honestly was not impressed by this, but maybe your children will enjoy it if they try it.

Overall, I was not fully satisfied with my experience, but I could still recommend this to parents of young kids, from toddlers to middle childhood. I do not think adolescents will enjoy this tour very much, so be mindful of how old your child is before you bring them here.

As I had mentioned earlier, the center has a lot of interesting things in it, and you can always do a walk-in when you're in the area, but it seems the best way to experience this would be to get a guided tour, that usually lasts two hours. Walk-in rates are PH P 330 per head. Scheduled tours require a minimun 40 heads, but the price would then go down to PH P 250 each. They also offer birthday party packages, with the lowest starting at PH P 18,010 for 50 heads on a weekday. Whether you take a tour or walk-in, the fee is inclusive of one planetarium show.

I also recommend you set aside a few hours so that you can take your time seeing everything, and hopefully, have other people in it with you. I don't think you have to be there first thing in the morning, but they're open 10 AM to 8 PM so it won't be waiting for you at night. If you can set a day aside to go straight there after lunch, I think that would be best.

Regarding discounts: Nestle or SM may occasionally run a discount, but it's hard to get information on them. Unfortunately, the site itself does not seem to update on what promos are available. Do bring an SM Advantage card if you or a friend has one for a discount.

Nido Fortified Science Discovery Center is found in Southside Entertainment Mall, part of SM Mall of Asia, Pasay City. Fortunately, the Mall of Asia website has an easy to navigate flash map. Go to 'View All Store Name' Option at the very bottom right of the map and choose 'Science Discovery Center'.

You can check out Nido Fortified Science Discovery Center's website here and go to their Facebook page here.