I Went to the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum Without a Kid
Even boring grownups can have fun with the interactive exhibits at this children's museum
Ann Arbor — There’s no shortage of things to do and places to visit in Ann Arbor these days. Art museums, galleries, shops, restaurants, bars, and parks abound across the city, without even mentioning the constant Michigan Wolverines sporting events. Most aren’t exactly geared for families with children, and even the places that seem like they might be are often just cleverly titled weed dispensaries.
Ann Arbor’s Hands-On Museum is one of the few places that markets itself specifically toward families with children. The irony is, while it’s certainly an exciting place for kids, it’s actually a fascinating place for adults too.
Right in the heart of Kerrytown, the Hands-On Museum is housed within Ann Arbor’s old historic firehouse. Ann Arbor’s Central Fire Station served the city’s firefighting needs all the way from 1872 to 1978, when the expanded size of the new fire engines rendered it unusable.
The city built a new, larger fire station right next door, and the nonprofit museum took over the historic property in 1982.
Inside are over 250 interactive exhibits on things like physics, geology, math, music, and technology.
The 40,000-square-foot space hosts over 200,000 visitors each year, along with a rotating set of classes and interactive programs, mostly for children.
It’s an anomaly in Ann Arbor, known more for college students and young professionals. You’ll regularly see families with young kids, moms pushing strollers and such, traipsing around that block of Ann Street.
It’s so family-oriented, in fact, that the front desk staff seemed genuinely amused to see a 30-something-year-old guy stroll in on a rainy day all by his lonesome. I’ll admit, at first I felt somewhat out of place, walking around the museum with my camera out, observing the crowds, as kids ran around excitedly all around me.
That vanished quickly, however, as I found myself taking fewer and fewer photos, and spending more time actually tooling around with all the interactive exhibits myself.
There’s an endless array of physics experiments, optical illusions, and sensory anomalies to observe. Buttons to push, knobs to twist, balls to throw.
“Toys” would be a better word for what the Hands-On Museum truly offers. Dozens and dozens of elaborately constructed toys to play with, most with a tie-in to a quirk of physics, energy, or technology.
My favorite was the cyclone, a sort of wind turbine with a smoke machine that generated small scale tornadoes. You pushed a button and smoke came out, and was sucked upwards to create the vortex, in a mesmerizing effect.
Kids love it, no doubt, but most adults love it too. Especially in today’s day and age, where we’ve mostly suspended the supposed seriousness of adulthood and allow ourselves to enjoy childlike whimsy from time to time.
Video games, for example, are a decidedly adult market now. Legos, by and large, are purchased by adults. Many decry this and bemoan the infantilization of adulthood into an extended adolescence. Yet there’s another way of looking at it: It’s an openness to embrace the childlike wonder we all wish we still had.
The Hands-On Museum is no different. They may not have an open bar, or serve bespoke cannabis edibles, just yet, but it’s not hard to see a future where that happens.
The few college students you’ll see at the Hands-On Museum are, more than likely, high on one thing or another. I certainly knew a few folks in college who smoked some weed and went off to the museum to play with the toys.
Others are there on dates. During my visit, I saw a few young couples strolling around holding hands. A cute date place, no doubt, if you’re spending the afternoon walking around Kerrytown.
All in all, it points to the sort of place that requires physical presence and interaction. In fact, that’s the whole reason for the museum. You need to be there, walking around, hitting buttons, seeing these exhibits take life with your own two eyes.
That’s why kids love it. They still live in a physical world of wonder, until they discover the internet later. That’s why young couples go on an unorthodox date there, to walk around and be in the world.
If adults can’t enjoy themselves there, it’s because they’re too preoccupied scrolling on their phones.
We all have more screen time than we can handle, and finding something that actually forces us out into the world is paramount. Forget the doomscrolling for a second, and go play around with some crazy elaborate toys, things that you can affect and move and see in real life.
If the Hands-On Museum provides a valuable service, it’s simply getting you off your phone. Getting people out of the house to go and do something real. Learning about science and physics is just a bonus—if it’s filling its true purpose, then it's doing something real.
