Admission to Imagination Station Toledo is approx. $12-14/person.
- Open: Tuesday-Saturday from 10:00 am – 5:00 pm and Sunday from 12-5pm. (Closed Mondays, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Years Day)
- Location: (Map It) 1 Discovery Way in Toledo, Ohio
- Phone: 419-244-2674
- Web: http://imaginationstationtoledo.org/
Imagination Station in Toledo: In an age of technology and everyone trying to get 15 minutes of fame on one screen or another, the LIVE Report! at Imagination Station is like flypaper to flies. This mock television studio makes sportscasters of anyone willing to step in front of the green screen, face the camera and read the teleprompter. Then, on a delay screen, the budding television stars can view their newscast as if they were on location at an area sporting event. Imagine that!
Sticking to the screen theme, enter Simulator Theater. But hold onto your seat. It moves! In fact, it hovers more than 20 feet off the ground facing its riders toward a big screen that sucks everyone into a ride of their life. To put it in perspective, you must be 42 inches or taller for this thrill ride.
Now that the adrenaline is rushing, it’s time to heat up a screen. The Infrared Camera sees the thermal spectrum in colors. Roy G. Biv has never been so cool. Know your science, get the joke. Moving on.
Time to defy gravity.
You too can be a human Yo-Yo so hop up to BOYO. Just add energy and before you know it, you’re bouncing 13 feet into the air. After your body chemistry is grounded again, you just might absorb a science lesson. Imagine that!
Or perhaps while you’re head is still floating, you may want to trust your life to a two-inch cable and take a spin on the High Wire Cycle. No worries, it’s safe. Strap in and pedal away. You’re only 20 feet high with no mat, no net, just a hard floor below.
In order to experience these gravity activities and science lessons first-hand, you must be 54 inches or taller.
But there is mind-bending fun for everyone just around the corner.
Sometimes you have to see it to believe it, but in Mind Zone that may be a stretch even for the best of imaginations. Here you’ll discover how we process, interpret, and create illusions and perceptions. Are you getting curiouser and curiouser? Then step into a wonderland of learning fun!
Inside the Distorted Gravity room, doors, windows, etc. seem perfectly normal at a glance. But the floor is tilted 25 degrees. And that’s enough to throw off anyone’s perspective!
While your mind is trying to recover from that experience, enter another room where in just a few steps, you can grow big or shrink small depending on which end of the room you stand. Line up with friends and at one end, a person needs to bend over so their head doesn’t hit the ceiling and at the other end, a person can wave their hands freely overhead. All those who pass by can see the irregularity on a TV monitor or through peepholes.
Okay, let’s really shake things up and step inside a hurricane. The Hurricane chamber is a simulator that puts you in the middle of windy mayhem. Anyone can step inside and face category 1 winds of up to 95 MPH. But here’s a little-known tip, you may have a chance to withstand the horrific cat-5 hurricane winds of 156 MPH. Just ask!
With that, we’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg.
Imagination Station teaches how water, nature’s most powerful resource, works. It’s wet. It’s fun. It’s for everyone. A Science Studio teaches biology, chemistry, and physics in ways that won’t be forgotten. The Energy Factory explores our world’s natural resources using stimulating hands-on exhibits. For those who really want to get their hands-on science, they can Engineer It! This open-ended discovery process allows you to think it, build it, test it …and do it again. There’s even a little KIDSPACE, complete with storytime. It’s a land of make-believe while learning science fundamentals about forces, motion, math, and science. Imagine that!
