It’s looking like a Fabulous February at Thackray Museum of Medicine, with a programme which includes Bot Bonanza! and Sparks!, their new early years play area.
From February 19th – 27th, ‘Bot Bonanza!’ will give children and their families the opportunity to design their very own robotic friend, meet a real robot, watch Disney Pixar robot classic ‘Wall-E’ and learn how to make masks.
The ‘Can RobotsCare?’ exhibition allows visitors to both meet and interact with real robots, and between
Monday and Wednesday, children will be able to experience the future of robotics and control a robot themselves, using VR to connect from the museum straight to Open-Labs, an exciting new project at the University of Sheffield.
There will also be two special viewings of Disney Pixar’s ‘Wall-E’, including a ‘Best Dressed Bot!” competition, with a prize for the winner and a badge for all participants.
0 – 5 year olds can enjoy the new play area, Sparks!, which opens on 21 February and is the first soft play area in Harehills. The children can join Feelgood Friends, a colourful cast of animal characters featuring Dr Ele the GP, Medi the paramedic, Wise Eyes the optician, Gnasha the dentist and Katrina the dietician, as they run their sensory-themed roleplay medical centre. They can then take a journey through the body’s digestive system, ending with a poo slide leading to a giant toilet. Beat that!
Harehills nursery Little Owls helped the Museum to name the Feelgood Friends. It’s part of the Museum’s commitment to the Harehills community, who have free access to the Museum’s events on Mondays through the year.
Liz Egan, Learning Manager at Thackray Museum of Medicine: “We are so excited to finally reveal what we have been working on for the last few months at Thackray Museum of Medicine as we launch Fabulous February. Our week-long Bot Bonanza!’ Event will give families the unique chance to explore the world of ‘Care Robots’ and discover how these amazing inventions are helping people right now. Visitors can also have a go at designing their own robots, whilst using their own experiences as inspiration…the sky is the limit! Alongside our special screenings of the much loved ‘Wall-E’ and the launch of our brand-new Sparks area for the under 5’s, we can’t wait to inspire the youngest generation to find out more about the world of health and medicine through play. Where else could you spend time driving an ambulance, work a shift at a hospital and finish it all off by sliding down a poo slide towards a giant toilet?”
The ‘Bot Bonanza!’ event will run from 19th February to 27th of February 2022. ‘Bot Bonanza!’
is part of Thackray Museum of Medicine’s ‘Can Robots Care?’ exhibition which runs until 18th
April 2022. Visitors can view it with a valid museum entry ticket, which once bought can be used
for 12 months. Sparks! will launch 21st February 2022.
thackraymuseum.co.uk
