Where are my Trekkie’s? If you haven’t been to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis lately, you’ll want to make a trip out here. Open until April 7th, you’ll be able to check out the Star Trek exhibit featuring many items and experiences any Trekkie will love.
Before the exhibit opened, my family got a special invite to help film the commercial, b-roll, and pose for photos in the Star Trek Exhibit! I was geeking out.
As a kid, I recall sitting with my Dad watching Star Trek – Captain Picard was our favorite, with Riker and Data helping to run the Enterprise. I could not wait to get a pre-look at the newest exhibit with my family without all the crowds.
I worried a little bit how the kids would handle it. After all, despite my attempts, none of them were really interested in the Star Trek world. Add to that, it was taking a whole Saturday away from them and with 5 kids in tow one of them still needing a nap, I just hoped for the best!
My kids were awesome! Now it helped that the Children’s Museum served us breakfast, snacks, and lunch throughout the day, and these kids will do just about anything for food.
We started by checking out the Captains chair in the lobby between exhibits. As part of the commercial they had me stand and take photos of 2 of the kids as they ran and jumped into the Captains Chair. This was fun, and also led to many many photos on my phone of these two cuties.
From there we ventured into the actual exhibit where we saw the model enterprise that was actually used in the show, the original control panel from the first Star Trek season with Captain Kirk, and tons of costumes.
To really experience the exhibit though, the museum has included a few hands on places for the kids. Using a large touch screen, you can scroll through the different plans of each starship. Or head to a corner booth and give your best “KKKHHHHHHAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNN” impersonation.
Maybe you’ve always dreamed of beaming down to an alien planet? Just step into the transporter, hold still, and wait for Scotty to work beam you down. This was easily our families favorite part of the exhibit.
Before you leave the museum, though, make sure you head downstairs to the planetarium where you can see the actual Escape Pod used in the 2016 film, Star Trek: Beyond. Have a seat and listen to George Takei narrate the multimedia experience!
Here’s the final commercial, if you haven’t seen it yet. You’ll see my pig tailed child sitting with her brother in front of the escape pod. Yup. A whole day, and that’s what we got to do. Totally worth the whole experience!
Just to keep it all real, while we did make it through a fantastic day of shooting a commercial (bucket list check!), the kids did start to drop at the end. I snapped this photo while one of the girls was finishing up her role making gross faces at Data’s severed head.
