Tuesday, August 7, 2018

The Tech Museum in San Jose, CA

Body Worlds Decoded is a high-profile exhibit at The Tech Museum in San Jose. Though the thought of looking at plasticized dead bodies can make some queasy, the displays do an excellent job of revealing the wonders and even the beauty of the human anatomy. Upon entering this exhibit, tablets are available, one per family, to find up to eight interactive virtual displays. In the photo here, we found, seemingly hovering over the floor and visible only with the device, a model of the heart and nearby veins and arteries. The viewer can walk around the model, using the tablet to zoom in.

There are many sections of the museum, though, to love. My favorite is the Cyber Detectives exhibit on the bottom floor. There, you can play with the inner workings of a lock, use computers to test the strength of your password and use different methods to scramble and decode messages. Real cloak and dagger stuff. They even let you pretend to be a cyber sleuth and go into an escape-room-like setting to track down the cause of a computer hack. You might have to wait in line for this activity , but I found the experience to be worth it.