Most people think of The Tech Interactive as a place for families, but it’s just as exciting for adults – even if you’re visiting without kids. A few weeks ago, Kiran and I spent a few hours there, and we couldn’t help but feel like kids again as we tried their interactive exhibits. In this post, I’ll share 27 reasons why The Tech Interactive is a great spot for adults (with kids or not) looking for an interactive attraction in San Jose.
1. Explore an Alzheimer’s Brain Up Close
You can compare a healthy brain with one affected by Alzheimer’s disease, seeing how plaques shrink the brain over time. The visuals are paired with clear explanations, making it easy to understand the impact of the disease. I also learned an amazing fact – if you spread out the brain’s outer layer, it would cover an area about the size of a twin mattress!
2. Try the Jet Pack Chair
Modeled after NASA’s manned maneuvering unit, the Jet Pack Chair uses jets of compressed air to let you “float” and steer through an enclosed arena. Your mission is to navigate lasers and fix a satellite. Kiran aimed 2 out of 3 lasers, while I didn’t aim any. It’s harder than it looks but it made us feel like real astronauts, even just for a few minutes!
3. Immerse Yourself in a Giant-Screen IMAX Experience
You can’t leave The Tech without watching an IMAX film here. The IMAX Dome Theater is the world’s first dome laser projector. Watching Antarctica here was incredible – its stunning footage and narration bring the extreme beauty of the continent to life. Arrive early to grab the best seats and enjoy fresh popcorn or a drink from the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine.
4. Create Music on the Reactable
We unleashed our inner DJs at the Reactable exhibit, an interactive tabletop that makes music creation surprisingly addictive. You place cubes on the surface to layer sounds, rotate them to tweak beats, and tap for extra effects. It’s like building a song one piece at a time. We found it endlessly entertaining to experiment with rhythms and melodies, crafting unique tracks that we ended up spending 15+ minutes!
5. Snap a Photo as an Astronaut
You can feel like an astronaut at the Space Exploration exhibit. Step up to the astronaut suit, align your face in the headpiece, and snap a photo of yourself in full space gear. Plus it’s a free souvenir too!
6. Examine the Inner Workings of a Knee Joint
The Body Worlds Decoded exhibit quickly became our favorite, and we spent the most time here. Using real human specimens and digital interfaces, this exhibit displays some of the unseen systems of the body. The knee joint, where you can see how it functions and how bionic joints replicate natural movement. We learnt that over a million Americans live with artificial hips.
7. Choose Where To Live On Mars
The Mars exhibit lets you imagine where humans might someday settle on this planet. You’ll explore 3 potential locations: Jezero Crater, Valles Marineris, and Deuteronilus Mensae. Each has unique features and challenges, making the decision feel surprisingly realistic. It was really cool to see how much thought goes into choosing livable areas – it makes the idea of colonizing Mars feel possible.
8. Rethink Your Plate at Pick + Chews
The Pick + Chews exhibit lets you build a meal and see the environmental impact of your food choices in real time. We adjusted ingredients and found out how much water and resources it takes to create our dish. For example, seeing the resource cost of avocados had us rethinking our grocery habits! You understand the hidden impact of what you eat and leave with practical ideas for more sustainable choices.
9. See Your Body’s Heat Distribution
In the Innovations in Health Care exhibit, you’ll see a colorful thermal image of your body’s heat distribution. The camera measures infrared radiation and translates it into various colors, showing how heat varies from person to person. Spend a few minutes watching the colors shift as you move. We noticed that Kiran’s hands are way colder than mine based on the thermal imaging.
10. Admire Blood Vessels Like Never Before
This exhibit offers an intricately detailed look at the dense network of blood vessels in your body. The cast of an arm shows how arteries, veins, and capillaries weave together, forming a network that stretches more than 60,000 miles in adults. We learnt that that’s enough to circle the Earth twice! The process of creating the cast, using colored plastic to replicate the vessels, makes the display even more impressive.
11. Observe Earth Like an Astronaut
This exhibit brings Earth into focus like never before. Using National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Science On a Sphere, a 6-foot globe displays real satellite data through 2 projectors, creating a 3D view of our planet spinning in space. The detailed projections reveal Earth’s dynamic environment and the technologies we use to study it.
12. Create Virtual Creatures
This exhibit invites you to tap into your creativity with biology-based tech. Using a kit of virtual DNA parts, you’ll build and program your own creature on a touch screen. Each part has a unique function, and once your creature is complete, you’ll release it into an immersive world to interact with others.
13. Design the Future in Sustainable Cities
Inspired by Bay Area cities like San Jose and San Francisco, the Sustainable Cities exhibit lets you design your own eco-friendly city. You’ll face real-world trade-offs, balancing housing, transportation, and sustainability as your city evolves. Watching your decisions shape its success (or struggle) is both fun and insightful. You dive into urban planning and rethink what it takes to create a thriving, sustainable community.
14. See Real Images from Deep Space
The “Looking Out” exhibit shows you stunning images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, showcasing stars being born, galaxies colliding, and the vastness of space. Each glowing dot represents a star – some even with planets that might support life. It’s a humbling way to explore the universe, far beyond what we can see from Earth.
15. Become a Cyber Detective
At the Cyber Detectives exhibit, you get to decode messages, build networks, and tackle online threats like spotting phishing scams or cracking passwords. We walked in confident about our ability to spot phishing emails – only to find we were wrong a few times. This exhibit, the first of its kind, makes learning about cybersecurity engaging and fun, with challenges that feel more like puzzles than lessons.
16. Picture Yourself in 3D at Visualize Yourself
Step in front of the Kinect-based visualization and see a lively 3D depiction of your skeleton, muscles, and nervous system. You can watch your movements come to life in real-time. We spent a few minutes trying out different motions with a deeper appreciation of how complex and amazing our bodies are. You’ll find these exhibits on both the lower and upper levels of The Tech Interactive.
17. Try Balancing Power Generation
The Balance of Power exhibit is an electrical grid simulation game that puts you in charge of balancing power generation and consumption while upgrading to a modern smart grid. Even with two of us working together, keeping the grid stable was harder than we expected! You explore real-world energy challenges and leave with a better understanding of how our power systems work.
18. Learn How Furby Works
The Social Robots exhibit, while designed for ages 8-12, has a nostalgic exhibit with a deconstructed Furby that takes you back to the early 2000s. It shows exactly how it works, with labeled parts explaining its functions. On another side, you can manipulate the Furby’s eyes to create different emotions like happy, sad, or angry.
19. Pilot A Mars Rover
This hands-on exhibit lets you control a mini Mars Rover and navigate a simulated Martian landscape using a joystick. You’ll experience how scientists explore remote or dangerous areas on other planets.
20. Learn about Climate Change with a Little Photon
This section in the Solve For Earth exhibit makes climate science easy to understand. The ICESat-2 satellite measures ice levels by bouncing laser photons off Earth’s surface. This data helps scientists track changes and predict the effects of climate change. The short video explaining how a single photon plays a crucial role is both engaging and informative.
21. Escape for a Moment of Reflection
This exhibit offers a quiet escape if you’re looking to pause and recharge. Located near the lower-level stairs, the golden-colored tube invites you to step inside, sit down, and reflect. Above you, golden tree roots create a stunning visual, making it the perfect spot to unwind and take a quiet moment during your visit.
22. Connect the Dots on the Interactive Connections Wall
At the Connections Wall, you can adjust recycling, housing, and transportation using knobs or waving, and watch how each change ripples through the community, creating surprising outcomes. The interactive setup lets you experiment with real-world trade-offs, making it clear how interconnected our choices are. We found it fascinating to explore how small decisions can have a big impact and the complexities of sustainability.
23. Challenge Yourself at the H2O Show
The H2O Show tests your knowledge about one of our most vital resources: water. Compete with others, collect points, and learn surprising facts about how water is used and conserved. We thought we knew a lot, but the quiz revealed that we didn’t know much about water that left us both humbled.
24. Uncover the Long Journey of the Digestive System
At this exhibit, you get to see how long your intestines really are. It explains how your body processes nearly a gallon of food and liquid every day. Meals take 6-8 hours to pass through the stomach and small intestine and another 36 hours in the large intestine – making digestion a 2-3 day journey.
25. Explore Global Challenges in Tech for Global Good
This exhibit is a must if you love big ideas and real-world problem-solving. Tech for Global Good highlights innovators who are tackling society’s toughest challenges using technology. From sharing stories of life-changing solutions to inspiring us to think like creators, this exhibit sparks ideas on how technology can make the world a better place.
26. Discover Tomorrow’s Innovations in The Innovator
The Innovator exhibit lets you design and ride your own virtual roller coaster. It combines physics and thrills as you digitally build a coaster and then watch it come to life. Along the way, you’ll learn the basics of roller coaster physics – how potential energy at the top of the hill converts to kinetic energy as the roller coaster speeds down.
27. Meet GloFish – Nature’s Brightest Little Creatures
GloFish is a vibrant example of how science can transform nature. These fluorescent fish owe their glowing colors to DNA modifications, similar to the processes used in the Living Colors Lab. Watching these bright creatures swim is a great way to appreciate how genetic engineering works.
