The Sony Wonder Technology Lab is perfect for the topic of technology. It is between E 55th and E 56th street on Madison Ave. There’s a public space in the building outside the Technology Lab, which is nice. Tickets are free, and you have to take an elevator down. The website says tickets on-site are limited to first come first serve, so I went early.
In the beginning, you get a card, which is used for the interactive activities. The first thing you do is create your profile. You input your name and get your picture taken. There’s some customization. When the machine was taking my picture, I thought it was finished after the light flashed, but it wasn’t finished. You only get two tries, and I messed up both.
Besides making your profile, there are lots of machines that involve interaction. There is one about image scanning, another about performing surgery, and one with programming robots. You press your card on the machine, and the activity starts.
In one area, you can play games for five minutes on PS3s and another system.When I tried a machine, it was already set to bowling, which the previous person must have been playing. The bowling was motion sensitive, and the controller was in the shape of a microphone. I thought that was interesting. It’s no surprise we now have this technology (since the Wii has been released for a while), but it is still fascinating how far gaming technology has progressed. When I finished bowling, I found out that the game was a sports game, and I could pick other sports to play.
The dance motion capture was out of order, so I couldn’t try that out.
There was one area where you can make your own tv broadcast. You read from a script after cues, and when it is done, some editing is automatically done. It is then shown on a big screen. There are screens on the side that show multiple angles of you. When I did it, the topic was polar bears, and I was the reporter, with my friend as the host.
In another machine, you create your own movie by combining multiple clips. There are 8 scenes, and you pick what you want in each scene. There are only 4 fixed options for each scene, with each scene being a few seconds. At the end, it shows the full movie smoothly.
You can see the change in phones throughout the years and the process of creating animation. There’s also an area about audio and television. Seeing the older products reminded me of the older products in my home back then. My parents did have a big block shaped phone when I was very little, and there are still cassettes in my home.
Before you leave, you scan your card again to ‘logout’ and you give the card back. Then a paper is printed out with the activities you have done. I didn’t do every single possible activity since I was limited on time (I had to go to class after). The interaction is engaging, and many people would find it entertaining. It is free, so I would recommend people to visit the place and enjoy.
