An indoor hands on science centre for kids of all ages Techniquest has things to challenge absolutely everyone. The shadow room is fantastic, there are puzzles galore and the best bit has to be an inside out jigsaw puzzle. Simply put the enormous pieces back inside the box. Theres only 7 of them how hard can that be? Well actually its a lot easier than the billiard ball jigsaw which only has 3 pieces. How hard can that be? Well after 20 minutes of not swearing out loud I had to ask a passing 4 year old for help.
Their birthday parties are superb too. You cater them yourself so theres no astronomical charge for food and they run a special hands on workshop just for you and your party guests. We were issued with an raw supermarket egg, a cheap plastic drinks cup, paper, scissors, sellotape, glue, a balloon and a few feathers and given ten minutes to create a safe environment so that when the egg was dropped from 1 metre in the air onto the floor it wouldn't break. The supervising parents got together and became quiet studious and scientific creating a hot air baloon type structure complete with crash pad under the cup, unfortunately they'd forgotton the helium. Result - a broken egg and much giggling from the kids. The children on the other hand had opted for the more is less approach and simply screwed up the paper and stuck it round the egg with an entire roll of selotape before borrowing the adults tape and attaching the remaining bits to decorate it. End result Children 1, adults 0. Best of all the birthday child gets a free annual pass so you can go back again and again and again. read more