All these materials, from weird shaped pieces of wood, a straw or even a cork are key to help inspire them. “We like to let the materials speak for us,” Kali said.

According to Kali, those who work within the Learning Studio are crazy about trying new things, and while a lot of it ends up out in the museum, some of it stays, and then they might try it again in a different way later.

“When continue to be able to try out new things, and we continue to have the spirit and let visitors try new things with us,” she said. “We use the phrase perpetual prototyping because we like to think of activities as never being done.”

After trying their ideas and exhibits out with people, they always keep investigating them, tweaking them and keep making them better.

For the Future

For the future, she hopes the Exploratorium will empower people to simply try things out. The wide variety of exhibits help to expand all ages to both gather and use their knowledge and experiences of the world around them in all sorts of ways. “Most of the activities we do on the floor aren’t necessarily targeted to a certain age,” she said.

According to Kali, when the staff comes up with a new activity, they always ask themselves, is this an experience worth having? Is this something really interesting? And if it is interesting to them, she said they hope it can be interesting to others too.