The Leonardo Museum

Another venue that was part of our Connect Pass was the Leonardo Museum in downtown Salt Lake. We had no idea what to expect from it, but we were pleasantly surprised. We actually tried to go there on Saturday afternoon at about 4:30 only to find out that it was closing at 5:00, rather than 7:00 like it said in the brochure we had. The nice lady at the desk let us go in, free of charge, for the last half hour and we liked it enough that we made sure to go back there the next day. It is a very hands on, learning type museum, based on Leonardo Da Vinci who was a scientist, inventor, artist, and humanist. The first floor has lots of art activities and some physics based activities. The kids experimented with claymation, drawing, optical illusions, etc. We also got to watch a demonstration of a Tesla coil charged with half a million volts of electricity which made lightning spark out the top. Luckily there was a Faraday cage around the coil that grounds the electricity and makes it safe to watch. It was really cool.

The second floor of the museum is mostly science and math based activities. Drake and Garrett spent a lot of time making a marble track with pipes you stuck into the wall. I think they could have just stayed there all day! 

We really enjoyed this museum. It was so educational and yet a lot of fun too. Plus, there were hardly any other people there. We practically had the whole place to ourselves! It was a great way to end our little mini vacation. After we finished at the Leo we went to Krispy Kreme to get the kids their free donuts (6 each!) for having good grades and then to Sam's club and home. Whew! What a trip!