Questacon: Why visit the Canberra science museum?

The Questacon science museum in Canberra is the most fun museum in the Australian capital. The Canberra science museum brims with interactivity, and most kids will love it.

If you choose to visit the capital of Australia, there are several excellent museums to enjoy in Canberra. The Australian War Memorial is profoundly moving, the National Museum of Australia explores dozens of aspects of the country in manageable chunks and the National Capital Exhibition is all about the city itself.

But if you’re just wanting pure, unabashed fun, Questacon is the easy winner. This Canberra science museum is aimed largely at kids, but there is plenty for adults to sneakily enjoy too.

What to see at Questacon, Canberra

It starts off in the foyer of this Canberra science museum, where a humanoid robot can be controlled via a touch screen. That soon gives way to Fundamental, which is the most classic science museum section of Questacon. Here, exhibits such as the light harp and kaleidoscope show off aspects of how our world works. There’s also the strangely hypnotic Gravitram, which sees billiard balls travel along a convoluted series of metal pathways.

The Awesome Earth section is another highlight. Here, the Earthquake Lab allows you to experiment with the building styles and materials that best withstand earthquakes, and the Quakemaker lets you set off fake quakes by jumping in front of a seismometer. The Cloud Chamber, Caged Lightning and Sediment Tank exhibits are all reasonably self-explanatory, but great fun to play with too.

The Excite@Q section of Questacon is probably the most kid-friendly, however. This is all about learning through play, whether creating sounds by walking through light beams, playing air hockey or wooshing down a six metre slide.

The six metre freefall slide at the Questacon science museum in Canberra.

Where is Questacon, the Canberra science museum?

Questacon (officially Questacon – the National Science and Technology Centre) is on the shore of Lake Burley-Griffin. It’s sandwiched between the National Library of Australia and the National Gallery of Australia. The National Carillon on Aspen Island is just to the north-east, and the National Rose Garden, Old Parliament House and Parliament House are just behind it.

General admission to the Questacon science museum in Canberra costs $24.50 for adults and $18.90 for children. You’ll go past it on an hour-long Canberra Segway tour.