Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum Presents New Exhibit, The Robot Zoo

Visitors to the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum (sacmuseum.org) can now explore the biomechanics of complex animal robots to discover how real animals work, thanks to a travelling exhibit by Evergreen Exhibitions known as The Robot Zoo.

The Robot Zoo is a 2,500-square-foot exhibit that reveals the magic of nature as a master engineer. Robot animals and seven hands-on activities illustrate fascinating real-life characteristics, such as how a chameleon changes colors and a fly walks on the ceiling. The larger-than-life-size animated robots include a chameleon and a platypus. Also featured is a house fly with a three-foot wingspread. Machinery in the robot animals simulates the body parts of their real-life counterparts. In the robot animals, muscles become pistons, intestines become filtering pipes and brains become computers.

Sensory activities include Swat the Fly, a test of the visitor’s reaction time (one-twelfth as fast as a house fly’s), and Sticky Feet, where visitors using special hand pads can try to stick like flies to a sloped surface. Triggering the Tongue Gun demonstrates how a real chameleon shoots out its long, sticky-tipped tongue to reel in a meal.

The exhibit will be open January 19 through May 10, 2019. The opening event begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday, January 19 with robotics workshops for guests that register and a show with real live animals by Animal Encounters. The museum is also offering its annual indoor airshow on January 19 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission to the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum is $12 for adults, $11 for seniors or military, $6 for youth ages 4–12, and free for children three and under. The museum is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Learn more online at sacmuseum.org, or call the museum at (402) 944-3100.