Malaysia Town

Petrosains (Petro = petroleum & sains = science) is an interactive science discovery center for kids and adults alike. It is owned by Petronas (Petroleum Nasional Berhad). Just located at level 4 at the center court of Suria KLCC, which is below the famous Petronas Twin Towers, Petrosains uses a creative, interesting, fun and interactive approach to science.

It has many exhibits and sections covering an area of more than 70,000 square feet. You and your child will surely enjoy it.

In this blog post I will share with you the exhibits that I think are the most interesting and exciting.

After buying the tickets, you can go to the Muzika exhibition first. It is where the science of music comes alive.

Inside the exhibition includes a DJ section where you can scratch the disc like a DJ for a while.

The instructions will be given on a screen.

Then, you can play the air guitar. You simply hold an ‘invisible’ guitar and play it as if you were playing a real one!

It also has other 22 fun and exciting exhibits. The Muzika exhibition has been travelling around the world and has now arrived at Petrosains. It will stay until March 2010. So don’t miss it!

After that, you can go on to the Petrosains Discovery Center.

The dark ride will be the beginning of your journey, a fun and creative ride that will bring you through the rainforest of Malaysia, up to the peak of the mountain, and then into the sea. Finally, you will arrive at the Petrosains Discovery Center.

 
Below is a stick hologram at the first section of Petrosains. You can see it floating in mid-air but you cannot feel it or touch it. Amazing!

Here is a video of it.

Here is a hologram of a small toy car.

Holography is really cool! It appears to be real, but you can’t touch or grab it.

When you enter the Geotime Diorama area, you will be greeted by a giant model of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. You will discover stuff that is dated more than 200 million years ago. You will get to touch, feel and discover fossils and stones, and even have a whiff of ancient air!

Here’s a realistic replica of an ancient volcano. It even emits some smoke!

You can also experience what an earthquake feels like. Just sit on the bench and let it shake you. You can set the strength of the earthquake by yourself!

At Petrosains, you feel the fun in experiencing the hurricane wind in the tube below. Ideal for a hot day, because the wind feels very cold!

Mind you, the wind in the tube is really powerful, travelling up to 128 kilometers per hour (It will mess up your hair very much)!

This is the Sparkz section where everybody, especially kids, can have fun with activities like interactive arts (below), which will react to the actions of your shadow. It seems like you are the magician in command!

One karate chop of your shadow will make the purplish wriggly jelly break apart!

The exhibit children love most at Petrosains is the grain pit, where kids, regardless of age, nationality or religion, team up so spontaneously to transfer the grains from one section to another. The spirit of 1Malaysia brightly shines in Petrosains.

Please view the video below. It’s really fun to play with the grain pit because you will help the grains travel in a non-stop cycle!

The activity that attracted me most is the Mindball, where 2 players compete using their brain waves to make the ball go into the goal of the opponent to win.

Player 1 (left), Foo Shen, and Player 2 (right), Foo Loong, are brothers from Indonesia.
Each player wears a headband around their forehead. Then they will control their minds to command the ball to go over to the opponent’s goal to win the game.

As you can see, the Alpha and Theta waves of Player 2 is very low, which means that Player 2 is more calm and focused than Player 1, so Player 2 will win the game.

The ball is going towards Player 1, which means Player 2 is winning.

Foo Loong (Player 2) is a money changer. You can understand that his work needs him to be cool and steady at all times as he deals with money. One moment of disturbed focus of his mind will cause monetary loss.

Foo Shen (Player 1), a salesman, can be very calm and focused when he is facing his clients and very unfocused during other times. So when playing mind games, Foo Loong, who is used to controlling his mind easily, will surely win.

I explained to Mr. Lim’s family (from Penang) how to play this game and encouraged them to see their mind-controlling strength. They quickly wanted to play.

The daughters competed with each other first.

Xin Li (Player 1), 9, controlled her mind better than Xin Ting (Player 2), 13, and won within 30 seconds.

Xin Li (Player 1) lost to her father (Player 2), because the girl lost confidence.

Then, Player 1, the mother, Madam Heng and Player 2, the father, Mr. Lim, were extremely cool and calm.

(Picture 1)

Finally, after 7 minutes, the daughters told their parents to finish faster. Feeling that they may not have enough time to enjoy other activities, Mr. Lim gave up mind controlling and let his wife win.

(Picture 2)

From here you can see that the brain waves of the couple suddenly changed from low, a cool mind (Picture 1), to high, a tense mind (Picture 2).

In conclusion, if you want to win in life, your mind must be calm and focused. A tense and stressful mind will usually lose because it is an unfocused mind that cannot figure out the direction and solution.

So come to Petrosains to understand your mind through this Mindball game. The machine costs about RM 70,000. So even if you come here just for this Mindball game, it is worth your time and money, in my opinion.

It is because firstly, you can see your normal brain waves. Secondly, you can try to control your mind and see how your brain waves change. You also can observe other players’ brain waves to help you understand more about the mind.

Fantastic Mindball! I enjoyed it so much!

Those are only some of the many exhibits in Petrosains. The total area of Petrosains is more than 70,000 square feet, as mentioned. So it is really big! Here is the map. You can see how many sections it has. Imagine how many exhibits and activities it provides you!

So come and see, hear, touch, smell and sense it for yourself, because that is what science is about – exploring and experimenting!

Your children will surely love it because Petrosains is designed to let them learn science in a fun, creative and exciting way.

Another Dark Ride will finish your journey. Remember to buy some souvenirs at the Xplorasi gift shop that sells science stuff. Buy them to encourage your other family members and friends who haven’t been to Petrosains to come!

The fee is really affordable. It’s only RM 12 for an adult and RM 4 for a kid!

The best thing is: by paying RM 100 (fee for 1 year), your family  (2 adults and 3 children) can become members and enjoy unlimited visits to Petrosains as well as free entries to participating Science Centres and Museums worldwide and other deals and discounts.

To know more about Petrosains, please visit their website, http://www.petrosains.com.my.

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