Canada Science and Technology Museum, Ottawa, Canada

One of the things I fondly remember visiting as a child, is the Canada Science and Technology Museum, located in Ottawa, Ontario.

I remember going there on a school trip, and also with friends, and being amazed at all the cool things they had on display. I especially loved the trains, and the “Crazy House”, two of the many exhibits they have.

It’s been ages since I’ve been though, so I couldn’t recall if the museum was mostly child-oriented, or if it was also geared towards adults, but as we were primarily heading there for our little one, I thought it would be fun nonetheless.

Science and Technology Museum Info

First off, there are two main technology museums that I’m aware of in Ontario. This one is the Canada Science and Technology Museum, and the other is the Ontario Science Centre, which is located in Toronto.

They’re both great museums, but just be aware that one is in Ottawa, and the other is in Toronto.

• Address: Canada Science and Technology Museum, 1867 St Laurent Blvd, Ottawa
• Hours:
  • May 1 to September 4: Daily 09:00 - 17:00
  • September 11 to April 30: Tuesday - Sunday 09:00 - 17:00
• Time needed to visit: 2+ hours
• Entrance fee:
  • Adults: $15 CAD +tax
  • Seniors (60+) & Students: $12 CAD +tax
  • Children (3-17): $11 CAD +tax
  • Children (0-2): Free

  Note: Entrance is free for all between 16:00 and 17:00

• Official website: ingeniumcanada.org/scitech
• Booking link: Either directly on-site or online at ingeniumcanada.org

The Science and Technology Museum

The museum has a number of different exhibitions to see, and covers quite a bit. As soon as we arrived though, I knew where we had to head first … the trains!!

Steam: A World In Motion

I’ve always loved locomotives and trains, and the museum has a number of them on display. They have a few different models, and it’s incredible to see them up close, just sitting there - so massive and powerful!

There’s even one of the locomotives that you can enter by climbing up a staircase:

You’re only entering the engine compartment, but it’s still pretty cool to see the inside of one of these massive machines. It’s actually quite a bit more cramped inside than I’d have imagined it would be. There’s also very little visibility from the driver’s seat, so I’m not sure how they managed to drive these things! I guess that’s why you always see the train engineer hanging out the side of the train in movies, looking ahead.

As a side note - If you love trains, especially steam locomotives, as much as I do, then you might be interested in watching Mark Williams (of Harry Potter fame) On the Rails series on YouTube. He talks about the history of steam power, locomotives, and modern trains. It’s a really fantastic series and I highly recommend it.

Sound by Design

After the Steam exhibition, we headed over to the Sound by Design exhibition, which showcases important innovations in sound technology over the past 150 years! There are some really beautiful old sound devices here, like an old gramophone, and some even older tech that I don’t know the names of!

Some of the displays were interactive, and you could play around with them to see how they worked. Unfortunately it seems when we were there, a lot of the interactive ones weren’t working, which was unfortunate.

Despite the non-working displays though, it’s pretty incredible to see how much we’ve progressed in such a short period of time.

Technology in Our Lives

Next we headed over to the Technology in Our Lives exhibition, which looks at the technologies Canadian households have used since the end of the Second World War.

This area contains a variety of stuff on display, including some antique cars, and beautiful old telephones.

It’s funny when I think about the evolution of telephones, or at least the ones I would have used throughout my life. From the standard corded rotary Bell telephone (similar to the yellow touch-tone phone in the picture below), to the cordless phones, to the cell phones, and now to the smartphones we have today. How many teens or kids today even know what a “corded” phone is or have ever seen one?

I was probably a young adult when cell phones became more mainstream and affordable, and now they’re an absolute necessity. I remember my first cell phone was the Nokia 3310, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever! I wish I’d have kept it, just for the nostalgia.

Crazy Kitchen

The two main things that I remembered about the museum from when I was a kid, were the trains, and the Crazy Kitchen. I remember the Crazy Kitchen being so much fun, and I was really looking forward to seeing it again, so that’s what we went through next.

I went through with our little one, and he really got a kick out of it, and surprisingly didn’t stumble as much as I thought he would! He was a bit confused at first, but then he got the hang of it, and wanted to keep going through it again and again. 😂

If you’ve never been through the Crazy Kitchen, it’s meant to show how your brain and sense of balance can be tricked by the way the room is built. I guess it basically shows how we can’t always trust our senses, and that they can be easily fooled.

We checked out a few other exhibitions after that, but the ZOOOM area for kids is what my son really took a liking to.

ZOOOM – Children’s Innovation Zone

The Children’s Innovation Zone has a lot of fun and interactive things for kids to do. It’s meant to allow them to get creative and play with the different things in their own unique ways.

There was a wall with some back-lit interactive displays you could sit in:

A big wall with hard-foam blocks of different shapes and sizes you could play with:

And there was even a few race car tracks. The race cars are assembled from pieces of foam with magnetic connectors, so kids can create their own unique race cars and push them down the slopes to see which one is the fastest.

And if you have children I believe 2 and under, there’s a separate area for them to play in, with a bunch of rubber balls and interactive things around the wall.

The Children’s Innovation Zone also has a baby care room with bottle-warming, diaper-changing, and feeding facilities, so it’s a great place to take a break if you have a little one.

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Conclusion

We had a great time at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, and I’m glad we went. It’s certainly geared towards children, but there’s a lot of interesting things for adults to see as well.

But certainly if you have kids, it’s a great place to take them, and I’m sure they’ll have a blast and maybe even learn a few things as well!