Michigan Science Center debuting first new exhibit since COVID-19 hit

Needing a COVID-19 friendly field trip from the house? 

The Michigan Science Center has reopened and is offering complimentary admission now through Sept. 6, 2020 - and it's debuting a new exhibit. 

It's partnering with Ford Motor Company to show kids the tech behind autonomous cars and where the automotive industry is headed. 

"We wanted to do something cool and display the future of mobility, the future of transportation. That's happening right here," said Christian Greer, president and CEO of Michigan Science Center. "This exhibit is designed for you to easily hop right in and activate aspects of the exhibit."

"We wanted to create a display that really explained it and made it very human for kids to understand so that they could see, feel and touch and frankly not be afraid of the machine," said John Rich from Ford Autonomous Vehicles, LLC.

The exhibit explains topics like lidar and the use of cameras to steer the car. 

The museum reopened its doors from the shutdown about a month ago after a rough go due to the pandemic. 

"Behind the scenes. it's a struggle. We're a 503c nonprofit organization. We don't receive funding from any state or local government and it's challenging to get through this," Greer said.

They stayed afloat with daily Facebook science experiments from the talented Anna Sterner and opened officially about a month ago with enhanced cleaning and social distancing practices.

"At a hands-on museum, normally our exhibits are designed here at the Michigan Science Center for you to bump into something and have discovery and exploration but in this case, we used an airport theme to create the right distancing, just like the planes are flying in and air traffic control is keeping them out, we're doing the same thing here," Greer said.

The Science Center is open Thursday - Sunday, 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM. 

Complimentary general admission tickets are from Aramco Americas. You must reserve your date and time online for entry. Visits are not to exceed two hours. 

You can tickets and more information online here