the works

our favorite exhibit was the dinosaurs and the lab in the basement area where you could make a smoke tornado, or make electricity work....etc..

My daughter loves science. I did a Google search and came across the Works. Never heard of it before. It was the perfect place to host her birthday party. The day of the party we had a bad snow storm so people were late. The Works extended our party time without additional cost. The kids learned a lot and my daughter was pleased. Very cost effective.

Fun for the kids and parents. Visited on a field trip with my sons 4th grade class. The kids loved the explore area. Lots of areas to explore - it was fun to see all the things they tried and worked thru on their own. GREAT TIME!!Our teacher Amy was a tad high strung and kinda snippy at the kids - I get that there were 30 kids but understand that they are excited for the experiments and stop jumping down their theoaa

Won 2 free tickets and decided to go on a Sunday afternoon. Wasn't crowded at all so it was nice to have a lot of the exhibits pretty much to ourselves. My son, who's into science already, just turned 11 and we had a good time. The exhibits are very hands-on and there are explanations by each one so you could learn as little or as much as you want. It didn't take us too long to see and do everything we wanted so it might not be an all day activity. But it's defined worth checking out!

Visited here on a Smithsonian free museum day. (Normally it would be $8/person) Was not too crowded. My kids are 4, 6, 9. The littler one didn't quite understand anything but she enjoyed herself. The older two tried several stations and did several projects. My husband and I enjoyed doing projects with the kids as well. We will definitely go here again.

I brought my 7 yr. old daughter here and she loved it. It's small and kinda quiet so you can really dig in to the hands on exhibits and learn. The first thing you see is an enormous K'inex sculpture. I've never seen anything like it and we drank it in for a good 20 minutes before going in to the museum. The hands on are really hands on! Be ready to move and build all kinda of things. Our favorite was the giant foam blocks, but building race car -and racing it- was a close second. Parking is easy and free. The entry fee is low, like $8 and it's a ton of fun.

My son is too old for a Children's Museum, but this museum was just right for him and kept his interest. He is a first-grader. The Knex are hard to use for tiny hands. Lego Cars would have been easier to build.

This museum focuses on teaching kids about engineering, and has lots of fun hands on exhibits. Check out the biggest Kinex ball machine in the world!

A bit of a hike from anyplace you'd want to go, perhaps 15 minutes from the Mall of America. Facility looked better from the outside; inside is somewhat worn. Exhibits are basic science-museum fare, nothing we hadn't seen elsewhere but more hands-on than what you'll find at the MN Science Museum proper. This felt like something that was put together by volunteers from a university engineering department working on a shoe string; that's fine, but at least a half-dozen of the installations were out-of-order during our visit, and some seemed fairly dull or lacked adequate explanation. The upstairs activity room was great; we spent a full hour there with the kids building marble raceways and electric circuits. The lack of structure there was welcome and we had the place to ourselves in the morning. Youngest daughter (8) was taken enough with the electricity activities that she wanted to get similar stuff for home (we stopped at Ax Man Surplus and did so for about $10 total).We had fun at this visit for almost 2.5 hours, which was great. Decided not to get a membership though, assuming it is pretty static and would not be much fun again (we go to the MN Science Museum monthly). Took home some good ideas for activities we'll do on our own, and a wish (from the kids) to go back to the Discovery Center in Boise, ID, which is similar but much larger, or the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, or the Pacific Science Center in Seattle; those are all family favorites and have much the same exhibits-- just many more, and with a lot more flash (and sometimes more substance) behind them.Advice: call ahead and try to avoid going when a school group is on site. We were having a good time until 100 grade school kids came in and basically ran amok in the place...after being crowded away from most of the exhibits we decided it was time to move on. Spent the afternoon at the Minnesota Art Institute which was much quieter!

I believe the best way to visit The Works is with a group, such as through a school field trip as my son and I had the first time around. When we went with his classmates, we got to participate in a workshop where the kids built their own catapults using real drills, nails, wood, etc, and that alone was worth the discounted admission we paid. The kids had contests afterwards to see who could launch marshmallows further with their catapults. My son still plays with his to this day, many months later.We've been back again since, just the two of us, and this time I had to pay admission for myself as well even though this is very clearly geared towards children. I personally feel the price is a bit high for the amount of activities here when compared to the Science Museum and Children's Museum, but they have some unique exhibits here that can't be found at either of the aforementioned museums. Literally everything here is meant to be touched and played with, which makes it stand out. My son especially loves the ability to build and race cars on their timed track. This seems to be the favorite activity of many kids who visit The Works as the competition to build the best and fastest cars is quite exciting for most of them. I saw kids noting the design of a particularly fast car and secretly copying the design and trying to improve upon it to beat the undefeated champion. It was quite cool to watch. True learning from play.I would say this museum is geared at kids 6 and up. Younger kids may quickly become bored with some of the advanced concepts of the exhibits. When we went with my son's school, they advised ages 10 and up but my 8 year old had a fantastic time and still does every time we go. I still feel it's a bit limited, but if you can go with a group and get the discount (parents were free when we went with school, too) it's definitely worth stopping by.