Fans north of the 49th parallel can stave off those short winter days with a bright new Star Wars exhibit running through April 25th at The Anchorage Museum in Southern Alaska! The Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibition, presented by Bose Corporation, includes a wide variety of hands-on, high-tech experiences. This exhibition features more than 80 film props and related objects, exclusive video footage, and more than a dozen interactive exhibits, including:

Millennium Falcon
Visitors can jump to lightspeed in a life-size replica of the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit. A multimedia presentation explores what we know about our galaxy in a simulated ride to the edge of the universe. A 3-D Bose sound system brings to life the beeping cockpit instruments and the roar of passing spaceships. The five-minute ride is narrated by actor Anthony Daniels, who portrays C-3PO in the Star Wars films. Millennium Falcon capacity is four people. Anticipate a line.

Robot Object Theatre
In this immersive video experience, visitors enter a large-scale model of a Jawa sandcrawler’s rusted, steel interior and meet C-3PO and real-world robotics engineer Cynthia Breazeal, director of the Personal Robots Group at MIT Media Lab. The droid and the roboticist debate the merits of R2-D2, and discuss the challenges of duplicating human traits such as mobility, perception, and cognition. A Robot Object Theatre session lasts about 15 minutes. Each session is capped at 24 visitors. Anticipate a line.

Interactive displays

• Building Communities: This unique virtual reality simulation lets visitors design three different communities on the Skywalker home planet of Tatooine, which has a harsh climate and scarce resources. Visitors learn if they have what it takes to survive by designing a spaceport, a moisture farm and a Jawa camp.

• Maglev Engineering Design Lab: Visitors can experiment with magnetic levitation propulsion, creating floating vehicles and testing them on a magnetic track.

• Robot Engineering Design Lab: Visitors become robot designers by choosing components and sensors for a mini robot, and then programming it to accomplish a task.

Other Exhibition Highlights:

• Authentic props and costumes such as Darth Vader’s menacing black armor, Princess Leia’s ceremonial white gown and a full-size R2-D2.

• Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder from Star Wars: A New Hope.

• Amazing real-world robot technology, such as a personal assistant robot designed for NASA astronauts.

More than two million people worldwide have visited this exhibition, which was organized by the Museum of Science, Boston, and Lucasfilm Ltd.

Tickets are $22 general admission, $18 student/senior/military, $10 for museum members, $8 ages 3 to 12 and free for ages 2 and younger. Prices include general admission to the museum. Advance tickets are available at the museum or online at www.anchoragemuseum.org.

[Source] StarWars