Mumbai's newest children's museum, the Museum of Solutions, combines objects and experiences
Children climb on an abstract structure that looks like a cross between Jack's giant beanstalk from the fairy tale and an art installation. “I am constantly in awe of the way children of all ages interact with the climber,” says Tanvi Jindal Shete, CEO and Founder, Museum of Solutions (MuSo), Mumbai, as he points to the Luckey Climber, an interactive three-dimensional climbing device which is an indispensable part of many children's museums around the world and has just arrived in India. “Along the way, they will make friends, learn to work together and have fun together in a visually stunning and experientially superior environment.”
Museum of Solutions, which opened on November 26, is a non-profit children's museum designed as a large educational laboratory with learning-through-play devices and programming.
While all children's museums are designed as learning-through-play spaces that promote interest in science, art and design through interactive devices, each museum reframes this goal differently. Mumbai's other, older museum, the CSMVS Children's Museum, is a creative cultural laboratory that also features a simulated archaeological pit and a 95-year-old African baobab. At MuSo there are exhibits, equipment, a recycling center and research stations that encourage children to find solutions to real-world problems through play.
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Shete, a former Teach for India employee, noticed a lack of meaningful activities and spaces for children to learn and play in Mumbai. She visited many children's museums around the world to understand their design, visitor experience and outcomes. The result is MuSo, which will not only serve the public but also offer 50% of its school visits for free. This will ensure that children from government schools, anganwadis (rural childcare and development centres) and municipal schools have access to the museum's resources, which are available in English and Hindi, she explained.
And there are enough resources. In the rapid prototyping studio, which is part of the Make Lab at MuSo, children can use 3D printers to create models and figurines or build them from scratch with whatever they find around them.
Tanvi Jindal Shete, CEO and Founder of the Museum of Solutions
Looking for solutions, the museum tells children, can be fun and meaningful. For example, the Bernoulli shooter is a great way to explore science. It creates a constant airflow that can keep objects in the air, even at an angle. Using horizontal and vertical rotation, children must move a floating ball through three goal hoops and complete a challenge. For this to work, kids have to figure out the exact movements.
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Other areas of the museum include the Grow Lab, the Discover Lab and a quiet area called the Library of Solutions, a child-led lending library with books and games. The overarching theme of the Discover Lab is water, and the museum plans to move on to other themes in the future. In the laboratory's empathy zone, interactive storytelling exhibits focus on water and its use in Mumbai.
One of the most interesting interactive exhibits is the talking matka (clay pot) in the Discover Lab. Designed with headphones and helmets, children can wear these matkas and walk through three simulated paths, listen to interactive stories and understand which path would be most suitable based on spills and safety. The ways to engage kids are fun, but there is a deeper, more meaningful cultural anchor in each exhibit that will make the learning linger for a long time.
Shweta Sharan is a freelance writer based in Mumbai.