Sensory delight for all ages

IF YOU’VE not yet been to the Future Park exhibition at the V&A Waterfront’s Watershed, put it on the To Do list for the holidays. We took our 10-year-old Bella Boo and it’s debatable who had more fun – her, or us adults.

The first huge room you enter has colourful computer-generated images on the wall. One of them interacts when touched, exploding into depictions of waterfalls, rainbows and wild creatures.

Before you go inside, you get to choose simple pictures which you colour in. These get scanned and added to another two digital walls; the first is a scene with roads, train tracks and buildings, the other is an underwater world. The more participants, the more objects get added. Your picture travels around in a loop.

For more interactive fun, a spaceship appears from time to time. If you spot it, slap it with your hand and it will shoot lasers across the wall.

In the underwater world, the coloured-in fish and other aquatic animals swim lazily around until a bag of food pops up. Go for that, touch it and fish will converge on it.

We had a fabulous time playing on the tables where little people, cows and so on react to your touch or placement of certain objects with riotous abandon.

Upstairs is a dark play space filled with various-sized balls, illuminated by different colours. When you roll them across the floor, each plays a different musical tone so you can create your own symphony of sound and light.

Also up here is a hopscotch game with special effects, and a 3D papercraft area so the children can take home a tangible reminder of their experience.

Tickets, from R130 (with family packages and senior/student discounts), are available from Computicket. Future Park will be at the Waterfront until the end of January before moving to Joburg.

For more information see www. futureparksa.co.za.