From Sci-Fi to Wi-Fi, Exploration Place exhibit looks at pop culture and technology

A couple of years after “Back to the Future” was released in 1985, well-known film critic Roger Ebert said people would eventually be able to watch movies on-demand at home on wide-screen TVs. A few decades later, Netflix and other streaming services have become the norm.

What may have seemed fantasy in movies, TV, novels and in the minds of futuristic thinkers decades ago has sometimes become reality. A new national traveling exhibit at Exploration Place looks at how pop culture, sci-fi films and other mediums have fired imaginations and influenced modern-day and future technologies.

“POPnology: From SciFi to WiFi” opened Jan. 28 and will run through Sunday, May 2, at Wichita’s science center. The exhibition, produced by Stage Nine Productions, is a fun fusion of science fiction with science education and facts.

Visitors can see a replica of the time-traveling modified DeLorean from “Back to the Future” (displayed in the lobby) and Ebert’s prediction as part of the displays.

The exhibition has some hands-on, immersive activities like guiding robotic arms to complete specific tasks such as turning dinosaur eggs (a nod to “Jurassic Park”), building a virtual rocket to fly to Mars and even a virtual reality holodeck with two VR stations.

At one of two photo op stations, visitors can pose with a looming black metal alien, a replica of the namesake of the “Alien” movie franchise, that is made of gears, wrenches, chains and other tools and mechanical parts.

One display shows a room full of items that are now features of today’s handheld smartphones: a Rolodex, a phone book, a manual typewriter, stacks of records and other music mediums, a stack of board games, cameras, a reel-to-reel, credit cards and a vintage 3-dial weather station wall display. (Parents and grandparents may need to explain some of those items to accompanying kids.)

“It’s pretty mind-blowing the convenience we now have in our pocket,” said Nate Jones, Exploration Place’s digital marketing coordinator, during a recent tour of the exhibit.

The exhibition shows the influences of pop culture in how we play (as in video games), how we connect (through communication), how we move (involving transportation) and how we live and work.

One example of the how we move category is the Strati, the world’s first 3-D printed car — which looks a bit like a dune buggy. It took a U.S.-based company 44 hours to print the vehicle’s body and chassis from carbon-fiber reinforced ABS plastic, which is a type of polymer.

Of course, Hal, the sinister artificial intelligence computer from “Space: A Space Odyssey,” and R2D2 from the “Stars Wars” franchise are part of the exhibition. Visitors may also see a remote-controlled R5D4, another droid from “Star Wars,” maneuvering its way through the exhibition.

To complement the “POPnology” exhibit, Exploration Place is displaying American and international posters of the “Star Wars” movies franchise that belong to local collector Paul Wilson. The posters line the bridge gallery that connects the lobby to the science center’s exhibition spaces.

‘POPnology: From SciFi to WiFi’ exhibit at Exploration Place

What: A national traveling exhibition about how sci-fi has influenced current and future technology

When: Now through Sunday, May 2; Tuesday-Wednesday, Friday-Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Thursday 10 a.m.-8 p.m., closed Mondays until March 22

Where: Exploration Place, 300 N. McLean Blvd.

Cost: $11.50 for ages 12-64; $10 for seniors; $8 for youth ages 3-11; free for children ages 2 and under and for Exploration Place members for exhibits-only admission. Add-ons for other activities are available.

More info: 316-660-0600 or exploration.org