Compare your senses to a dog’s - or even build one - at new Exploration Place exhibit

Exploration Place is going to the dogs this summer.

The traveling exhibition “Dogs! A Science Tail” — which includes a robotic demonstration dog, photos of local dogs, and areas where visitors can compare their senses and abilities to dogs and even build a dog — is on display at the science center through Sept. 5.

Along with the exhibition, a 47-minute film about six service dogs called “Superpower Dogs” is showing in Exploration Place’s IMAX dome theater. Plus, a stunt team of rescue dogs, which has appeared on “America’s Got Talent!,” will perform 13 shows June 16-19 in Exploration Place’s outdoor Festival Plaza that will include a specially built 35,000-gallon pool.

Kansas families with kids in pre-K through 12th grade can visit Exploration Place for free with one-time all-access passes through the state’s Sunflower Summer program that runs through Aug. 14. Families can download the Sunflower Summer app, funded by the Kansas Department of Education, to request the passes. Several other attractions are also participating in the program. The all-access pass includes dome movie tickets. Tickets for the Canine Dogs stunt show, $8 with discounts, are sold separately.

The exhibition, created by the California Science Center, is fully bilingual, with all storyboards, visuals and narrations using English and Spanish.

“We don’t get a lot of exhibits that are done 50/50 like this,” said Victoria Mitchell, director of exhibits and programming.

For both Adam Smith and Mitchell, who have firsthand experience with dogs, visiting the exhibition during a run in Albuquerque helped them learn even more about canines.

“The greatest thing about this exhibit for me as a dog lover and owner for 35 years was just the amount of empathy it created for me for my dogs,” said Smith, Exploration Place’s president and CEO. “Someone had told me that dogs have bad eyesight but I didn’t know how bad until this exhibit. I was able to understand how they need to use their hearing and smell, which compared to humans are superpowers and are really important to them.”

Mitchell, who had worked in a vet clinic for six years, said she too learned a lot.

The exhibit includes several games, interactive and tactile stations and plenty of information about the origins of dogs, how they experience the world and caring for dogs.

Among the games: Test your running speed against that of dogs and others (Olympic champion Usain Bolt, for example), play a few rounds of Jeopawdy narrated by the now-deceased “Jeopardy” quiz show host Alex Trebek (called Alex Trebark), guess what jobs certain dogs have, such as a therapy dog, sheep-herding dog or a bomb-sniffing dog, based on their descriptions, and teach commands with your voice and body actions to a virtual dog.

“I run as fast as a Pomeranian or a typical 10-year-old (according to the running game chart), so I’m not a fast runner,” Mitchell admitted.

To include local dogs in the exhibition, Exploration Place arranged 1,000 photos submitted by local dog owners into the design of the Wichita flag. Visitors can also upload photos of their dogs to a pin-accessed website and the photos will be digitally displayed on one of five screens in one exhibition section.

In the exhibition section about the breeding of dogs, visitors can build their own dog with model parts, based on what various body features can do, like long and drooping ears, medium tails and thick tails.

At least twice daily, Aibo, a fully robotic dog that does real-time learning and actions, will do demonstrations.

“She’s crazy cool and she’s so cute,” Mitchell said. “She’s plastic with no fur but she walks like a dog, talks like a dog, blinks her eyes, wags her tail and is as realistic you can get for a robot.” Aibo can reportedly snuggle as well when held.

The IMAX “Superpower Dogs” movie tells true stories of six different service dogs, including an avalanche rescue dog and a pair of bloodhounds who are helping save endangered species in Africa. The film is narrated by actor Chris Evans, who played Captain America in the Marvel Universe movie series.

For the dog stunt shows performed by the Canine Stars team, Exploration Place will erect a 35,000-gallon pool where the dogs will do diving tricks. During the 13 shows spread out over four days, the adopted dogs will also do other stunts not often accomplished by an everyday pet dog.

The shows will take place in the Exploration Place Festival Plaza, an outdoor space next to the science center, at 10 a.m. and 1 and 3 p.m. daily June 16-19 and a 6 p.m. Thursday show during the museum’s night-time hours. Dog show tickets, $8 with discounts, are being sold separately from museum admission tickets.

‘Dogs! A Science Tail’ exhibition

When: now through Sept. 5

Where: Exploration Place, 300 N. McLean

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Wednesdays, Fridays-Saturdays; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursdays

Admission: Exhibition only: $11.50 ages 12-64, $10 for ages 65 and older, $8 ages 3-11, and free for ages 2 and younger and members. All-access pass, which includes tickets to the “Superpower Dogs” IMAX movie: $17.50 ages 12-64, $15 ages 65 and older, $12 ages 3-11, and free for ages 2 and younger and members. Kansas families with kids ages pre-K-12th grade can get free one-time all-access passes to Exploration Place by using the Sunflower Summer program (sunflowersummer.org) through Aug. 14.

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