COSI's Mindbender Mansion and Amazing Mazes. Photo by Garth Bishop
Combining education with entertainment is part of COSI’s raison d'être, so it makes perfect sense for the organization to bring Mindbender Mansion and Amazing Mazes back for another go ’round.
For younger guests, the “education” part comes in working through the exhibit’s puzzles, and the “entertainment” part – or at least a sizable chunk of it – comes from completing those puzzles while their adult counterparts remain stumped.
The exhibition opened Jan. 28 and runs through April 30. It boasts 100-plus hands-on activities: puzzles, brain-teasers, math exercises, group activities, floor mazes, full-size mazes and more.
The puzzles in Mindbender Mansion, produced by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, are progressive. Visitors can pick up clue cards when they walk in and fill them out as they go through.
Host “Mr. E” appears on video just inside the entryway, explaining the rules and inviting guests to make their way through the exhibition and solve puzzles as they go. Solving puzzles earns the guest secret passwords, which can be filled in on the clue card. Ascertaining three passwords allows the guest to join the Mindbender Society and put his or her portrait on the exhibition’s Wall of Fame.
Mindbender Mansion is split into four areas: the parlor, the library, the map room and the kitchen. Challenges range from simple block puzzles – “use these four misshapen blocks to form a square” – to the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade-reminiscent hopscotch-meets-Scrabble challenge Spelling Fever. Everything’s designed to appeal to children, of course, though adults are usually sucked in sooner or later.
“It works really well in terms of getting adults engaged, too,” says COSI Project Manager Josh Kessler.
Amazing Mazes is COSI’s own addition to Mindbender Mansion, engineered by Minotaur Mazes. As its name implies, its milieu is mazes in a wide variety of mazes. These include the Music Maze, Web Maze, Puzzle Maze, Finger Maze, Color Maze and Maze of Illusions.
This is Amazing Mazes’ first appearance at COSI, though Mindbender Mansion had a previous engagement there in 2013.
Admission to Mindbender Mansion and Amazing Mazes is included in general admission to COSI. It’s open during COSI’s normal hours, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays.
Garth Bishop is managing editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.