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Hours

Mon-Sat 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Sun 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

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Admission

Members: FREE
Under 24 mo.: FREE
Adults & Children: $14.95
Seniors: $11.95

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Membership

Family Membership $150.00/yr
Grandparent Membership $130.00/yr

Edgerton Center Facilities and Services

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Strobe Alley

Strobe Alley features the life and work of Harold “Doc” Edgerton. The Alley is the home of Edgerton’s historic photographs, including the famous “Milk Drop Coronet” and the “Bullet through Apple” photos, as well as his laboratory equipment and information about his work at MIT and explorations with Jacques Cousteau. There are also hands-on exhibits that show Doc’s work with the electronic strobe flash as well.

The Theatre and Demonstrations

Visitors of all ages enjoy the experience of our live interactive science demonstrations presented by the Edgerton Center’s lead educators in our theatre. Each demonstration will get everyone excited about learning science with unique experiments and audience participation. The demos can be done for small groups or entire schools and are great supplements to classroom learning. Two demonstrations are included in the price of field trips to the center. Edgerton On The Move Programs can be just one demo up to a Science Explosion event that includes up to 10 Demonstrations and labs over two days.

a group of students sitting in a room at the Edgerton Center raising their hands
kids playing inside the edgerton center

Explorit Zone

The Explorit Zone was created based on Harold “Doc” Edgerton’s philosophy to “…teach people in such a way that they don’t realize they are learning until it is too late.” The Zone does this with interactive exhibits that are designed to provide insight into hands-on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) principles. Our Zone puts STEAM into students’ hands by letting them explore, imagine and create as they play and find answers to questions.

Traveling Explorit Zone

This is a smaller traveling version of the Explorit Zone that we bring to you. It has over 25 hands-on STEAM activity stations students can rotate through. Typically, it is set up on ten 8’ tables in a decent sized room or location that works best for your school or organization’s event. The Traveling Explorit Zone can be set up for small groups or entire schools including Family Nights where parents and siblings can participate as well.

traveling exporit center in a school gym
traveling exporit center in a school gym

Hands-On Lab Activities

The Edgerton Explorit Center offers hands-on lab activities both at the Center in Aurora and offsite with our Edgerton On The Move Programs. Lab descriptions and suggested age ranges are listed in the lab section found here. Labs can be added to a field trip for an additional $2.50 per student or can be part of an EOTM program and fall under the pricing packages listed here. Labs may be limited to the number of students that can be in a session depending on time and space. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Our FAQs

Group visits with demonstrations are $100 minimum.  Otherwise, a standard visit for groups of 10 or more people without demonstrations is $9 a person.  For groups of less than 10 people the regular admission fee of $14.95/person applies.

School/group staff (teachers, paras) are free, as such we do expect that you make sure your students use our space appropriately.  Additional guests or visitors are at the $9 admission fee.  Please be sure to let us know how many adults to expect.  Also, during your visit, we expect all adults to supervise your group, correcting any misbehavior on the part of students. All guests are expected to be respectful and follow our posted rules. While exhibits can break down from normal use, willful damage will not be tolerated. While not all of our exhibits are intuitive, and may need an adult to help explain how to use them, this shared learning is a part of the fun you get to have with your students.

When you sign up for a group visit, a normal visit includes: 3 Mad Scientist led demonstrations and time in our hands-on activity zone.   For a per-person fee, you can add additional demonstrations or add hands on lab activities.

A typical visit lasts about 3 hours.  Additional demonstrations or lab activities will require more time.  Please be sure to arrive before your ‘start time.’  If your group will be late, please let us know.  Groups who arrive too late are at risk of cancellation or missed activities.

Our theater space where we do demonstrations holds about 50 people at a time.  While we can host more than 50 at a time, larger groups may need longer visits.  We recommend groups of less than 150.

Our visits are on a first scheduled, first served basis.  April and May fieldtrip times are often filled by mid-December.  We offer many programs as well; our programing gets priority scheduling.  To make sure you get your group on our calendar, please schedule as soon as you are able.  We are happy to schedule up to a year in advance, but recommend no less than three months in advance.

We do not offer food services, but we do have space for groups who bring sack lunches.  Spaces include an outdoor patio space (for nice days), or our basement which has room for 60 at cafeteria style tables.  There is no additional charge for using these spaces, so long as you clean up after yourselves.  Make sure to let us know if we need to schedule this in your visit.  In Aurora there are some great fast-food and local restaurant options as well.

If an organization cancels their program or field there is a cancellation fee of 50% of their total cost.