I'm a member and have visited a few times with my 5 year old son--it's a good rainy day activity for kids. The downstairs area is beautiful space for kids to ru

I'm a member and have visited a few times with my 5 year old son--it's a good rainy day activity for kids. The downstairs area is beautiful space for kids to run around and tinker with robots, and it never seems to be crowded (not even on weekends). The museum is shockingly liberal with what they let kids touch, so when I take him upstairs to the historic collection I'm always terrified that he'll break something. Fortunately a lot of that gear from the 60's was built to last and is intimidating to little kids... for example, their punch card reader is bigger than a copy machine, and volunteers hand out earplugs before running it.