When we first heard that teamLab Future Park was coming to the Village at the Mall of Georgia, we weren’t quite sure what to expect. Pictures made it look like a really cool glow-in-the-dark attraction for children. After experiencing it first-hand, we quickly learned that it is so much more!

The highly interactive digital exhibit is housed in a large, dark room with seven different colorful stations. My husband and I thought that our boys, ages 10, 8 and 4, would breeze through all of the activities in 30 minutes, tops. Two hours later, we literally had to bribe them to leave.

We quickly learned that the hands-on teamLab stations are designed to foster creativity, demonstrate cause and effect, and teach educational concepts without children realizing that they are learning through play.

By far, the most popular attraction was the “Light Ball Orchestra” station featuring a sea of large balls illuminated in different colors. My boys enjoyed running from ball to ball with other children to generate different sounds based on color by bouncing, rolling or tapping each one. Although it was music to our ears, we eventually had to coax our boys to move on to the next exciting station.

The “Create! Hopscotch for Geniuses” station incorporated whimsical sound effects and more music. It was amusing to watch children and adults hopping on bright shapes and creatures in a digital pond to see the shapes dissolve, disappear, or burst into colors. My 4-year-old couldn’t get enough of this as he joyfully hopped about.  The “Sketch Aquarium” and “Sketch Town” stations were simply incredible, taking up two entire walls of the exhibit. They looked like giant screen savers – one wall was a digital ocean scene with vibrant sea creatures floating around, while the other featured a bustling cityscape with buildings, roads, and all kinds of moving vehicles. We marveled at the creative process involved as our boys chose paper templates, colored them with special crayons, scanned them in and watched their images come alive on each of the huge touch screens. Their expressions were priceless as they shrieked, “Mom! There’s my fish!” They even created 3-D versions of their sketches, which served as souvenirs to take home. The remaining stations were equally fun, and the friendly “Activity Facilitators” were always on hand to explain how each activity worked.

TeamLab is ideal for toddler to elementary school-aged children, but we saw older children and parents joining in on the fun. Don’t delay – this one-of-a kind exhibit is too good to miss before it ends on July 31.

Know Before You Go: Allow at least an hour to take in everything due to the highly interactive nature of each exhibit, and be sure to have a snack beforehand, since no food is allowed inside.

–  Felicia Barman

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