Willkommen im TECHNOSEUM

The lotus effect.

Lotus-Effect phenomena

Yesterday morning, in the very very early morning, I was online and searching the web for new and exciting places in Mannheim. During my search I found an entry on the Wikitravel for Mannheim, reading through I found a couple of new attractions that we can try. One of which was the Technoseum (Technology museum), established in January 2010, offering over 200 years of technology, social history and the chance of experimentation [s]. To make things even better, its opening times included the doomed Sunday (the day when all Germany closes but a few restaurants and parks), which was super. 

200 years old technology and social history

At 3:30pm we arrived the museum. It was settled in a beautiful natural park, near a small lake, occupying a significant 9,000 square-meters of land and about four floors high, and on its entrance stood a  contemporary-art red, metalic figure. We purchased two visitors tickets and started our tour from the Nano-technology corner.

Technoseum

In the Nano-technology lab we were overwhelmed by the many new inventions, phenomenas and discoveries displayed. However, one old phenomena that is still revealing its secrets as the nano-technology improves was presented there, the Lutos-Effect phenomena. The lotus refers to the lotus flower whose leaves repel water, and thus never gets wet! Moreover, this repelling shows great advantages for the plant itself and for us as well. The repelling positive effect is the self-cleaning surfaces, which protects the plants from pathogens growing on them, and allows some butterflies that have the same effect to self-clean their wings, as any dust drop on a surface of this effect is collected and cleaned by rain and water drops instantly. This advantage was also exploited by us, as about 500,000 houses around the world now are painted with this self-cleaning effect included in their paints, and in Germany the autbahns traffic control units have self-cleaning glasses installed in their sensors [s].

Nano-technology lab

We couldn't cover the entire museum, there was a lot to see and more to experience by hand. At 5:00pm and just before the museum announced it's closing, we took a speedy round in the museum. The building was full of old technology instruments, new ones, and some scientific facts that were put for the visitors to experiment with, and other ancient technologies such as paper making was also available for trial. 

We left the museum excited but a little annoyed that we couldn't cover the entire place nor understand all the described technologies, as things were only explained and demonstrated (video and audio) in German. Ah, i should mention that the staff there was super nice, and they were ready to answer any question.

Before going home, we wandered around the park, played with the ducks, laid on the grass, took some memorial pictures and once again, fell in love with Mannheim.