This museum is located in one of the old Coalbrookdale Company’s buildings and is of a modern concept where museums are to be fun and interactive rather than old and “look, but don’t touch”.

The entrance to the building is of floor to ceiling glass, so you can see all the activity before you even enter the doorway which begins your stimulating experience.

The museum starts with all the earliest inventions and takes one through to the modern day inventors and scientists. The idea is that you see an object and one way or another you find out all about it, by either turning wheels, pushing buttons, pulling cables or aiming a hand held electric scanner at the ? above the object, which in turn starts a descriptive interpretation of the object, what is it ?, who invented it?, what is it made of?, what does it do? etc.

Thus you end up getting wet, whistling a tune to match the sounds on a mobile phone, designing a project, moving a steam engine single- handedly, floating on a magnetic platform, looking into the insides of various objects with an x-ray machine, making noise, constructing arches and not realizing how much you are learning along the way. You will see a model of the Jackfield Free Bridge (one of the six bridges that cross the River Severn in Ironbridge) and learn why it has its unique design.

Special areas are designed for school parties and activity sessions, for the younger generation who still need stimulation (but might not yet be able to grasp the meaning of the actual displays), and for one to try to design the “project for the day” with drafting tools. The idea is to use your head to test and develop ideas.

There is a fact board which gives you quick trivia facts about inventors old and new and the gift shop has plenty of kits to take home for more hands on experience and to learn about scientific theory.

Walk from the past where the early inventors brought us to where we are today- to the present and perhaps some will be stimulated enough to come out with a vision for the future and believe as so many have in the past, that what their mind envisions can actually become a reality.

Be warned you can get wet, tired, inspired and it can be noisey.