Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire, The Big Bang Theory, the Mobile World Congress or Apple’s keynotes are events equivalent to the Oscars in Hollywood … it is clear that the geek, the nerd and even the scientific in general (more and more boys and girls signing up for STEM curricula) is booming.
Steve Jobs or Bill gates they suggest that the borders of Silicon Valley are being torn down. For this reason, tourist offers more or less explicit in that sense also multiply exponentially like Moore’s law (nudge, nudge; wink, wink). We are going to explore some of the most striking or original of the Spanish field.
1. Arcade Vintage Video Game Museum (Alicante)
The Arcade Vintage Video Game Museum is in Ibi, Alicante, the already called toy town because the Ibi Toy Museum is one of the most important points in the history of toys in Spain. However, we have to look at another museum that is now opening its doors and that will make known the hhistory of videogames and its evolution, both in Spain and internationally, in addition to being able to play on site and even attend sessions and workshops.
The interactive permanent exhibition is 900 m2 and offers more than 300 pieces made up of arcade machines, pinballs, retrocomputers, retro consoles and Arcade Vintage video games.
The Arcade machines will rotate in the museum to be able to play Space Invaders, Tetris, Asteroids, Star Wars, Donkey Kong, Tron, Pac-Man … Without a doubt, a temple of playfulness for those who have grown up between zeros and some.
2. Super Mario Bros Avenue (Zaragoza)
Zaragoza is probably the geekiest city in Spain, the favorite place for great movie and video game fans. In November 2010, for example, the avenue Super Mario Bros. But this is only the tip of the iceberg.
The name of the avenue was previously chosen by popular vote, with the support of 80 percent of the members of the neighborhood association. Along with the avenue of Super Mario Bros., the names of another 67 streets of the neighborhood proposed by the association were approved, twelve in total dedicated to video game characters, such as The Sims, Prince of Persia or Tetris.
3. Mazinger Z (Tarragona)
In the province of Tarragona it rises the only Mazinger Z statue in the world. Where did the idea come from and how did it materialize? You have to go back to the late spring of 1978, when the FIBRESTAR company received a curious commission: to build a thirty-foot statue of Mazinger Z, the protagonist of the cartoon television series in fashion at the time. The company specialized in fiberglass work and boat and surfboard construction, and they had never built anything like it.
This statue was to be erected in the middle of an esplanade surrounded by pine trees in the municipality of Camp goat, Alt Camp, in a game called Mas del Plata, which was to give its name to a large urbanization that some real estate developers had begun to promote. They believed that the robot protagonist of that Japanese series, which was causing a sensation among children and adolescents throughout the State, would be a great claim.
And boy has it been. This ten-meter-high reproduction of the character from the mythical Japanese cartoon series is currently the annual pilgrimage site for thousands of fans of manga and even robotics. Recently it has been repainted with a crowdfunding of the Association of Friends of MazingerZ, which even organizes a meeting every year.
4. Riotinto Mining Park (Huelva)
The coppery lands of the Riotinto Mining Park, in the province of Huelva, It is the closest thing to Mars that you will find in Spain. At least that’s what NASA suggests: NASA scientists have been coming here for a couple of decades to sample the waters and to find out how life might thrive on the red planet.
The reddish color of this alien landscape is due to living beings that cannot be seen with the naked eye due to their microscopic size. Specifically, the bacteria Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans and others are responsible for oxidizing mineral deposits such as pyrite and chalcopyrite.
5. Torres Quevedo Museum (Madrid)
The Higher Technical School of Civil Engineers houses a collection of machines and instruments belonging to the engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo (1852-1936), the Spanish equivalent to Leonardo da Vinci. The collection consists of both the material used by Torres Quevedo in his research and technical developments, as well as some prototypes of his electromechanical devices.
He had to his credit calculating machines, analog and digital (the arithmometers). Airships: the Astra-Torres, which were acquired by the French and English armies from 1913 and later used in the First World War in very diverse tasks, mainly naval protection and inspection. The Telekino: an automaton that executed orders transmitted by wireless telegraphy, using Hertian waves, which was the world’s first radio control device and was a pioneer in the field of remote control, together with Nikola Tesla.
6. Dinópolis (Teruel)
Formed by a large central park in Teruel and seven more centers in seven towns in its province, Dinopolis It combines science and fun so you can experience the fascinating world of dinosaurs (the closest thing to Jurassic Park considering that, oh sadly, we will never manage to clone a dinosaur).
A tour of 4.5 billion years in which you will hear the first beats of the Earth’s heart, you will discover how life arose and with it the most extraordinary creatures that have ever existed. Especially for kids: Researchers don’t know exactly what triggers these little childhood obsessions, but nearly a third of all kids have one at some point, usually between the ages of 2 and 6.
7. Cosmocaixa (Barcelona)
CosmoCaixa occupies the facilities of the It was the first interactive Science Museum in Spain, inaugurated in 1981. Now, the new CosmoCaixa offers more than 30,000 square meters of facilities dedicated to scientific dissemination through numerous rooms with the most varied content, among which the matter room, a 3D planetarium or the called ‘flooded forest’.
Without a doubt, if science museums are your thing, this is one of the most modern and the one that least bends to canonical conventions. The 3D Planetarium CosmoCaixa is, technologically speaking, one of the most advanced in Spain. Conceived as a multipurpose space, the Planetarium’s programming consists of three main lines: classic planetarium programs for a basically school audience, audiovisuals for astronomical dissemination and the projection of science-themed films aimed at the general public that change periodically.
8. Night sky (Canary Islands)
If instead of contemplating simulations in a museum you prefer the real world, you have to pay attention to the Starlight Foundation, which certifies the best places on the planet for astronomical observation and works “in defense of the Night Sky and the right to observe the stars.” .
According to Starlight, the best place in Spain to look at the stars is Canary Islands, which is “among the world’s elite places for astronomy.” Especially La Palma and Tenerife.
Already in the peninsula, the Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park (Huesca) and Foz de Arbayún Natural Reserve (Navarre).
9. Digital Mile (Zaragoza)
The Digital Mile, in Zaragoza, is a “digital kilometer” conceived by the City Council to house the Spanish headquarters of the network giants, startups, a leisure park and the Etopia incubator, all next to an AVE station.
In addition, Etopia hosts Art and Technology exhibitions on an area of 2,800 m². You can find out what is created and produced in it, as well as exhibitions linked to the dissemination and dissemination of science and technology, and others of a temporary nature, linked to art and technology.
The Digital Water Pavilion or Digital Water Pavilion (DWP) is the first building in the Milla Digital physical space and has been in use since 2008. It is a building whose external facades have digital water curtains. Through an interface, the user can create interactive sequences on the curtains, drawing shapes, letters, or very varied writing patterns.
10. El Torcal de Antequera (Malaga)
The torcas or sinkholes, small circular and flat depressions that are filled with the most resistant residues to the erosion of the water. If you’re a science guy, you might also be fascinated by geology. It is not a topic that one can bring up in an elevator conversation, but in many of the events for geeks or nerds of the wide world. That is why you should visit the most important place in the world when it comes to torcas or sinkholes: the Torcal de Antequera, in the province of Malaga.
It is one of the most spectacular examples of karst relief in all of Europe, which is why it was declared in 1929 Site of National Interest. It is actually a 1,171 hectare labyrinthine structure in which a good science fiction movie could also be shot.
11. The Atlantic Museum (Lanzarote)
Another very specific museum for those truly motivated by the underwater world and all the secrets that it hides, such as their life (of which only a small percentage has been identified) and its most abyssal corners, such as the Mariana Trench, where it would fit the entire Everest could not even rise to the top of the ocean surface).
The author of this “natural” and “open air” museum is the artist Jason deCaires Taylor, author of the 300 sculptures that make up the “permanent display” of the underwater museum located under the waters of Lanzarote. To visit it, you must equip yourself with diving goggles or scuba equipment, because it is located no less than 12 meters deep, in the Bay of Las Coloradas, and occupies 2,500 square meters, as explained on the museum’s website.
12. Robot Museum (Madrid)
Since its opening in 2013, The Robot Museum has become a must-see for lovers of technology in general and robotics in particular. In it we can contemplate the collection of Daniel Bayón, CEO of Juguetrónica, and of Pablo Medrano, specialist in entertainment robotics.
The museum, one of the largest in the world of its kind, offers an interactive experience that combines fun and learning in a single space through participatory exhibits made with robots.
13. City of Arts and Sciences (Valencia)
At the beginning of the second half of the 19th century, science was presented as optimistic and redemptive, especially as a result of the Universal Exhibition. So was science fiction. But after the two world wars and May 68, science began to see itself as the enemy, we were all afflicted with the Frankenstein syndrome, postmodernism arrived and science fiction is now like Black Mirror: all technological advance implies a tribute that in some way worsens the moral, the social or the human.
Some signs of change are beginning to be seen with films where science and technology are the solution, not the problem, and one of the first and purest in that sense is Tomorrowland: the world of tomorrow, starring George Clooney. And what does all this have to do with City of Arts and Sciences? Well, this futuristic construction served as a setting to set the city conceived by and for Tomorrowland scientists.
In addition, the complex is dotted with buildings that host all kinds of scientific and technological wonders. In 1998 L’Hemisfèric opened its doors to the public: shaped like an eye, in a projection room for IMAX, planetarium and Laser cinema. It has an approximate area of 13,000 m². Later, the Prince Felipe Science Museum was inaugurated. In 2002, L’Oceanogràfic, the largest aquarium built in Europe, was opened. And in 2005 the total work was completed with the opening of the Reina Sofía Palace of the Arts.
