Los Altos, California

Art, Children's, Culture, General, Science, Specialized

Nestled amid Los Altos' boutiques, salons and eateries, Helix's sleek, two-story storefront includes 5,000 square feet of exhibit rooms, gift shop and teaching/meeting space. Many of the 25 exhibits traveled down from the Exploratorium mothership and include popular standbys like an electromagnetic-powered ring toss, a windblown "dunescape" and various brain-fooling optical illusions. Others were created specifically for the custom-designed Helix space, like an "invisible" stained-glass display fashioned from polarizing window film and layers of packing tape. Source: Mercury News by Sharon Noguchi