Starfleet Academy Experience At The Intrepid Museum

Continuing our geek-tastic vacation, we went to the Star Trek Starfleet Academy Experience at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum to immerse ourselves in the world of Star Trek.

The 12,000 square feet, interactive exhibition was broken up into nine zones: language, medical, navigation, engineering, command and science. As a Starfleet cadet in this cosmic career day, you had to complete all the areas. You filled out a profile profile and were given an RFID wristband to track your progress and see which career field you would be more suited for: medical officers, science officers, communications specialists, even commanders.

Interactive technology was used in the exhibition, including leap motion voice recognition to communicate with a Klingon, a medical tricorder with RFID sensors to scan a sick Klingon patient, planet projection mapping to navigate through an area filled with obstacles, holograms, firing a phaser at moving targets on a screen and more.

Not only that, there were costumes on display, a walk through Star Trek history, a recreation of the Enterprise-D bridge where you can sit in the Captain’s chair or test your command prowess by taking the Kobayashi Maru exam.

When it was all done, I was given my final results. according to the Starfleet Acadamy experience, I was best suited for command (!), with an secondary specialist in communications. Ha. Looks like my aggression level was pretty high, while my phaser skills were pretty crap. As for the impossible, no-win Kobayashi Maru test, I rescued 110 crew members.

For Trekkies, the Starfleet Academy Experience is not to be missed activity. Whether you’re into original Star Trek, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, the original movies, the next gen movies or JJ Abrams reboot (which I’m all here for), there’s something for everyone, for in the world of Star Trek, it’s all about being inclusive and living long and prosperous.