The Horniman Museum: Robot Zoo

On its opening weekend, we paid a visit to the Horniman Museum's latest temporary exhibition, the Robot Zoo, which is running until November 8, 2009.

Like last year's "Walking with Beasts", this is a relatively small-scale exhibit that charges for entry: Adults £5, Concs £3, Children £2.50, Children under 3 free.

The exhbition is a collection of animatronic creatures that look more 64 Zoo Lane than Truckasaurus. While reasonably entertaining for 2-10 year-olds, it doesn't teach you very much about animals or robots.

Older children will probably not be able to wring more than 10 minutes of entertainment out of it. For younger kids however, there are plenty of buttons to push, handles to crank and tortoise shells to strap on.

You don't need to be an unreconstructed sci-fi nerd to find it a little disappointing that the robot zoo exhibits aren't really very robotic, but it provides a great excuse to pay another visit to the wonderful Horniman Museum.

Incidentally, the aquarium was looking far sprightlier than it has been recently. The jellyfish were in full bloom, plenty of fish in the wave tank and frogs piled on logs in the swampland case.