Science Center. Did we miss something?

Yesterday Rob and I thought it'd be fun to check out the California Science Center. The website said it was free admission. Technically it was but there was a suggested donation of $5/person. We paid it, though by the end we wish we hadn't. First came the "world of life" section. It was ok. Nothing great though. We went through it fairly quickly expecting that the next section would be better. Next came the "creative world" section. By the end of this we had to laugh. The displays were dumb and a couple didn't work. Here are some examples of some of the little display exhibits:
- "how a remote works". It let us push a button that turned a TV on and off
- "Wet sand is not good to build a house on". The thing had a little toy house on some sand. Then I could turn a knob which made it shake like an earthquake and the little house would bury itself in the sand. Don't build a house on sand? Well duh!
- "Conserve our air by carpooling." It was just a video of some kids sitting in front of a school talking about going out and figuring out how to carpool.
- "whisper dishes". You are supposed to be able to speak softly and have someone on the other side of the room hear it while standing in front of a dish. The problem was that there were exhibits all around and people walking right through the two dishes. No way it would work.
- "earthquake buildings" I could turn a knob to make these 2 buildings shake. They were supposed to tip over at a certain amount of shaking. They didn't.
- "how fish react to current" The fish were more interested in eating than swimming against a current.
- "driving drunk" Like an arcade game, first you drove a car sober (I crashed about 5 times) Then you drove drunk. (The thing would make you close your eyes for several seconds and when they opened I'd be off the road.) It was funny.
- There was a thing that said to put on earphones and talk into a microphone. It didn't work.

The third section of the science center was closed. I've been to the Cleveland and Toronto science centers and they were great. Too bad Los Angeles doesn't come close to comparing. We finished the entire thing in under 2 hours.