By 1808Delaware
It’s another of our suggestions every couple of weeks for unique attractions and opportunities within an easy drive of the 1808Delaware coverage area.
Walking into COSI’s newest exhibit just south of us in downtown Columbus feels a little like stepping into a Pixar film. Buzz Lightyear stands ready for photos. Mike and Sulley grin like you just caught them mid-scare. WALL-E looks as curious as ever. Kids gravitate toward them right away, but what pulls adults in is something different: the sense that you’re being let into the studio.
Pixar has always hinted that animation is magic. Here, the magic gets explained.
From Sketch to Screen
“The Science Behind Pixar” spreads across eight sections, each one showing another piece of how an animated movie gets made. You can explore more than 50 hands-on stations. One minute you’re choosing paint colors for a “Cars” scene. The next you’re helping Luxo Jr. demonstrate how stop-motion works. Visitors move through the entire filmmaking process: modeling, rigging, surfaces, sets, animation, simulation, lighting, and rendering.
It’s a rare chance to understand why characters look the way they do. The exhibit breaks down how everything starts with shapes and math, how digital skeletons allow characters to move, and how lighting changes the mood of a scene. Nothing is hidden. You see the mess, the experiments, the trial and error.
The Hard Stuff Without the Headache
Pixar is famous for solving problems that seem impossible. Ever wonder how Merida’s hair in “Brave” moves so realistically? The exhibit explains it with approachable examples and interactive demos. “Finding Nemo” needed believable underwater light, so Pixar engineers studied the physics of how light bends through water. Kids can play with light simulations. Adults will quietly marvel at the complexity.
The rendering section surprises almost everyone. It shows how one single frame of a movie can take 24 hours for a computer to process. A full film takes years of computer time. Pixar’s servers never sleep.
A Family Trip That Doesn’t Feel Like Homework
COSI is marketing this as a STEAM exhibit, and that’s true. What’s great is that it never feels like a lesson. Parents don’t have to drag anyone to the next stop because every corner offers something new to push, spin, or experiment with. Kids just play, and in the process, they start to understand how much skill and creativity sits behind their favorite movies.
Alongside the exhibit, COSI is encouraging visitors to try storytelling for themselves. Their community art activities focus on original characters and original stories. The goal isn’t to copy Pixar, but to spark imagination in the same spirit.
Dates, Tickets, and What to Expect
“The Science Behind Pixar” is open now through May 25, 2026.
The exhibit lives in Gallery 2 and requires an add-on ticket:
• $15 for general visitors
• $10 for COSI members
COSI recommends planning enough time to let kids explore at their own pace. Two hours disappear quickly.
Lots of kids love Pixar movies. Not as many get exposed to the creative and technical work behind them. This exhibit shows that career paths in animation involve art and math and physics and storytelling. It shows that creativity and science coexist, often in the same room.
You leave with a new appreciation for every reflection on Lightning McQueen’s hood and every ripple of water around Nemo.
And maybe, for a moment, you feel like you got to be part of the studio.
Image by Mathew Browne from Pixabay
