When we arrived the kids were drawn to a teeny tunnel with flashing lights and music ...and Mommy was pulled toward the PVC.  A stage drowned in blacklight, with room for three stand-in Blue Men awaits.  The basic sheet music for tunes like 'Yankee Doodle'  (no 'Rods and Cones' yet ... sorry, Blue Man diehards), perch above the PVC pipes, and foam soles (seriously like a flip-flop bottom from the nail salon) that act as drum sticks are everywhere.  Who knew that's all you need to make ALL THAT NOISE.  My young kids got a kick out of whapping the pipes haphazardly, but moved on pretty quickly to the rest of the exhibit.  Older children were hanging in there, trying to nail a tune, and enjoying the talents of a Stepping Stones employee who had clearly been practicing!  I was secretly wishing they had tympani filled with paint for us to bang on (encased in plexiglass, of course), but I guess that would be the Blue Man Experience, not Exhibit.  Alas...

On we moved to the rest of the exhibit which attempts to teach little ones about the physical properties of sound -- how it can move, how it feels, how it can be distorted -- in the same inquisitive way the Blue Men explore things.  As much as I want to say this was mind-blowing or even a lot of fun, it was actually a little frustrating.  I'm one of those geeks who restrains from touching the exhibit station until I've read about the exhibit station...so I fully understand how it works and what you're supposed to learn.  The 'Change the Wave' station was confusing -- perhaps because of the description, but more so because it was working inconsistently.  We gave it a go, but it wasn't until I saw another mom getting it to work and LOUDLY, that I realized we'd messed something up.  But when she left and I did EXACTLY what she'd done it didn't work!  I went around to the other side (they are identical), and THAT side now worked.  ????   Same thing went for the 'Touch It' station and the 'You're a Musical Instrument' station.  As a matter of fact, with the last one, we only had luck smacking the receptor with our hands, instead of tapping our chests and allowing the sound to come through our bellies into the receptor.  My son took more pleasure out of hitting the button to start the video than anything.  Not good.  I love Stepping Stones, so I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe it was just an off day, or maybe it's been taking a beating since it's a new exhibit.  (Maybe it was just me)!?  I will say, we easily figured out the theramin (that odd sounding instrument in the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations") and the very Blue Man-esque 'Slide-U-Lum' stations. The kids also enjoyed a station in the back where they could 'build' sounds, notes actually, by changing out the different lengths of PVC pipes.

And that's pretty much that.  No toilet paper streaming from the ceiling.  No Cap'n Crunch (unless you count the video they show about amplification -- which my son is still talking about, by the way).  None of the verbal whimsy and wit that marks a Blue Man show.  But like I said, that would be the Blue Man EXPERIENCE. 

This is a temporary exhibit, not an installation.  And being that, it does its job of killing 20 minutes or so.  My oldest (4 years) was positively begging to go to the energy lab by the time Mommy was done with her research.  If you're a museum member, have a Groupon, or haven't made your quarterly trek to Stepping Stones on a rainy day, by all means, go check out the Blue Man exhibit.  But if you're thinking of making a special trip at $15/head for admission, you might want to save your duckets ... or head to Home Depot and spend the cash to build your own PVC instruments, that'll entertain all summer and beyond.  Here's a YouTube video to help you get started.

The Blue Man exhibit runs through September 9, 2012.