Thinktank is a science museum in Birmingham, England. Opened in 2001, it has some exhibits from the now-closed Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery Science Museum. It is part of the Millennium Point complex. Thinktank has four floors of over 200 hands on exhibits and artefacts. Each floor has a theme, in general going from the past, in Thinkback (Level 0), through Thinkhere (Level 1) and Thinknow (Level 2), to the future, in the Thinkahead gallery (Level 3). The decision to move the science museum was taken by Birmingham City Council in 1995, given the opportunity presented by the Millennium Commission to build a new museum. The old building was falling into a state of disrepair, many of the artefacts were no longer in working order and accessibility was very difficult for those with mobility requirements^.In September 2001, Thinktank at Millennium Point was one of the few Millennium projects to be opened both on time and on budget. Whereas the old science museum focussed entirely on Birmingham’s industrial history, Thinktank encourages visitors to question how science and technology affects our daily life past and present, and learn how science and discovery will shape our future. The photography policy of Thinktank is that all exhibits may be photographed, with the exception of the Brain in Medicine Matters, and the Lotus Sports bike in Move It. This gallery contains the Futures exhibition, dealing with future technology, innovation and space travel. The majority of the displays are screens, with a trackball to choose to play a video on a certain topic. There is also a programmable drumming robot. Visitors can program the robot via a screen where they wave a drumstick, moving a corresponding drumstick on the screen around a graphic representation of the real-life drums. Once a sequence of 12 drum "hits" is entered, the instructions are sent to the robot, which plays the sequence.

Planetarium

The planetarium at Thinktank is the UK's first purpose-built digital planetarium.The image of the night sky is projected onto a domed screen above viewers heads using 6 multimedia projectors, each connected to a PC. This means not only can a traditional planetarium show of the night sky be seen, but due to it essentially being 6 combined computer displays almost anything can be viewed on the planetarium dome.This gallery deals with current technology and scientific understanding, and how everyday life has been affected by scientific ideas and advances.

There are many galleries on this floor, including:

• Things about me
• Wildlife
• The Street
• Kid's City
• Medicine Matters