Telus Spark: Star Trek the Starfleet Academy Experience

Telus Spark is hosting a special event called Star Trek: The Starfleet Academy Experience which is an exhibit that collects the history of the franchise and combines it into a streamlined tour. The event runs from February 4 to June 4, 2017 with some special mini changes depending on the date. This tour is based around where you'd fit in at Starfleet Academy and your progress is monitored with an interesting interactive bracelet. With the bracelet you're able to interact with a large number of displays, activities and quizzes which create a score at the end. This adds a more fun aspect to the experience creating a space for the more casual Star Trek fan while also offering a museum type aspect as well. There's a great balance between the two combining both in the various rooms you travel through and together they helped provide a full experience. The tour is linear in focus though the order of which you explore the rooms doesn't matter, but it's certainly worth it to fully explore each area. Not only to cover all the activities, yet also to get a viewing of all the great artifacts from the Star Trek shows and movies.

Telus Spark Star Trek Event Page


The tour takes you through distinct rooms that match certain important aspects of all the Star Trek shows. There are seven of these areas in total including Communications; Engineering, Science, Navigation, Tactical, Command and Medical. Each area carries the distinct tests to find your best spot in the academy as mentioned before and offer different activities. Some particular highlights were trying to say Klingon, doing phaser target practice and visiting the setup command area/the ship bridge. I also enjoyed checking out all the artifacts as there was a wide variety of items from the series on display. It's one thing seeing the show with the actors having the gadgets and another to see them live. There are actually some intricate details on many of the items whether that's with the Starfleet suits or the gadgets they had. It's also worth noting that the items were provided by Martin Netter, owner and manager of the Filmwelt Collection. This collection is the largest privately operated archive of original Star Trek artifacts in the world.

Martin Netter Filmwelt Site



I thoroughly enjoyed checking out the tour and I'm sure this is an event that fans of the series will definitely want to visit. It packs a wide range of Star Trek information and provides an interactive expierence mixed with a museum type one. This comes together nicely as it has something for everyone and I thought the bracelet aspect added an extra layer to it all. The ambience is also incredible while you explore the linear exhibit with authentic sounds and atmosphere. Each area feels like a section of the ship and is designed with a creative element that would make it fit on any of the Star Trek ships. The tour took me just under a hour to move through and this was during an empty press time with a fair pace so prepare for it to be a bit longer than that. This is of course based on if you do everything, if you're taking pictures and just how much you're looking around. At the end I received my results to be in the Command field which was great and you're able to email a package of what you've done where ever you'd like. Mine included an image of myself I had made at the alien factory, a teleportation clip and my results/placement. This was a well setup look at Star Trek and I'm sure fans will certainly enjoy checking it out.

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