MOTAT September 2025 holiday experience
20 September 2025 - 05 October 2025
10 am–4 pm
Region(s): Auckland
Type(s): experiences
Test your communication skills, become a Pilot of the Future and see automatic tech take off at MOTAT these school holidays.
Have plenty of whānau fun with interactive, creative, and hands-on activities this September!
Automation Action!
Train as a Pilot of the Future with the Autopilot Academy game and earn your own certificate.
Get creative with the Make and Take of the WISK eVTOL aircraft, challenge your communication skills in the Signals Card Game, or design your own inventions in the Design Your Future Tech Challenge. Charge up and have some fast pace fun with the Ricoh Blazepod Challenge too!
Explore AR with the Pū Rākau blocks that bring Māori stories to life, and in Willow Cottage enjoy the low-sensory space with puzzles, books, and colouring-in, with special activities during Tuvalu Language Week (28 September–4 October.)
Hautū Aunoa Autopilot
Hautū Aunoa Autopilot is MOTAT's brand new exhibition exploring the bold future of autonomous technology. Would you board a plane with no pilot?
Take a look at the self-flying Wisk Generation 5 Cora, learn how drones and AI are changing conservation and transport. Plus, take off on an immersive VR flight over Tāmaki Makaurau — no cockpit required!
Te Kōtiu: An immersive digital experience
Be surrounded by the sights, sounds and stories of flight in New Zealand with Te Kōtiu, an award-winning immersive digital experience.
From the migration of our native Kuaka, to celebrating the growing diversity within the aviation and space industries, Te Kōtiu (meaning to swoop) showcases key moments in aviation in Aotearoa with stunning immersive digital projection throughout the Aviation Hall.
Related content
Find out more about the Principles of flight. There is a lot to know about wings and flight! These articles provide more information: Wings and lift, Wing loading and Wing aspect ratio.
For a curation of our content on flight, see Investigating flight – introduction. You could also browse the range of resources under our Flight topic.
Activity ideas
The Aerofoils and paper planes hands-on activity is an ideal way to further investigate flight principles. Follow it up with the activities on Making a glider and Kites.
In What flies? students discuss what things can fly and how this happens and work towards identifying some key characteristics of flight.
Learn more about the importance of wings in Birds and planes and Observing wings for flight, which includes the interactive graphic organiser Wings for flight.
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