The remark came, completely unprompted, on the way to school. “Mummy, I know what the best job in the world is,” piped up Rosa, 5, apropos of nothing. “I want to be an explainer at the Science Museum.

“And the best bit of the museum is the Launchpad,” she added triumphantly, as if she had unearthed a fundamental truth of the universe.

No coincidence, surely, that she and her six cousins had spent the previous evening at the renovated Launchpad, a £4 million hands-on gallery that the Science Museum in London hopes will turn young people on to science. Judging by their frenetic pace around the gallery – pulling levers, hurling balls, building bridges, tugging ropes – the whole gang, aged between 5 and 8, were converts.

Some of the exhibits look familiar from the Launchpad’s previous incarnation: how nice to see the Mental Lentils (in reality called the Big Machine) where bagfuls of lentils can be hauled or sprayed through tubes and funnels using ropes and pulleys.

The Rotation Station, a spinning pad which children can clutch on to, has also survived. By sticking their bums in and out as they spin, they can unlock the secrets of angular momentum. When pressed for her favourite exhibits, Rosa settled on an exhibit that sent a rocket into the air using water pressure; a bubble station with different-shaped wands that all, curiously, produced spherical bubbles; and an icy screen on which cold water could be sprayed and the resulting crystals viewed through polarised lenses. An explainer – a nice young scientist in an orange T-shirt – lurked close by, ready to explain the principles of light or magnetism, CBBC-style.

Rosa was frustrated by the cycling machine because she could not reach the pedals, and thus could not generate the electricity to operate the stereo (thankfully saving us from a James Blunt croon), but then again, the gallery is primarily aimed at 8 to 14-year-olds. I hope that the new contents are hardwearing – the old Launchpad regularly had a handful of exhibits awaiting repair. I should like to have seen proper seating for exhausted parents, although there are ledges scattered about.

The new Launchpad has been devised with the help of National Curriculum advisers and teachers, but I fear that some experiments may be a little childish for teenagers on the brink of making their GCSE choices. Most of the renovation funds came from Shell and Nintendo; no surprise, then, to find that, according to a press release, the “site’s centrepiece is Launchball – an addictive online game that . . . puts your physics know-how to the test”. Do children really need more addictive online games?

But, for Rosa and her brethren, still young enough to be captivated by bouncing balls and magnetic spoons, the gallery did not disappoint. It inspired me, too. Later, in the restaurant, as I saw the kids flicking food over the table, I wondered whether this wasn’t an ideal opportunity to teach them the physics of projectiles.

The Launchpad, which is free of charge, opens at the Science Museum in London on Saturday (www.sciencemuseum.org.uk, 0870 870 4868)

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