MAVtech Museum

20/10/2026

A super treat this Halloween! 🎃🎥

06/10/2026

Something very spooky is coming to MAVtech this Halloween night....

In partnership with Horowhenua District Council, MAVtech is hosting a free screening of 'Super 8' on the 31st of October!

We'll be opening the doors 30 minutes before the screening starts, giving you the chance to have a 'ghost photo' taken with a vintage camera. You can even hold one of the retro home movie cameras which gave the film its name....

22/09/2026

The first car radios were invented in the 1920s- but they were expensive, picked up interference from the car's own electrics and many could only be used when the car wasn't moving!

By the late 1940s these problems were solved (apart from the price!) and New Zealand companies began launching their own car radios.

Come along to the opening day to see them close-up!

17/09/2026

Spring into MAVtech this September!

15/09/2026

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/waikato-news/news/auteur-house-hamilton-inside-one-of-new-zealands-last-dvd-rental-stores/GOJHLBJW4RFNXBXKW5X4KYRHYE/?fbclid=IwY2xjawUWmfJwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR7pJm54eS-YoCRVi6BdbkrpWobwZAjjkx4p9zkAcV7mv660p2hfl-ruGQvCEA_aem_Fboup5J2rb3LP-630heOkg

Co-founder Richard Swainson has every Alfred Hitchcock film on DVD.

05/09/2026

By the end of the 1950s, 90% of the world’s colour photographs were taken on transparent 35mm ‘slides’. Slides weren’t placed in albums to be browsed through- they were enlarged via lenses to make them big enough to clearly see.

If you wanted your slide to be big enough for the whole family to see at once, you needed a projector. Take a look at how big this Agfa projector is compared with the camera which took the photos! Both were made in the 1950s.

By the 1970s, colour album prints had eclipsed slide film- but slide film is still used today by photographers who like how ‘grainless’ the resulting photos look. However, most of these slides are scanned into a computer rather than projected!

23/08/2026

In the middle of the 19th century, many people were obsessed with 3D images. It seems strange- but it’s true! Come along to our opening day this Saturday the 29th of August to see what the excitement was about.

And discover how it is still exciting today!

22/08/2026

Events in August to enjoy nostalgic film memories at MAVtech Museum.

16/08/2026

Many of you may have heard of the Australia's Logie Awards , celebrating excellence in all fields of Televison Programming and Acting . They were named after Scottish enginner and inventor John Logie Beard who demonstrated the worlds first television in Jan 1926. But have you heard of the man behind not only New Zealand's First Television Broadcasts but also our first public Radio Broadcasts ? Should NZ's Televison & Radio Awards be named after Robert Jack , another Scots man who emmigrated to NZ in 1914 to take up a post at Otago University ,where he became one of this countries leading figures in audio &visual broadcasting .

'Hello My Dearie' became one of the first songs ever to hit the New Zealand airwaves when physics professor Robert Jack broadcast New Zealand’s first radio programme on 17 November 1921.