A beach scene built entirely out of children's building blocks now holds a Guinness World Record in downtown Fort Lauderdale. The Museum of Discovery and Science assembled a magnetic tile mosaic depicting a sunny beach using 4,500 individual tiles, and Guinness has officially certified it as the largest magnet mosaic image ever made.
The record, confirmed at 26.38 square meters, or 283.80 square feet, was achieved on August 1 in Fort Lauderdale by the museum alongside The Original MAGNA-TILES®, according to Guinness World Records. As WSVN 7News reported, museum staff and volunteers worked together to create the mosaic before it earned its official certification.
Getting there wasn't a quick job. Per Guinness, workers first spent two days mounting galvanized steel backing sheets onto the museum wall, then a 50-person team of staff and volunteers spent six more days placing all 4,500 magnetic tiles by hand.
A Summer Exhibit Built Around Records
The attempt wasn't a standalone stunt — it was timed to coincide with the museum's featured summer exhibit, “The Science of Guinness World Records,” an interactive experience running from May 22 through September 7, according to the museum's own event announcement. Building the mosaic during that window let visitors see record-setting science in progress rather than just read about it after the fact.
The museum also opened the process up to the public. On August 1, MODS offered free admission from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. specifically so community members and local families could personalize individual magnetic tiles that were then worked into the final record-setting wall, per the museum's own account of the event.
A Fixture of Downtown Fort Lauderdale Since 1992
The mosaic adds a fresh headline to a museum with a long institutional history in the city. Founded in 1976 as The Discovery Center, the museum operated out of a smaller facility until a $33 million capital campaign funded its current downtown Fort Lauderdale complex and IMAX theater, which opened in November 1992, according to the museum's own historical account.
The museum has kept expanding since then. In November 2011, it completed a $25 million, 34,000-square-foot expansion called the EcoDiscovery Center, doubling its indoor exhibit space with displays on Florida water ecosystems, an Everglades airboat simulation, and local wildlife, per the museum's history page cited by Wikipedia.
A Regional Draw With Reach Beyond Its Walls
The museum's profile extends well past its downtown building. It welcomes more than 450,000 visitors annually from all 50 states and 20 foreign countries, according to Science on Screen, making it one of South Florida's most visited cultural and educational destinations.
Much of that draw centers on the museum's AutoNation IMAX 3D Theater, home to South Florida's only Certified Giant Screen®, a 60-by-80-foot format, and one of roughly 25 active 15/70mm IMAX film projection systems still operating in the United States — a rarity Hoodline previously reported pulls moviegoers from across Florida and beyond.
The museum's reach also extends off-site. Its fleet of “STEMobile” vans delivers more than 60,000 educational science programs each year to schools and community centers across South Florida. And in November 2024, the museum partnered with the Deerfield Beach Community Redevelopment Agency to design and operate a new 10,000-square-foot Marine Science Center at Sullivan Park focused on coastal ecosystem education.
Taken together, the record-setting mosaic fits a pattern for the nonprofit science center: pairing brand partnerships and public participation with hands-on STEM learning, whether that means a magnetic beach scene built by hundreds of hands, a rare 70mm film projector, or a van full of science experiments pulling into a school parking lot.
-4.webp?w=160&h=400&fit=crop&crop=edges)