Final Project -- Initial Brainstorming

Questions -- Museum of Science

Exhibits that seem most interesting:  
  1. Cahners ComputerPlace
  2. Catching the Wind
  3. Innovative Engineers
  4. Conserve @ Home
  5. Energized!
  6. Nanotechnology
  7. The Light House
Questions for Exhibition Designer:
  1. What's your scientific background or original field of interest?
  2. What is the most challenging aspect of designing an exhibit?
  3. Roughly, how much would you say your ideas focus on "education" than "interaction"/"engineering"?
  4. What psychological aspects do you need to consider in designing?
  5. What are some patterns in how people interact with exhibits?
  6. Do you go around and see how people interact with the exhibit? What do you look for?
Things I'm looking for in an Interactive Exhibit:
  1. How many hands-on activities are there?
  2. Is there a lot of descriptive text? Is the information condensed?
  3. How other age groups interact with the exhibit?
  4. How much color and imagery is used to depict information?
  5. How much do the exhibits vary in size/grandeur?
  6. How much diversity is in the level of complexity of the activities?
Ideas for Final Project
1. Sustainability: Fuel the Cell
Allows participants to investigate how 'efficient' different energy systems are in powering a fuel cell: solar, mechanical/wind, and electromagnetic.

2. Gear Puzzle
Allows participants to play with gear ratios and understand gear trains, as well as how they are used in different machines.

3. Magnetism Trek (or Block Puzzle)
Uses polarized blocks or cells to allow current to flow through intersecting coils and magnets along a path, in order to light up bulbs (with different required voltages or currents) --> Could be adapted to Ohm's Law Exhibit

4. Photosynthesis
Highlughts the different stages of plants' system for absorbing light, allowing participants to manually drive this 'machine' or 'system' through simple actions.
5. Simple Machines
Uses a defined goal/circular track to focus on the different uses of simple machines.

6. Put Your Money Where... Your Water Is?
Allows participants to help drive a hydro-powered lifting mechanism (or dispensing mechanism).

7. Levitating Magnets
Investigates how magnetism applies to every-day systems like trains and the overall relationship between electricity and magnetism. Has fewer interactive stages.

8. "Time Machine:
Investigates the development of clocks through pendulums, gear trains to change the clock face, digital and its uses of a 'pulsing' mechanism as well as atomic/quartz clocks (and the idea of vibrations and frequency).

9. Sensory Exploration
Allows participants to use mechanical actions to drive changes in light, sound and smell in order to better understand our sensitivity to different environments. --> 'Touch' could possibly be added but taste would be difficult.

10. Water Cycle
Similar to the Photosynthesis exhibit, participants use several mechanical actions to drive the cycle and see how it functions.

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 17, 2014 at 12:19 PM

    Hey Christina!

    I never thought of using a hydro powered anything is this class. That could be an interesting idea. I'd love to see how it turned out.

    ReplyDelete

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