Some Thoughts on KSC...

So I haven't updated this blog in two years, because I haven't even thought about museum design for about that long. Except, today, I went to Kennedy Space Center. I have some thoughts on the subject and I want to try and categorise them.

The Good

• On the Saturn V hall: The MOCR station they force you through as you enter. I sketched that exhibit out. Like, not perfectly. But very, very close. Parallel thinking, yaknow? They had a similar setup for Mercury in the Hall of Heroes (as they called it). What it is, they have MOCR set up like the guys who work there just... left. They aren't there, but you can hear the recordings. More than that, you see their screens working. You feel their "ghosts" so to speak. You see more information on overhead or surrounding screens. If I'd designed the Mercury one (a static exhibit) I would have had more artefacts and/or interactive exhibits surrounding the display. 
• The display of the shuttle was gorgeous. Many of the interactive exhibits there were top notch. For example, as you look at Atlantis, they have large touch screen stations where you can browse past shuttle missions. You can sort them to look at, for example, only Atlantis's missions (and only those that dealt with, say, science or milestones or whatever). 
• It's hard to go wrong with a rocket park, and it's nice to finally finally finally see a Titan II. 
• The way they had screens hide/reveal artefacts at particular points in a narration was interesting. I like that technology. I wonder if it could be used in other ways? 
• They had a lot of high-impact stuff. The Vehicle Assembly Building. Atlantis. A Saturn V, 1B, Gemini Titan, Juno II, Jupiter C, Mercury Atlas, Mercury Redstone, etc, etc. A full sized model of Hubble. Spacesuit prototypes. Spacesuits (used). Apollo 14, GT-9A, one of the mercury rockets handpicked by Von Braun for a Mercury mission that never was (due to Deke Slayton's heart condition). Big, big things, all shiny, all incredibly impressive. 

The Not-So-Good

• Every time you enter a building, they ****ing force you through 10-15 minutes of some kind of movie. It's all over-the-top Americana propaganda. Yaaawn. Please, please, for the love of god, make it so that there's an option to skip that stuff. I honestly think I have a headache (still!!) from the volume and the glaring lights and just... no. Please. No. On the one hand, you're forcing information down the throats of people who might not be inclined to read signage or who might not know some pretty cool stories (Neil Armstrong straightening out the spin of GT-6 is a good story and the 3D effects were solid)... on the other hand, it gets old SO quickly. So, SO quickly. 
• They never explicitly lied, but they also didn't always tell the truth. In doing so, they left out some really neat stories. For example: Gemini 9A. Nobody knows about poor Gemini, really, so I may well have been the only person to have caught this but they framed it like GT-9A was the first American spacewalk. It wasn't. GT-4 was. As in, five Gemini capsules earlier. Was there a spacewalk? Yes. Was it kind of cool? well, yeah, but not cool enough that I read THAT transcript. I did a project on Gemini. I have read transcripts for GT-3 (entirety, it was only about three hours) the parts of GT-4 where stuff happened, GT-6 where Neil did his thing, and fragments of others. Additionally, there was a lot of focus on trying to include people -- the Space Shuttle "how it might have been designed" video made a point to include a woman, a white guy, a black guy, and an asian guy. They mention the Calculators at various points (largely women of color). There's a brilliant and missed opportunity to mention the Mercury 13, but they just don't. They could have put a single kiosk about them and bam, you're telling their story and it's a pretty neat story that could inspire women. 
• The Saturn V hall. I'm sorry, Huntsville does it better. Period! It tells a cohesive story from Able and Baker through the Falcon 9. Now, KSC is much bigger than the USSRC, so I don't fault them for not having as tight a narrative. I fault them for not having any narrative. Their signage was... not horrible but not great. Their aesthetic was pretty dang cool. They had some good stuff, and it's hard to really beat a Saturn V, period. But you have to do something. Otherwise, it just ain't that interesting. I like and respect their assorted In Memoriam exhibits for Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia, but the rest of the hall needed a little integration. 
• Okay, there wasn't a narrative through most of the museum. The shuttle hall was great, really great, high impact... but no narrative. Sure, it's a shuttle, it's impressive, it has to be. But what did Atlantis DO? I don't want to have to piece it together, I want to be able to see it, touch it, Atlantis is right THERE, darnit! It has the "Astronaut's Attic" syndrome so very common to space museums, the kind of thing that doesn't need to happen. Like, guys. Come on. You like telling yarns, I've heard you! It's the best part about the space program, all the crazy stories! Let's tell a bloody story. Go for the low hanging fruit: You have ATLANTIS. The one who SAVED HUBBLE. Hubble has so many pretty pictures, you have a Hubble, you have the technology to show off those pretty pictures until we feel faintly dizzy from the starfields, hubble has made an enormous impact, let's DO this thing! 
• Not all of their stuff was as well labelled as I would have liked. Okay, you have a giant hubble. Okay, it isn't a real hubble. But, um, why? Why do you have a hubble, exactly? Was it used for training? Is it just for funsies? Why is it here? I know why Atlantis was here, that's cool and all, but... like... guys...this is like that lunar lander model all over again. 
• There were very few interactive exhibits that didn't involve technology. I know interactives have to be robust and KSC has more issues (aka guests) than most, but what about a good, sturdy, wooden-panel-with-a-hinge? Something solid and hard to destroy. Or a wheel. It's hard to destroy a sufficiently robust wheel. Technology breaks a lot (or simply isn't responsive and is therefore frustrating). Some nice, heavy-duty signage (make it in english and spanish, or if you want, make it in multiple languages with relatively minimal text/pictures) would have been welcome. 

The "What do I do with this information?" 

• Eileen Collins, first female shuttle commander, was a math major. Also an air force colonel. I didn't know that and thought it was really interesting to think about. 
• I'm not begrudging the local history section, I'm just not sure why it was there exactly. 
• We never did find a map. 
• I don't know where they found their soundtrack. Bargain bin Jurassic Park? Bombastic Americana (101 greatest hits)? It wasn't bad, sure made the day feel epic... but wow. That's a genre. 
• Cool architecture on the Hall of Heroes in particular. Okay, cool architecture all around. Did it add much? IDK. Did it subtract much? IDK. 
• They almost didn't mention the german rocket team at all. I guess that's more Huntsville's schtick, but they mention Von B a few times like they expect you to know who he is? 
• Actually, they seemed to expect an awful lot of background information from their guests. Meh. 
• They had a lot of personal astronaut artefacts. I'm not quite sure why? They were cool, but I don't think I really "got" the full significance? Maybe they're more to help ground older/nostalgic guests or to add some kind of atmosphere? 

All in all, a fun day... but when I see a museum like this, I sort of start to twitch. And don't get me STARTED on the Dinosaur Store/Museum! Give me some time to rearrange that one and talk to Jack, the guy who knows So Much About Dinosaurs and they could have something even more spectacular! 😱

Progress?!

Yesterday, I was back at PARI to participate in a meeting regarding the stuff I gave them last summer about how to redo the museum. More specifically, to get up to speed with what's happened in the last few months and to help figure out where we're going to start.

So what's happened?

 They've shown my stuff around and have a rough estimate for funding. They definitely like the timeline consoles, and want to get as many made as possible after the initial steps are taken so that they can use them for signage, temporary interactives, and whatever else needs a nice looking sign at any given moment in time. They're getting an architecture grad from SCAD who needs to expand his portfolio to actually go over the model and modify it if need be to actually function as intended, suggest materials for fabrication, not fall over, etc. Which is good, cause I sure as hell didn't do that.

They've opened up the third room for a temporary art exhibit, but it still needs work. Whenever a gold or blue floor tile in the other part of the building got too gross to be presentable, it went in there. The ceiling tiles were neglected and are as gross as ceiling tiles neglected for ? years in an imperfect  building could be. The walls could stand to be repainted. But the room is more or less ready to be adapted to whatever.

They made a deal with the Museum of Life and Science and are possibly going to be getting a redstone engine. The rest of the people who have to work with the museum are exasperated because a redstone rocket isn't easy to connect with anything else in the museum. The guy who's been curating the rocks and minerals pointed out that most museums have some sort of criteria for what they'll put in the museum and don't accept just any old random space artefact. I hope he manages to win over everyone else, and soon.... before they end up with, like, a model Skylab or something. Or Tiangong-1. Or a Death Star. Geez.

Where to begin?

The goal is to get something done and more or less finished by March, 2017. It'll probably take longer because that's how things work--the good news is (and I haven't mentioned this, because nothing is set in stone yet) that I could potentially come help on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

(I'm hesitant to finalise that, because I currently have education classes scheduled then. I'm not sure if I want to take those or not. When I said I wanted to look into math... I'm iffy about the specific branch of math. As rewarding as teaching would be, I...don't know if I want to teach. Maybe I'd be good at it, but I'd also be a decent interior designer, painter, and any number of other things. Don't read too much into this, but I just don't know.)

Whether I can be there regularly or not doesn't really matter. I mean, I could still come by on Friday afternoons, I only have morning classes there. It's my problem. What matters is actually saying what is going to happen in the museum.

The third room needs some TLC before anything can happen there. Period.

The first room is the ultimate priority. It's what everyone sees, and it's a mess. The rock and mineral room isn't as exciting as it potentially could be, but it isn't bad and it's at least relatively attractive and relatively cohesive. It needs some love as well, but not as much as the other two rooms.

The first room's biggest problem is what can and can't happen relatively quickly. Recall, if you will, the suggested floorplan--which...people seem inclined to go with, at least in that room.

The timeline can't happen until the consoles are built. The satellites involve shoving a display case against the wall and moving the ATS-6 about fifteen feet. The space shuttle stuff... That's a place to start, because while it's mildly ambitious--it involves quite a lot of rearranging, potential repainting, and would really prefer to have that dividing wall. It would also force a lot of the rest of the room to comply with the new order just by virtue of needing to put displaced stuff somewhere. 

It's also something solid that incorporates a lot of the really random stuff we have that definitely doesn't fit the story of PARI. Since PARI never had anything to do with the space shuttle. It might also convince people to stop acquiring space shuttle artefacts if we can say we literally do not have anywhere else to put them. AND it gets the valuable pieces off of the old foam on a table shoved against a window. Where they currently are. 

Which brings us to a list of priorities: 

1. Get room 3 fit for exhibition habitation. Redoing anything else is going to involve closing off areas (as best as possible) while they're a work in progress, so there needs to be a place to put things that can still go on display but are temporarily homeless. Also Room 3 is mildly gross. 
2. Sort the logistics involved with the space shuttle section and prepare to begin that part. I think this involves someone looking into what would be involved with that dividing wall, which would really help the gallery, even if it's just spandex with graphics stretched over a frame, as suggested at the USSRC. From me, this means going through my list of artefacts, updating the catalogue as best I know, and compiling a list of exactly what could or would go in that area. 
3. With any funding left over, get as many of those timeline consoles constructed as possible to serve as multipurpose displays. Immediately, they could show powerpoints, but I think there's talk of getting an intern next summer to actually come up with a suitable interactive bespoke program to run on them. Tim also asked if I could come up with a squat variant to sit in front of display cases. 

   

   Think less "computer terminal" more "desk".

That involves checking school resources for sketchup pro, looking up ADA regulations to see what dimensions I need to make things accessible--because wheelchairs do come into PARI, and those people ought to be able to get as much from the gallery as anyone else--and generally coming up with something similar-but-different. Then to find out how to actually get that file out... Well. Cross that bridge later. 

Another important (or at least amusing) note on color schemes. 

I presented three possible color schemes for the gallery at the suggestion of the USSRC guy I talked to, on the grounds that if you give administration some choices about what goes in the gallery, they're less likely to mess up everything else you've done. I don't know whether they would've or not, or whether it would've been a big deal, but the important part is that it meant deciding on a color scheme took ten minutes since they only considered the three I offered before deciding on the one from the Space Shuttle program patch:

Dark blue, light blue, gold, and gray--with, potentially, a dark red or burnt orange to serve as an accent colour where need be. Goes with the floor and what are apparently "Pari colours" (the dark and light blues), it's definitely NASA approved (which apparently matters and was a frustration when redoing the mineral gallery--it doesn't look NASA enough, probably because it's a room full of ROCKS), and it's decently inoffensive. 

About that gold, tho... 

So... apparently, while they're redoing room 3, there's the option to get an area rug like in room 2. Or, the guy who they worked with to get that area rug also gave an estimate for recarpeting (taking the tiles into consideration). And it was lower than expected and could work into the budget.

In other words, some of the gold could be replaced! Which is mindblowing. If you were to replace it with grey... 

Tim suggested painting the ceiling gold instead, just to feel at home. Or, alternately, to confuse any staffer that went in. 

Wrapping Things Up

So I finished up Thursday morning, I gave my presentation to the staff and was out by lunch. I think it went well, I think I was able to inspire some people, and I think I got the ball rolling. They started throwing some things around I hadn't considered--I mean, I'm one person, hello--and seemed pretty impressed by the amount of work I was able to do on a task that's literally impossible for one 20 year old with no experience to complete in two months. Which is nice.

USB with presentation, 3D printed model of timeline kiosk, colour scheme options

As we left the room, my boss told me to bug him for a letter to add to my resumé--which I'll do, definitely--and wanted to know if I might be interested in working with the project team he wants to continue what I've started this summer. Since I'll be at UNCA, I'll be as close as several staffers who actually work there full time. Maybe I can make a part-time job of this (since I will need to actually attend class). Certainly I can stay involved, and there's a real chance they don't want to have to train anyone else; by now, I know more about exhibit design than anyone else on staff. Possibly including my boss, who was in museum management. They do hire past interns, sometimes, if the interns are dedicated and able to do something that the normal staff can't or don't have time to do.

They've said that interns are pretty much welcome to stay a night, so long as you clear it with everyone ahead of time. Would I want to? Well, probably not, I'll have a dorm room to myself an hour away and building 27 smells a bit. But it's nice to know. I'll certainly bring people to evening at PARI--heck, I'll help out with evening at PARI.

They're also starting the process of working with the USSRC. They emailed the guy I spoke with, and hopefully can actually develop a more relevant collection than half a room full of nothing but space shuttle stuff.

I've done something that will at least start to create a lasting change. I began the process of learning a useful trade--is exhibit design a trade? or useful? Meh. I began to learn how to do it, anyway, and there is a demand for it. I also made some useful contacts, since...I wouldn't mind doing this for a living. I would prefer to do it not all by myself, but most if not all museums seem to have more than one person working on design. I also learned how to use SketchUp and the basics of design briefs--although I have a feeling that the specific format changes based on situations.

All in all? Good summer. Now I want to sleep and not even think about sketchup/3D modelling/design briefs for a few weeks.

No more maps!

A short post, because I'm basically just working on my powerpoint for Thursday...

This is our museum right now.

Thrilling.

This is what happens when I include all three rooms--that last room only gets storyboarded and a design brief, because I don't have time to give it a real design.

And with that, I think I'm done making iterations of this map.

Hallelujah. 

Steve won't like that I've lumped his idea of control consoles for Smiley and the 12m together into citizen science, but frankly, I worry about making those controls open access to anyone. Because there are problems you can get into with both of those scopes that would damage them and the point of this redesign was a museum experience that doesn't require facilitation! Would it be cool? Yes. Would it be worth damaging the telescopes? No! But we can have computers set up there, with something like Radio Galaxy Zoo, maybe, in case we do want to have somebody standing by to facilitate Smiley or the 12m.

Just something to address while presenting, yeah?

Colleen's work here is done, and Moustache Ben had something come up. So we're now down to three interns.

Scientific paper? But I didn't do any science!

The display cases were donated from the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit and were custom made for those purposes.

Hence the weird dimensions.

Although I still question the need to make some of the dimensions quite so utterly bizarre.

At any rate, they're starting to bug us about our end-of-internship papers. Well... about that.

They apparently haven't had any interns tasked with jobs quite like this one before--obviously. If they had, my work wouldn't have been quite so...from scratch. It would've been more like, "Last year's intern suggested this interactive for the museum, develop an interactive for us." Which, while still a pretty intimidating task, would probably have been a little less "Ack!" than "So we'd like you to learn how to design museums. Then design us a museum."

So...

I guess I'll be giving them All The Stuff A Real Designer Would and we'll call that good enough. Because a paper about how I learned how to museum is less helpful than a paper about how you're going to at least start fixing the problem of your disorganised jumble of museum kthxbye.

Home Stretch

Star Trek: Beyond was excellent. Go see it. We saw it *technically* a day early--it comes out today, officially--because of how the Brevard Co-ed Theatre works. They only have one screen and they cycle films through fast because it's the only theatre in Transylvania County (and will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future), and they don't do midnight premieres. They do 7pm premieres. Although, technically, they also do 3pm showings and 11am showings, so I assume the actual premiere was at 11am... Anywho. All the staff wore Star Trek shirts, I didn't even know the film was coming out this summer (...I don't actually know how I missed it...) so I got a lovely surprise, the new character was awesome, and the weapon used to defeat the alien (you knew that was going to be the plot, so this definitely doesn't count as a spoiler, it's Star Trek) was completely unexpected and thoroughly awesome.

If you're not into Star Trek, assume they used the magic of friendship. (They totally didn't.) Also enjoy the fact that as we waited to get tickets, an older gentleman cycled past in a propeller hat, ringing his bicycle bell. I love Brevard sometimes...

Today, among other things, I'm making an outline of my final presentation-to-the-staff. (Note to self: Talk to Steve about how he wants me to give them the digital files I've been working on. Nebula? Pachyderm? Burn them to a disc? USB? Floppy disc? The last might be challenging, since I can't use floppies on my computer and the file is WAY too large...) 

So far I have this order:

1. Start with successful museum examples and discussion of how museums in general have good practises, certain features, the basics of How Museums Do.
2. Describe the PARI galleries and how we could  do that, but don't. 
3. Segue into talking about PARI's collection and resources, tapped and untapped. 
4. Use that to move into the storyboard, starting with the map and list of exhibits.
5. Include things that would be nice to include, that we have the materials and/or history to include but can't due to space limitations. Don't make that pun. A small space science centre is cruel to comedy. 
6. After a more standard storyboard, give a virtual tour of what I got. That's going to be a little bit messy--sketchup does virtual tours okay...ish. But if they want better looks at any particular areas, I may or may not be able to give it to them. I'll try. It's a little unwieldy. Maybe I can put together a video? I'll have to explore this next week.

And I also spoke to Thurburn about what he'd like to see in an exhibit about our plate archive, since he's essentially the PARI god of glass plates. We came up with the bare bones for me to design something around--it won't be as complete as the others, I guess, although that's going to bother the stew out of me so I'll have to mull it over. 

We would like to include essentially two parts: 

A small part somewhere prominent, explaining what APDA *is* and where it came from, where the telescope images came from (thin air? hardly!) and how we ended up with them. Essentially a history section.

And a science section, which will explain how the plates are used

• to see stars over time
• stellar distances
• spectra and stellar classifications (among other things)

We can intersperse that with stuff that will basically teach the very bare bones of astronomy 101--how parallax works for measuring stellar distances, that kind of thing. 

Thurburn is rightly concerned about including original plates in the exhibit, since people are weird and scientists, being people, might want that random plate you chose to display. I propose we take advantage of the fact that we have an extremely high resolution scanner (1 pixel=nanometer scale) and make enlarged versions on something more durable than glass--like, say, that plastic laminate stuff they have in museums. You know, the stuff that's frequently used for hands on exhibits. Then we have something that looks good, is damage resistant, and the original plates lead happy lives in building 4 with the other plates. 

We could also potentially take advantage of the fact that Daniel spent his summer teaching the computers how to take the high res scans, pick out the stars in them, and then potentially turn them into an animated GIF. So we could create something like this, over a scale of years, using the plates to look at some interesting astronomical object--an expanding nebula or similar:

Except, well, not in color 'cause we only have black and white photos

Stick it in one of those digital photo frames maybe? Not sure. But I'll throw it in the design brief for that room, since I'll be able to accomplish a design brief if not the actual design. 

(Probably. Some of the other design briefs that already have happy, healthy designs might have to be temporarily moved to the back burner.) 

We have a citizen science project that uses APDA data to get people to classify stars. It isn't terribly user friendly, and they want to update it--it's called SCOPE, you can google PARI SCOPE (yes, that was intentional--I hope!) if you want to get involved. I won't direct you to it, since it is a pain in the ass and I don't think we actually use the data.

That being said, if they want to update it, they could probably use Zooniverse to create a more user friendly experience; it has some free (I think) project builder tools. I would like to get involved with that, but I don't have the time or expertise; maybe it would be good for volunteers. Or future interns. Or if people just have time... either way, it looks good, will readily support up to 10k visitors, and is free to use. But it would take time to set up--like...a lot of time. 

I'll run it past Steve. Chances are, if they want to redo SCOPE anyways, they'd be happy enough to find some website that will readily support at least part of the operation, without anyone having to code it. They'll have enough of a nasty time coming up with code to automatically isolate spectra.

Wait, what? 

Well.

SCOPE shows people black and white stellar spectra. Like this: 

It then asks people to classify stars based on those spectra. Sound hard? Sound wooly? Yes. I've messed around with a bunch of crowd sourced science projects, and it's one of the least user friendly I've had a chance to work with. 

It would be a difficult task to arrange that process in such a way that a twelve-year-old could understand it. Doable? Eh, probably. I wouldn't be surprised to see it on an internship thing next year--especially if I tell them it would be a good one. You would probably need somebody with a solid knowledge of at least one programming language (not that I'd know which, since I can't actually speak any of them) and solid public communications skills.

But I digress. I don't have time to pursue a whole new project. I need to finish this one, to the best of my ability. I'll include it in my recommendations, sure, but I'm a designer (well, a physics major who hasn't even taken Design 101) not a programmer! (I'm really not a programmer. But I'll leave a bug in their ear as part of my presentation next Thursday, so they can hunt down one for next summer.) 

Oh yeah! I'm presenting. Probably next Thursday. What will I do Friday? Hell if I know! Hang out? Hike? Explore the delightful town of Brevard? I doubt it'll be a problem. 

Colour Fun?

Look! Colourful Display Cases!

All of the display cases you can see with coloured bases are actual display cases we have. They're labeled, but the labels are only properly visible from some angles. I did what I could. The ATS-6 model is fairly obvious. The yellow frame isn't precisely accurate, but it's good enough to get the point across and look mildly interesting.

I'm now trying to model something more like what I was envisioning for the timeline displays. I have the model...but what about the colour scheme? 

Temporary scheme to show detail

I'm not crazy about this set of colours, in particular. It's meant to look a bit retro, taking inspiration from Atomic Era radios and a picture--presumably from the 1960s--showing the "office of the future." Where everything was vaguely coral coloured with organic white plastic edges I don't think I can even model, let alone build....The grid thing is a speaker, the black a small computer screen, so it can show videos or whatever. Heck, you could stick an android tablet in there and make it a touch screen interactive, so long as you fit it in there in such a way as to conceal the charging cable and all the buttons. I'm envisioning this made out of some sort of particle board or similar.

I'll probably slap 'em like that in there and let Steve figure out colours. Because I doubt he cares, since he was willing to go along with my randomly chosen pastels. I know the scale works, since I did the whole thing on a base approximately the size of display case E (the smallest one) and next to a 2D scale person, I like the aesthetic, I *think* I'm out of things to model.

Which is good. Yes. Very, very good. 

(Did you notice how many rounded edges there are in that thing? I have conquered you, rounded edge tool. I won, though you put up a valiant fight.)

In Situ

So the Space Shuttle cases are coded blue and gold, the satellite case a teal and gold, the antennae dark and light blue, and the timeline are this brown and red, like in the consoles. 

I also updated the map to reflect this a little better, as well as look good with the color scheme I grabbed for my final storyboard:

Colours from an early 1970s Punch Card Advert

My colors for this are stolen quite shamelessly from this advertisement: 

Originally found here.

My reasoning being that they look tolerably close to the colours in the actual gallery model--I'll be suggesting this scheme, no mistake--distinctly "vintage" when you slap them all together, and they don't look wretched with the PARI logo, which I kind of have to include. Win-win. Also, it's easier to take a colour scheme from a photo than a 5-colour colour palette; it's not practical to have a whole room with only 5 colours. Or a powerpoint. Or a floor plan. Or...you get the idea. I've also generated a few test schemes from various photos of midcentury modern living rooms. 

I'm also working on individual design briefs for each exhibit, which is an exercise in tedium. Also in minor self disgust, since my natural inclination is definitely not to use all active verbs, pompous tone, and to sound like some kind of end-all authority on anything. However, I feel like I have to if I want anyone to actually take action and implement some of my (I feel quite reasonable) ideas. I'm only asking them to fabricate, like, two things: A display for the LEM and the timeline consoles. I can redesign the former if I really want a retro look, but as it stands, I have two functioning CAD models for each. One is even labelled, because I want people to take it seriously too.

You can still change the colours, but I'm satisfied with this.

So I'm writing stuff like:

Satellite Exhibit Design Brief

Introduction

It is essential to contextualise the ATS-6 satellite. The satellite is large and will, with proper treatment, serve as a centrepiece or focal point of the room. Guests will appreciate the hulking piece of equipment as part of PARI’s story. They will be provided with the resources to understand Rosman’s role in its development, the importance of the satellite to the history of space communications, and how it served as a precursor for modern communications satellites. 

The exhibit will be dominated by the ATS-6 but will also include the small models of the other three satellites, graphics showing satellite orbits, and possibly a video clip showing the history of the ATS-6. 

AKA: This is a display case, a satellite, and some nice signage. It'll use the TV screen that is already inexplicably on the wall in that spot and it'll show a video that is actually relevant to the site for a change. That you already have on your internal network somewhere. You don't even have to take a clip if you really want, although I'd suggest it, since it's a bit rich to ask anyone to stand around for 30 minutes.

It's also worth noting that I'm probably starting to approach the limits of my computer to render this model--it probably wants more RAM. I think I'll see about upgrading it before school starts, because I wouldn't be surprised if my experience with SketchUp results in my having to use this program again. It isn't such a bad thing, but my computer really is getting a little annoyed with me.

I did have a meeting today and Steve finally said what he wants me to design for that third room--which is currently empty except for a 100cm by 75cm sandbox. I shall continue my private grumblings about "it's not really that easy"... C'est la vie. He wants to expand our mini-interactive for APDA into a full scale exhibit about the plate repository, preferably involving our own citizen science project wherein we crowdsource stellar spectral classifications. (I think I actually suggested that in an email...whatever. Means I've already had it in the back of my mind.) He also liked my suggestions regarding colour scheme and so on. He wanted me to show Ben the Intern Coordinator (not Ben the Intern--it's confusing) what I've been up to and was complementary enough that I can't get too annoyed.

Which was probably the point. Ah well. I have gotten a ton faster with SketchUp, and it doesn't take prohibitively long to model things anymore. Also video games have given me some lovely shortcuts for making things look like better models than they actually are. Case in point: The ATS-6. It's a box with photos slapped on the appropriate sides and some minor detailing so it doesn't look totally flat.

Looks impressive. Is box with feet.

The angled yellow bits were surprisingly difficult/annoying, but since those are the only details in the whole freaking model, it's not that huge of a time sink. It's not like I'm modelling every detail of Mir or something.

PLEASE NOBODY TELL STEVE I SAID THAT HE'LL GET IDEAS!!