Minion Gifs are Always Good

That was the sky last night at 9:00 or so, when it stopped raining (well, storming) and I went to go retrieve my blanket and pillowcase from the dryer. There was light enough to see by--it was only civil twilight--but the rest of the landscape was too dark for my camera. This is looking west, over building 4.

Gee, do you think the storm was moving east? A little? Smiley the Happy Telescope was actually struck by lightning, we're pretty sure. He's fine--well, as fine as he was before he got struck by lightning--and a few things needed to be reset, but it was one helluva boom. The power flickered, radios briefly spit static, that kind of thing. A helluva boom. I couldn't get the lightning detector to load, so I asked my friends to keep tabs on it so they could tell me when I was relatively unlikely to get zapped for going outside. Thanks, guys. I like being un-fried. Bzzt.

I don't know how Colleen is doing. I'll try to check on her in a little while, but she didn't come in today. She's still resting, I think, so my exile to building 4 continues (it's fine, totally comfortable, mildly electrifying) until she's feeling better. She did get some dinner last night, and I helped deliver vast quantities of ginger ale and bananas, which she thought sounded edible.


As for the interior design, it's largely OK except for one fairly major error...

I forgot the LEM.

Mostly because I couldn't--and still kind of can't--figure out where the hell we should put a 1/4 or 1/3 (I can't remember) scale lunar module.

But we have it, and Steve wants it on display.

Awesome.

So I have until Thursday to figure out where the heck that thing belongs.

Cool beans. Coooooool beans.

Maybe we can make the crater room centred on Any Lunar Crater Ever, instead of the Chicxulub Impactor and dinosaurs. We do technically have 3D printed craters, after all. And moon rocks. Christy had some walk-on-the-moon type stuff that kids apparently like. Sure, this could work.

This totally isn't my expression staring at my model. Nope. Tooootally not.

I also need to make a study of how the space and rocket center does it. Our problem is that we have mostly space shuttle stuff, with a bare sprinkling of everything else (like Apollo Soyuz). The Space and Rocket center has, let's be fair, mostly Apollo and early space history stuff with a smattering of the more modern.

So how the heck did they incorporate it?

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure they sort of stuck it in a corner. But they have practice with this stuff. Maybe somebody on their staff will have some idea about how to make their Davidson Centre flow better without sort of just sticking stuff in there? 

At least--apart from not including a lunar module--my model mostly looks good.  Steve wants a colour coded map of themed areas, which I could do by just printing it out and colouring it with crayons. (I think he would prefer photoshop, though.) The wall graphics weren't quite explicit enough.

I also learned that we have another satellite, but because it has massive solar panels (think "room length") still attached, I don't have to deal with it. 

Phew.

Modelling the "Dream Museum"

I put dream museum in quotes because while the PARI museum is, I suppose, my baby, I haven't decided whether or not I want to drown that baby in a bathtub. 

It's deeply surreal to have an accurate model of the museum's floor plan and to play around with it in the virtual world of SketchUp--especially when I then walk through the museum as is and get a sort of mental overlay of what I'm envisioning. I can see why designers use 3D modelling in the real world. 

Today, I have gotten the space room at least passably complete and begun to work on the impact room (with the meteorites). I also modelled the third room and have decided that it gets the proud distinction of housing general earth science--like the sandbox, for example. I figured out how to import graphics (from photos, say) into sketchup as well as how to resize things.

I gave up on putting a dinosaur in the impact room. The room is too small to fit anything more than the dust of a completely crushed tyrannosaurus skeleton, and who cares about that? It could probably hold a triceratops, if the tail was curved around, or definitely something fairly small like a deinonychus, velociraptor, archaeopteryx, microraptor, you get the idea. For now, I'm modelling it without--mostly because nobody has contributed a scale-accurate version of a triceratops to the SketchUp library. Skeletal or otherwise. 

This is not the entire room. This is the wall on one's left when one enters from the space room.

As far as the space room goes, I established where the satellite theme, space shuttle theme, and historical themes can go by the virtue of a partial wall (not presently in the room) dividing it into a sort of U shape. 

This is a view from the door. You can see the corner of a big STADAN station map on the left wall--which is the partial wall I mentioned--and the timeline on the right, as well as the fridge standing in as a size double for the ATS-6 satellite in front of a graphic of satellite orbits on the back wall. There's also a television, which is presently installed in approximately that location, which can play the ATS-6 documentary in full, if we so choose, or an edited portion. Or, of course, films about satellites in general. You can also see a sofa by the STADAN map, which curves in sort of a question mark to take advantage of the view outside--which is not, of course, included in this 3D model.

Here, of course, we have the Space Shuttle area. I have two of the screens presently on the wall included here, which can display space shuttle launch and landing videos--they're on NASA's website, about 8-10 minutes long for the good bits, and the most interesting bits are shown on the wall graphics. On the opposite side of the partial wall is a space shuttle model (we don't have one, I'm being fanciful), an interactive landing simulator (well, a computer set up to run the free Orbiter software--there's a new version coming out this year and it's free, unlike X-plane, and can do a decent landing simulator on a bog standard desktop computer. We could rig something with the controls), and the STS-121 tire. There's also a graphic you can't see from this angle of STS-121 landing. I'm not saying we have to include all these graphics; I'm including them mostly so that it's obvious what each area is. However, I would like to include these graphics.

There are also wall mounted display cases for smaller items in my sketches--things like the tiles on reentry, the laptops with the waving astronaut, that sort of thing. I also haven't finished the far corner by the exit, where you can just see a smallish brown display case. 

I'm torn about the third room. I got into the library, counted the tiles, and modelled its bare bones floorplan, mostly. (There's a far door I didn't include that I might need to go back in for, that kind of thing.) But what to go in there? I'm thinking a combination of the leftover rocks and citizen science. We can set computers up with our stuff in the control room (or duplicates of it, anyway), The Sandbox, and maybe some of the Zooniverse projects. The rocks can go into a rock cycle or gems of North Carolina exhibit. Or both, but it isn't *that* big a room. 

Hm. I'll work on it some more tomorrow morning. 

An update on something more quality-of-life related:

Unfortunately, Colleen--my roommate--is sick. With...something. We aren't sure what, but it's bad enough that she's been effectively quarantined, and I need to go get some of my stuff and take up a temporary residence in Building 4 with the guy interns. I also need to throw my pillowcase and blanket in the washing machine, just in case she's contagious. Hopefully it's food poisoning. If it's food poisoning, she'll be better sooner rather than later. At least I took my laundry home over the weekend so I have about a week's worth of clothing in my car--I only need to grab some stuff like my sneakers and maybe a t-shirt or two apart from aforementioned pillow/blanket. 

PARI is also a Pokemon Go! hotspot, just fyi. As well as Ingress. We had a Pokemon Go beta tester here and I learned a new way to summon Tim the Coding Guru. Just use "Tim" and "Pokemon" in the same sentence. He pops right up. It was a little scary, actually--not because he's super into pokemon or anything, he wasn't quite in the right generation, but because of the sheer rapidity with which he appeared. From several rooms away. He's also been attacking my Ingress resonators, although he doesn't know they're mine--bit sad, really, since all I can do is keep throwing them down and using them to try to level up. Ah well. 

Le sigh.

A rare instance where 3D might be easier.

I've taken a whole class in 3D modelling--it's kind of a useless class, because I learned a program that, ahem, isn't available for mac.

But Google SketchUp is. And, as a bonus, it has a library of things like the display cases in the image above--I modeled the room, and imported the display cases from the gallery of things other people have created and shared with the world.

And I swear, this program is going to save me so much time.

Why? How the heck can a (slightly evil) program save me time in design?

Consider this: If I want to convey my ideas in a 2D manner, I have to guess at proportions (since I don't have any ISO paper), draft it all out by hand, ink it, color it, and then I'll have one copy susceptible to damage unless I devote another 10-30 minutes getting it into a computer at relatively high quality.

Yikes.

Whereas with this modeling program, I can get the proportions of the room right, I can place pre-made models of things "close enough!" to what I want to represent where I want things (like, for example...a fridge where I want to show that there's an ATS-6 Satellite, because nobody has modeled one of those. For some reason), I can drag and drop them all and my perspective is promised to be correct as are the spatial relations between objects, and life is made easier for everyone.

Desiiiiiign Faaaaaaster

Well. I have something vaguely resembling a design brief. I think? I don't actually know what a design brief is. 

Goals and Objectives
The PARI museum will reflect both the rich historical and scientific wealth of the facility. PARI’s story is an excellent vehicle for the majority of this, although the story of the Space Shuttle encompasses approximately half of the museum’s space related collection and should not be overlooked. Furthermore, the geology section of the museum is hardly appropriate as part of either story and should have its own narrative. The main goals of the redesign therefore focus on the reorganisation of the museum to improve coherency and create a more dynamic arrangement of the museum’s materials. Additional goals are to introduce more interactive and engaging experiences and generally improve the aesthetics of the galleries.  

Anticipated Visitor Experiences
The visitor experience will incorporate more self-guided exploratory aspects, with the option of a more formal tour. The more dynamic galleries will be interesting enough that even a newcomer to the site will find plenty to explore. However, a returning employee from Rosman or a site with a similar role--a statistically significant type of visitor--will be able to return to PARI’s history and bring their companions with them. A guest will gain a sense of the same dedication to the site felt by those who work or have worked with PARI over the years. 

Intended Outcomes
The greatest outcome of the redesign would be an experience intriguing and unique enough to persuade a guest to return. The redesign will also foster curiosity concerning the themes of the galleries and open a guest to the idea of further exploration in those areas--something many parents visit the museum hoping to instil in their children. The galleries will be more intrinsically interesting and generally attractive, something for PARI to be proud of. 

It sounds kind of official. Which it probably ought, after three drafts. Is it what Steve wanted? Well...probably not. But, it's what I guessed at, since a design brief is supposed to describe the outcomes rather than aesthetics or specifics. It's a set of instructions for the designer to deal with.

Interpret, Design, and Catalogue

Officially, I was supposed to have a meeting with Steve today and tell him that I'll be visiting the USSRC next friday--since I'm the one who's set this one up, emailed their people, tried to sell myself as part of something official, that kind of thing--but he isn't here today.

So I'm drafting the design brief. Woo. I guess I'll email it to him by tomorrow morning, since I bet he'll meet with me tomorrow early afternoon like last week. I wonder if we should just start scheduling things a day before we actually want them to happen? Too crazy? Meh, what do I know.

(Also, can you believe that at PARI, nobody actually knows how to use our 26 meter telescopes? We can move 'em, point 'em, repaint them with highly reflective thermal paint, and they look hella impressive. But can we use them for Reasons Of Science? Less so. There's apparently one guy who knows, and he's at Appalachian State. I'm kind of glad that isn't part of my internship.)

Also, regarding the catalogue...there is, actually, a method for small museums. At least, a museum in Australia has a book on the subject. I'll ask at USSRC and see if they know of any good methods, but this is a 96 page book on how to catalogue crap.

Which we definitely need. I don't know if there is a catalogue, but I wouldn't be at all shocked to learn that we have several unique catalogues for different kinds of things, none of them up to date, none of them consolidated. Such is the nature of PARI, after all; at least the Victoria museum book suggests a pretty extensive list of things to put in the catalogue.

• *Registration Number
• *Object Name
• Title (as in, if describing a book or manual)
• *Description
• *Keywords
• Any inscriptions, markings, or text on object
• *Size
• Maker's Details, if any
• *Where object was made
• *When object was made
• Where object was used
• When object was used
• *Acquisition Details
• Object Condition (Outstanding, Exceeds Expectations, Acceptable, Poor, Dreadful, Troll)
• *Storage Location
• *Current Location
• *Supplementary File (containing more information, history, stories, emails, etc--if any)
• *Usage Restrictions
• Notes
• *Cataloguer's Name

Stars denote the Absolutely Necessary, and I pretty well agree with this list. 

It also suggests making a brief backup paper copy in archival ink in a bound book on archival paper. Archival ink I have, archival paper I have not. I'll ask Steve, as soon as I hunt down anyone who might be involved in any other catalogue(s). We have catalogue information for our collection...in the Smithsonian archives, or the KSC archives, that kind of thing. They have their tags and numbers, often on display although I would suggest locating the tags under the objects, if possible, or otherwise somewhere inconspicuous. Because who seriously wants to see Smithsonian archive numbers? Does it make my job easier? Should I use the preexisting numbers or give them PARI numbers? 

I don't even know. 

Example Catalogue Sheet (Partial)

The manual also suggests literally printing these sheets out--they provide them in their PDF--and filling them out in pencil, as depicted here, and filing them in plastic sleeves in a binder. There are also softwares of a similar function, but Steve requested Excel.

This seems...a little unwieldy for Microsoft Excel. I could make a word document. Or a Pages document. Or maybe we have a system, and I just don't know about it. The people who would know are taking the week off, so far as I can tell, which is just... sigh.

A solid assessment.

On a mostly unrelated note, I still kind of have a headache, don't really know what the heck a design brief even is or how to write them, don't know how to design this museum and morale is kind of low. I need chocolate, and a nap. Mostly a nap. 

There has to be a way

To make use of the fact that we have a version of basically every antenna ever used to communicate anything with the space shuttle.

I was thinking of making a generic spacecom display, but then we got a Ku band antenna, which pretty much was the last major missing piece. There are some antennas we have from things that weren't the space shuttle (but used the same frequency) or were precursors to later antennae, but on the whole, we caught them all.

Gotta catch 'em all! 

I tried to think of a way last week, but my brain refused to come up with anything on the right scale. On the other hand, I have an idea for a really cool room-sized highly interactive exhibit far beyond our budget.

To copy what I wrote in my sketchbook: 

How would I express this idea, of Space Communications in the shuttle era, if I wanted to impress an international committee? I'd invert perceptions. I'd put Mission Control in space, such that their big tracking screen becomes a Star Trek-style window looking out over the earth. Set it up in 3D, not just a graphic--set up the mission control desks as interactive consoles, maybe use a live ISS feed for the "window" at the front, make some of the consoles screenless so they can behave like display cases (really cool display cases), set some of them up as interactive features in their own right--a landing simulator, a docking simulator, something along those lines with a satellite theme maybe, let people listen to old recordings or see old films and try their own hands at making sense of the punch card data. 

Gemini era mission control

Maybe not a full mission control room--that seems exhaustingly large--but two, two and a half rows of displays and so on, with chairs and fun things people can watch on the screen and buttons to push and things to mess with, interesting graphics on the wall explaining Mission Control, satellites, tracking, whatever. It could be extensive, but is obviously a bit useless in our current situation. Right? I mean, we have some of the old controls, and server racks, and whatever, but we can't really use them for this. Right? 

I gotta think on this. In the meantime, while I muse this over, I'm also reading my favourite (still alive) artist's blog regarding composition. He has some things that, while aimed towards the 2D, could nevertheless remain important in the realm of 3D. 

• Overlapping shapes enhances the sense of depth; if you draw three things layered slightly, the picture will have more depth than two things flat next to each other. Ergo, if you don't let things overlap, you flatten the composition. Presumably, this carries over into displays. 
• Design for design's sake isn't always enough to create something compelling. The Story of a picture matters at least as much. This carries into museology: PARI's story should be its own, and the museum should reflect that. Which means the space shuttle is a little bit tricky, because that story was one we played no part in. 

 Also, in an attempt to capture the mood we might want to pursue...I'm resorting to Pinterest.

Right now, I'm guessing, based mostly on the gold carpet. I'm not sure if it would be better to pursue a more modern design--have you been to a new TCBY? Think like that--or go full out mid-century retro, like I've accumulated in my pinboard this afternoon. (I have to link to aforementioned pinboard because Blogger can't bloody handle it. I should have used Wordpress for this, but live and learn? Stupid platform.) I don't really have a whole lot of say in the theme, exactly--they want design ideas, but it ain't my job to see them implemented per say--but if everything I give them has a coherent theme, it's presumably fairly likely to end up in the final product. Because if everything I produce has an atomic age vibe, who's going to bother to redo it as long as it's something integral to the design functionality?

...this is also, as far as I can tell, a digital method of a standard museum practise. I've found multiple sources suggesting the creation of a design wall. Well, I don't really have a wall, or a printer, but I have a laptop. Since only a handful of people need to have a look at this, I may as well do things like this--although, when I get home next, I should probably print out a few of the most relevant pictures and make a high school style sketchbook page, so I can thump it down in front of somebody in a dramatic way. Seems like, to get anything much done, dramatic thumping of something concrete is necessary. I think it's a human nature thing...

Augmented Reality Sandbox

Augmented Reality is using a computer to enhance reality. It isn't virtual reality; the stuff the computer puts out can't exist without a real-world base. An example would be using an app on your phone that accesses the camera to track a sensor. The screen shows you a fairy frolicking around your desk, when the only thing really there is a tracking sensor that lets the camera figure out what its looking at.

We've been set an... interesting... task.

Steve found this thing and wants the interns to make one for PARI. Space themed, preferably, although I get the idea that he'd be just as happy with the software in its existing condition to make a really cool sandbox.

The idea is that a computer uses a sensor to read the topography of the sandbox and projects a contour map over it. I'm already envisioning relocating our earth science computers to the Third Room--currently the library, which Steve wants to seize in the name of museology--and turning it into something of an interactive earth science lab. Which would be pretty dang cool, now, wouldn't it?