Bears, Logos, and T-rex, oh my!

I was making a list of all the random crap on display in the Space Junk room. I'll need to type that up into some kind of comprehensive list, but trust me when I say that if I haven't mentioned it by name...even I'm not sure what the doohickey is.

Anyway, as I was doing this, I ran into John, who wanted to tell me about something he'd been scouting out for the rock room. He wants to tie the rocks and fossils and meteorites together in the most logical possible: With a tyrannosaurus rex. Possibly a cast of this tyrannosaurus.

From Wildcat313, wikimedia commons

Hear me out! For a start, in the modern horizontal position, he or she would probably fit in the room. Or, at least, John knows the dimensions of both and doesn't see an issue here, and I assume he knows the dimensions better than I do. (I'm measuring stuff in floor tiles, for crying out loud.) He travels a lot and has located ways to acquire a t-rex. Maybe. He wants to, anyway, because of how thoroughly cool that would be.

Second, how do you link dinosaurs and the biggest collection of meteorites I've ever seen on display anywhere?

Like this. I mean, none of our meteorites caused a mass extinction. They didn't even land on anyone. But it only takes one to do away with Ivan the T-rex. (He mentioned another specific T-rex cast and/or model, but I forgot that while I was trying to figure out what the heck one of our unlabelled bits of space junk actually was so I could include it in my list.) And... have you ever actually seen a museum link those two areas of science? I sure haven't, probably because most museums don't have a whole lot in the way of meteorites--one or two, if any, certainly not a bleedin' wall of them and more not on display. Hopefully, I'll be able to talk more with him later about this and do up some sketches because as a dinosaur enthusiast, this sounds so freakin' awesome. 

My day STARTED productively...

Let's start with a revised list of questions I would like to ask somebody at another museum--because I think it's worthwhile to consider something I learned at Life & Science. When I asked about their Aerospace collection, I was told that they would like to redo it at some point and if they were to redo it, they would probably get in touch with the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville at some point during their design process. Which typically lasts several years.

Yeah, I know, impossible task. Excuse me while I bang my head against the wall for a few minutes. Don't worry: All the interns are doing it, having realised the sheer enormity of what we're being asked to do... something that would be totally possible if we could duplicate ourselves, set both of ourselves to the task, and maybe had an extra month or three. But I digress.

My revised list of questions is as follows:

1. How do you choose what audiences to cater to, and how do you opt to cater specifically to those audiences--or different audiences within the same exhibit?
2. What principles of visual or spatial design are important when creating an effective exhibit? 
3. How do you persuade guests to engage with the content you provide?
4. What is the worst mistake a person could make when designing a new experience? How can that mistake be avoided? 
5. What makes a museum worth revisiting? 
6. Are there any techniques you tend to favour for creating a sense of flow within an exhibit? What is the best way to move people from one gallery to another? 
7. Do you use guest feedback when creating new museum experiences?

This stems from things I discussed with Roy, as well as things I've run against since or thought about more that I feel would be nice to know. I'll discuss who I should talk to next with Steve later today. Among other things. (I should make a list of things I need to ask today, too, because I really do need to know some stuff before I continue with The Master Plan and while I'm flattered that he wants to set me up for a career in this museum thing, I assume he'd also like me to be able to do my best with the job he wants me to do now.) 

I also mocked up a sample interactive that, if we have something small that can run a powerpoint presentation, would be a pretty space efficient way of including the interactive I sketched a couple of weeks ago--the "What does this thing do?" type. How does it work? Well, did you ever play review jeopardy in school (or have you ever had to make a jeopardy game)? 

Apologies for Lack of Postage

Lack of postage? Posting? I have postage, since I still haven't the foggiest idea about what to do with them stamps...

The first things to get out of the way: I had a lovely weekend with my parents and my mom's parents, I'm so glad they seemed to have a good time. I'm sorry we didn't have more time and I left this morning kind of freaking out about a presentation for the Duke TIP kids, but I guess that just means we aren't done messing about Brevard yet. Next time we can all watch Dad slide down sliding rock before following him...or not.

Looking Glass Falls

Also I totally need to go back to the spice and tea store, because they had a good selection on curry powders and I wouldn't mind picking up some tea for myself. However, tea for certain siblings birthdays may have to wait until we drag her up here and see for ourselves just what she'd like to try. Assuming she hasn't switched permanently to coffee after her adventures in Europe. Psh.

Furthermore, I'd like to add that I do know specifically where I'll be living next year. Third floor, Gardner hall, UNCA. I know the room, room selection was this morning, and I also changed my password like UNCA requires every 90 days. Which is weird and twisted. Note to self: It's the most recent password (you actually use places) that's in circulation. I wish I could've shown you Highsmith  Student Union or the inside of my dorm when we visited UNCA, family, but that does mean you'll just have to come visit me. Somehow, I have a feeling you'll be more inclined to visit me here than in Alabama... there are better bakeries, for a start.

ALL THAT BEING SAID

My day has started rather strangely. Well, okay, my day has me trying to figure out how I can sell my ideas for the space gallery thus far. I think I'm coming up some decent ideas, but my day isn't the strange one just this second, it's just writing. Yesterday was as well, which is why I started this post yesterday and am continuing to work on it today; a post consisting of "I sat at a desk and worked on a paper here are some extracts" is just a bit less than exciting. I did work on a drawing of my timeline ideas, but I'll post that later.

No, Sean's day is the strange one right now, I just got to witness it. John Sinclair, rock curator and globe trotter, has been abroad since I mentioned him last. It would seem that he ran into a friend in Europe--France, Germany, Switzerland, something like that--who is looking for a mechanically inclined young man to run a factory in China. They'll discuss this more later, once said friend is stateside, but no he isn't kidding how's your Mandarin?

...Yep.

Well, I guess the opportunity for crazy opportunities to appear is partially why we're here--as well as the part where the PARI staff don't have time to do what we're doing, regardless of project, and somebody badly needs to do it.

A Reflection on Life&Science and...um, what?

Can YOU see Zooboomafoo?

I was out yesterday because I was visiting the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC. If you haven't been, have kids, or like to act like a kid, I highly recommend you go. Or if you just like lemurs, Apollo 15, bears, tree houses, and you're looking for an activity for the day. It was a lovely surprise, although I will say the "life" part of the name is accurate while the "science" is intended more to encourage scientific thinking in kids. But I AM learning that my taste in museums is hopelessly outdated. Modern thinking is that kids science centres should focus on learning through play, rather than learning through making the museum collections as cool as possible.

I'm a bit of a dinosaur, I guess. I like museums like the Schiele, or the MoLaS's Aerospace collection. I talked to Roy Griffiths, who's the vice president in charge of exhibit design on their, um, exhibit design, and he sounded mildly embarrassed by that whole area. I think that was taking it a bit far; it was well designed, with good interactive exhibits--match the orbit of the space shuttle to the space station! Point a satellite dish at an IR receiver and listen to a recording of actual space communications! See how marbles bounced off a parabola bounce to a single centre focal point to understand how satellite dishes work! I saw several people interacting with them, and found them quite enjoyable myself. Still, I can't help but think that just rearranging a few things could have produced a coherent narrative that might have made a good exhibit even better.

...I'm starting to get on board with the museums-as-narrative-devices thing, in case you hadn't guessed. I think it's something PARI could do well, if we tell the history of the site through the space junk in the museum. I think that's also something Steve wants me to expound upon, so, good.

Positivity today!

Yesterday's post was tense. If I were a Sim, my "fun" would be hovering at the bottom of the gauge. Today, at least so far, is considerably better...for several reasons.

One, somebody has donated an incredibly awesome telescope to PARI.

Yes, I know. We have enough telescopes that you can't swing a cat without hitting one. Including the newly donated one, we have three---no, didn't see the orange one in the box, sorry, four--telescopes in this windowless control room. Plus, I mean, the permanent controls for three more. Four more, if you count Smiley, who is having mount trouble and currently unusable.

But this one is gorgeous. I was reading last week about how old designs for scientific instruments followed two important principles: The instrument must be both functional and beautiful. The practice has gradually phased out, or the instruments have been slap-dash repaired, or engineered for efficiency and practicality rather than aesthetics. It's shiny, has killer optics, the celestial sphere and a moon map as decals on the tube of the telescope, the right ascension/declination labeled to a deeply satisfying precision on the base and knobs controlling them, it's all well-machined and made in the USA. Heck, even the boxes for the telescope and solar filter are well designed, lined in green felt, and arranged so that everything fits inside with enough precision to make the OCD sigh in contentment.

Once Mark assembled it any finished his spiel about why the telescope was so great (and we, meaning "los interns" finished ooh'ing and aah'ing), we had one question: When can we take the telescope out and play with it? :D

The photo doesn't do it justice.

We tried to take it out on the front porch of the visitor entrance just to see how it works, because the manual was less than helpful and reading would be cheating anyway. It took some fiddling, but one of the levers controls the internal mirror (which goes to the finder scope or down the barrel of the telescope), one controls the internal Barlowe lens (increases magnification when enabled), rotating the eyepiece controls "Diopter adjustment for finder scope", one slaps a solar filter on the finder scope, and one controls the main body focus. 

Very snazzy.

We did have to read the manual to find out about that last one, though. Being a telescope designed for photographing planets (via a specific 35mm film camera, which we don't have and will have to find a CCD replacement for), the little guy just can't focus on anything closer than the moon. And I'm guessing about the moon. The finder focuses great, and has solid magnification in its own right! I've seen worse marketed as $35 telescopes, which is fair--this was apparently a $1500 telescope back in the 1950's. 

(there's apparently a 4" version in the basement and a 7" mounted as a "finder" on one of the computer controlled optical ridge telescopes. I have "finder" in quotes because you don't need a finder for a computer controlled scope and would have to climb a ladder to look through it...or otherwise go through some impressive acrobatics. I've only seen it because we did some exploring our first night here.) 

Today is also shaping up to be a good day because it's tour group day, so I get to learn about guest behaviour and teach some people about spaaaaaace. And space history. Which makes me a very happy intern. A tomboy from Georgia was very curious about the space shuttle parts we have on display, so I was able to give her a fairly detailed explanation there (Ex-space-camper FTW) and was curious about The Satellite when I indicated I could tell her about that, or take an educated guess if she asked something I didn't know. (Yes, I said when I wasn't 1000% sure). I pointed her in the direction of our Earth Science computers in the command room, so I hope she'll be back through to have a look--she said that's what her focus was. I also pointed her in the direction of the USSRC, which isn't much further from her than PARI is. Hopefully she'll take a look if she's still interested in space history, because they have a better collection than we could hope to find room for...

currently. I talked to Steve as well. He has some pretty grand ideas, 3-5 years down the line. Watch this space, in other words, pun entirely intended. 

And he wants me to expound upon my ideas in great detail, preferably in words as opposed to pictures. He's not a very visual guy, which I respect but can't entirely comprehend. So.... That will be interesting. I'll do my best. A task for the rest of the day and tomorrow. I'll start with my idea for the timeline down the windows which--talking to people today--I confirmed would be a decent place for it. As good as anywhere, anyway. Give people something to stare at and muse about when they think about the history of the site and wonder just what that satellite dish has seen. 

Concept for one of the timeline displays, using information I've found out over the last week

I think it could be brightly colored enough to catch people's attentions without being intrusive, offer a useful history of the facility, and pique enough curiosity to connect the other exhibits. People mostly enter through the door along the windows, so having it run right-to-left might be an odd sounding decision but a practical one. It would also be easy enough to test during a prototyping phase using foamboard, handwritten or xerox labels, and a screen similar to one of the many screens I've seen in our Archive of Random Computer Bits. (Small screens, laptop size or therabouts, suitable for a personal computer, are something we have many of. A nicer screen could be invested in if needed, but that won't be my problem.) 

A timeline would also focus on something Steve wanted me to bring up as well: He wants PARI to tell a story. OUR story is one we should be experts on. The story of space travel is one we are intimately connected to, as well as the lesser known story of satellites, which we are even more intimately connected to. He's a busy guy, and he doesn't generally know what we're doing out here. Fair enough. He's fundraising, which somebody definitely needs to do, but I guess I should be clearer since I'm on the same page he is... he just wants me to spell it out to him in paper form. And there are some things I'm stumped on. 

For example. We have the best collection of meteorites I have ever seen on display in a museum. Ever. Anywhere. Period. I think I'm including the Smithsonian, because while I'm sure they have them, they may or may not have them on display. We have two moon rocks. There has to be a way to make this awesome.

We were intimately connected with Apollo-Soyuz. I have literally written a paper, a fairly lengthy paper, about what a massive thing that was:

 "The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, from its inception, was the coming together of two mutually technically incompatible systems. It was successful through mutual cooperation and shared engineering expertise. The visibility and public appeal of the mission created a powerful symbol of détente, uniting American and Soviet peoples with the attitudes of their respective governments. This analogy of the negotiations that lessened the hostile relationship between the United States of America and the United Soviet Socialist Republic during the Cold War was the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project’s greatest legacy."

 We have artefacts from Apollo-Soyuz, we have a satellite that talked to the satellite dishes that told the world that Apollo-Soyuz had docked successfully, that is an incredible story. I can imagine doing it justice if I had more space, but I don't, I have maybe a quarter of a room. There has to be a way to make this work that I just don't know about.

I need more information. Which is good, because I'm going to Durham tomorrow to talk to an exhibit designer about exhibit design--among other things. I'm using the questions I've already posted on this blog as a guide, but I'm hopefully going to learn something by exploring the museum of Life and Science. 

And I'll have an excuse to eat at Rocky's Soda Shoppe on my way out of town tonight, which will be way better than the Duke TIP food that's been served here for the last week...which is edible...sometimes. I've had quite a few sandwiches when I didn't feel like risking my tastebuds on the unidentifiable Green Stuff with Tofu Probably or the corn dogs or whatever. The tacos were good yesterday, I'll give them credit--it's hard to mess up meat, cheese, tomatoes, and tortillas. 

Furthermore, I got a painting done yesterday. Just a little one, from a sketch I did back in high school. This is why I'm glad I saved my old sketchbook...also because I'm using it as a way to work on this project. I can make some very nice, neat, IB-worthy sketchbook pages about museum design, lemme tell you. Geez. 

with Daniel's mug in the background, because he wanted to watch. Gouache and watercolor on paper.

Well, gouache and watercolor and brown micron brush pen. I like the brown ink. Would recommend.

I like the Sennelier watercolour set I got with birthday money. The colours are just brilliant, although I'm still learning how to use them. Very different from oils? Ooooooh yeah.

Last but not least, Tim is 3D printing a penguin. 

Penguing

Design brief?

Today's blog post is going to be a little bit less about cool stuff with pictures and a little bit more about "Rebecca never had a design course in her life, let's try and figure this out via the internet what could go wrong!"

My official plan for the next two weeks--which I'm just going to follow, come hell or high water, and if anyone has any issues with it or want me to go in a different direction, they should tell me...but the official plan looks straightforward enough that nobody will find it problematic--includes the following elements:

1. Review what the museum actually has in the way of collections. Find some system of documenting them. This is relatively easy and sounds like a good task when I need a break from some of the harder ones. 
2. Draft a conceptual design brief. Identify major goals, objectives, anticipated visitor experiences, intended results. This sounds harder, because "conceptual design brief" sounds like "plan your design in words through some arbitrary but relatively common format thou hast not dealt with before now". Today will involve, among other things, researching that format and what is typically expected of a conceptual design brief. Presumably it does not involve underpants. 
3. Develop a storyboard identifying gallery sectors and layouts by theme. Which definitely sounds like it should partner with but be completed after (2). 
4. Identify major budget projection expense line items. Say what now? I'll...worry about this later...but this also definitely sounds like that should come after 2 & 3, so waiting to figure out what this one wants me to do shouldn't be an issue. Hopefully somebody will clarify this, but they do need this information so.
5. Identify issues w/ facilities, staff, storage, programs, etc. Frankly, this is one of those things to keep in mind during all of the above. And to keep a running list somewhere. I have a composition notebook for notes, memos, scratch paper, etc for a reason. 
6. Carry out The Plan to begin pestering existing facilities until they tell us all their secrets. On it. Scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Bingo. 

So. Let's start with a fairly basic question: 

What IS a conceptual design brief? 

I dunno.

Google suggests--as well as my notes from a few weeks ago--that it is a brief document containing the idea, the 5-second-pitch, who you're aiming your idea at, the bare bones means of achieving the above, and what I don't know or suspect could go horribly, horribly wrong.

In other words, 

1. The goals and objectives, the ideas and the pitch, the endgame and its rationale. 
2. The anticipated visitor experience I've been trying to figure out. Now is a good time to put it into some kind of polished and formal form. Is that even possible? 
3. Intended outcomes and how we're getting there. The internet suggests a couple of formats, ranging from the dry and technical to the conceptual. I need to figure out what could most easily suit my subject matter: Moving stuff and putting up good signs. In a beautiful, ideal world, perhaps slightly more. 
4. Possible challenges or unknowns: Things I'm not clear on how they would work, but areas of weakness to proceed through with extreme caution. Sadly, I cannot classify the entire document as this...much as it would seem appropriate.

A design brief should not focus on the intended aesthetics of the design. It's something that could theoretically be handed to somebody else to worry about what the design actually looks like. Ironically, that "somebody else" is also me in this case. 

So much of this job seems to include phrases "delegate" or "have somebody in your team"...which makes me glare at the web page, book, video, or audio recording in mild disgust. Because there is no team. There's me, and there are some higher-ups, who mostly care that this gets done somehow by somebody and they don't need to know how or, for that matter, precisely what. There is such a thing as too open ended...this project is pushing that limit. Again, I'm considering this a good job experience... preferably, the next museum job experience will have me as some underling in a team, tho, that's all I'm saying...I digress.

Going through this checklist suggests that I do need to hunt somebody down to answer some key questions, though. Most of the checklist falls under, "Your problem, intern, but it's always good to recognise this," but some definitely falls under "Seek higher up and get this information out of them--or at least run your assumptions past them!" Questions like, What are the specifications? What are some designs to set as a standard? What's the budget? When's the deadline? 

This last one has a hope of being answered: The deadline is 3.5 weeks from now. At least for me. But figuring out when the deadline for the renovations are is also kind of important. I'm assuming this fall/winter, but I'm not certain.

More reading actually made me snort loudly enough to merit some strange looks. This quote is from an FAQ:

Who is responsible for developing, or writing, the design brief?
Design briefs must consist of collaboration between two equal partners. One partner represents the entity with the need for design work. The other partner represents the design function that will actually do the design work. Both partners are equally accountable for the final results of the design project. It is never appropriate for one group to prepare a design brief and simply hand it over to the design function for execution.

...I'm both people, I think... le sigh? Le sigh. So why am I doing this? I basically am the designer a design brief would be intended for, right? In case I screw up, don't finish, get eaten by a bear, struck by lightning, or go stark raving mad and am confined to the loony bin, I suppose. In an ideal universe, I would be working under the supervision of the writer or recipient of a document like this...or at least communicating with one of the aforementioned. Grumble.

Or maybe so that I just clearly define some kind of scope of my project for myself, to avoid said loony bin/suicide by bear/the urge to stand on a ridge when the lightning detector reads red. (We have got a lightning detector. It turns red when there is imminent danger so that everybody knows to stow the big telescopes and get their butts off the ridges. It does not say, DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER. It should.)




And because this post is woefully short on pictures, I have located a useful tool for exhibit design: THE WHEEL OF DEPENDENT IMPLEMENTATION

Cut out arrow, mount in centre, give it a spin, then BUILD THAT THING!

Philatelic Timeline & I'm a Historian Not A Terrorist

I went home over the weekend and took the opportunity to comb my own stamp collection, to potentially use to enhance PARI's collection...if anyone seems to think that's actually a good idea. I still have my doubt, frankly.

I can cobble together a nearly complete timeline of the space history of the United States. Between the two collections--mostly using the PARI collection to provide a more complete version of something I already have, or to provide a key moment in history (I don't have a "First Man on the Moon" stamp)--we have a crude timeline complete until about 1979. We have no record of the space shuttle, ISS, or Hubble (was there a hubble stamp?), and incomplete references for anything Soviet/Russian that isn't Apollo-Soyuz.

So that's kind of cool. I guess.