Heidi Chang, Melissa Cheung, Anuja Dharkar
ED333B – Professor Goldman
March 6, 2001
Technology Museum Exhibits that Create Connections
I.Introduction
Hands-on museums like The Tech Museum of Innovation or the Children's Discovery Museum generally aim to provide visitors an entertaining and educational experience. Parents and teachers bring children to these museums for the opportunities to learn and explore in a way different from school or home experiences. To further explore what these experiences are, we conducted a series of observations at the Tech Museum of Innovation with the aim of redesigning part of the experience to encourage more learning. We hoped to explore questions such as: What kinds of interactions happen in the museum between visitors, and between visitors and exhibits? Does learning occur in these experiences, and by whom? Do visitors take away the intended messages of the Museum, and if not, what do they take away? And finally, how does the Museum attempt to encourage or address these questions?
II.Methodology
We visited The Tech Museum of Innovation on February 17, 2001 around 10:30 am. The museum opens to the general public at 10 am each day. We each observed a different part of the museum for over an hour. Anuja and Heidi observed different exhibits within the Explorations Gallery on the bottom floor of the museum. Melissa observed one exhibit in the Innovations Gallery on the top floor of the museum. Additionally, Melissa returned on March 2, 2001 to take photographs of the areas observed. We met after the observations to discuss our finding, draw conclusions, and discuss possible redesigns for the Museum.
III. General Description
The Museum is a technology and science museum located in downtown San Jose, CA. The bright orange and blue building welcomes visitors seven days a week from 10 am to 5 pm. School groups visit the museum on Mondays - Fridays. Thus, weekends general consist of visits from families. The Museum contains four permanent galleries and one rotating gallery space on three floors of the building. The gift shop, snack area, and IMAX movie theatre are on the main (second floor). The galleries are on the first and third floors. The Museum's self-declared mission is "Inspiring the Innovator in Everyone." Exhibits explore topics that relate to technology and innovation primarily of the Silicon Valley area. Each gallery has a theme that connects the exhibits together. Signs at the entrance of the galleries indicate the name of the gallery at but do elaborate. Visitors are able to rent audio tours that guide them to different stops in the Museum. The Museum is staffed by about 150 people and over 600 volunteers. The volunteers work primarily on the gallery floors interacting with visitors. Gallery managers and technical staff are usually also on the floor during visitor hours. Managers staff exhibits that require assistance, or work at Curiosity Counters, hands-on areas that have tools, gadgets, or artifacts that visitors may play with.
IV.Gallery Observations
The Clean Room in the Innovation Gallery[1]
Microscope and Videos. Wafer-making machine is in the back with students around it.
Parents and children looking at a video in front of etcher, stepper, and furnace. Camera
controls are at a station next to children.
The Clean Room is an exhibit situated in the back of the Innovation gallery that explores the building of microchips. White panels and fluorescent lights brighten the room, a stark contrast to the rest of the museum. The gallery manager explained the room was to "simulate an environment where chips are made. The clean room is supposed to be sterile and clean." The room contains 10 stations addressing different areas of the process of chip-making, from design to production. All of the exhibits have signs with large headings that label the exhibit. . One to three sentenceexplanations follow. One of the videos was very loud and had a heavy techno-beat throughout the video. The music was playing almost continuously during the observation.
A large wafer-making machine surrounded by Plexiglas sits at one end of the room. A step provided visitors the chance to peer down into the machine. To its left is a wafer moving demonstration. Mechanical parts move up and down showing how stacks of wafers are moved. Along one side of the room are a series of machines also behind Plexiglas. These machines, the Etcher, Stepper, and Furnace, are the primary machines used in making chips. Connected to the end of this area is a Dust Room, where visitors can walk in and watch a monitor to displays the dust count in the air of that room. Other exhibits include: a set of lockers that have the kinds of equipment workers in a clean room might wear to keep the area sterile. Visitors can open the doors to see the equipment behind Plexiglas; a station that demonstrates the static electricity and discusses it's significance in chip production; a microscope that magnifies three different microchips from 1974, 1985, and 1993, demonstrating the decrease size of chips.
Four of the stations consist of video monitors built into wire-frame tables. On the tables are purple buttons that control the monitors. Three of them are videotapes. The video clips last 3-6 minutes each. The remaining one controls views from different camera in the stepper. One or two round silver tools sit in front of each table.
Jet Pack Simulator[2]
Participant in the jet pack simulator chair.
The Jet Pack Simulator is one of a number of exhibits in the exploration gallery on the lower level. The exhibit area is dark with the exception of the small lights that are that are brightly shining on the black backdrop. A queue organizes visitors who want to try out this simulator. At the front of the queue, as people enter into the simulator space, is a sign that communicates the minimum height requirement. There is a metal structure that is hanging from the ceiling that simulates a metal space structure with a satellite dish. Facing the simulator to the right of this metal structure is a hanging astronaut doing repair work. There are two electronic time keepers and counters for the “audience” and the participant to see.
The simulator itself is a chair for participants to sit in. This chair is enclosed in a “ring.” The side facing the queue and the rest of the museum has 6 display cases that abut this 3.5 foot wall. The cases contain information about general space research, products that were developed in space that have been modified for use on earth, space tools (camera, fire extinguisher), and explanations about the chair and the simulation challenge. A loud hissing sound comes from the release of compressed air, which gives the chair its weightless feel.
The purpose of this area is to allow people to explore ideas about space. The Jet Pack Simulator activity is game-like and clear. The participant sits in a reclining plastic chair. When he/she is ready, he/she presses a button to start the simulation. There are foot pedals that let loose the compressed air, to provide the weightlessness feeling. At the end of the arms of the chair are joysticks that control the longitudinal and lateral movements of the chair. The object of the simulation is to use the joysticks to position the chair so that the red beam of light that comes from the chair can be perfectly aligned with a green light that lights up on the metal structure that hangs above this space. The participant has 60 seconds to make as many matches as possible. There is also a volunteer who helps the participants in and out of the chair. He also provides them with instructions on the activity.
Earthquake[3]
The entrance to the Quake exhibit.
The earthquake exhibit is another activity in the exploration gallery. There are five displays in this exhibit. According to the gallery manager, the goal for the entire exhibit is to help viewers understand the vast amount of technology available to help us learn about earthquakes. Each display ties innovation in technology to understanding the fault-lines and earthquakes that occur in the Bay area.
Each display incorporates a different method of engaging the viewer. The main display or attraction is a simulation of earthquakes. Museum attendees stand in a makeshift room that rumbles with different intensities depending on the earthquake it is simulating. A volunteer stands close by letting people know what the strength of the simulated earthquake will be. Nearby this display are examples of the tools used to measure earthquakes, such as seismometers and highly sensitive gauges. Users interact with these tools to see how professionals might use them. Another professional tool that users can interact with is modeling software that scientists use to create buildings and test them against different earthquake intensities. These displays, unlike the first one, not only simulate earthquake measurement, but also place the user in the role of an expert who might use those tools. The last display helps users take note of the frequency of earthquakes by giving up to the minute reports and locations of earthquakes occurring around the world. Users can locate earthquakes near their homes. Each display has a sign nearby with the name of the display, as well as a few words about the contents of the display.
V.Findings
In the Clean Room
During the hour, about 10 different families or groups entered the exhibit. Interactions with the exhibits by children without an adult or with other children were very low in this room. Children appeared attracted to activities at their height, such as the microscope and videos. The video monitor buttons are situated at kid-eye level and are the first things that visitors see when entering the room. Learning interactions occurred more when parents and children interacted around the exhibits together. . Signs were rarely read, and then only by adults.
The most common interaction for children alone was to run into the room, go directly to one of the video station along the wall opposite the etcher and stepper, and push the purple buttons. The parents followed a few moments later. They rarely stayed to watch the videos. They often pushed several buttons waiting for a reaction on the screen. In only one instance, did a child on her own stop and watch a video. This girl, about 10, watched the "Building Chips" video for about three minutes. Her family later entered the exhibit, but did not join her. As she watched, she occasionally looked up to look for her parents. When they left the room, she continued to watch for a few seconds, than left. She appeared to want to stay. In three instances, parents and children together would watch a video. The children watched for a few moments, and the parent would continue to watch, encouraging the children to pay attention or notice something on the screen. Twice parents took photos of their children interacting with the videos. Parents and children often stayed at monitors where they could control the cameras on the stepper. Parents would point to the screen and talk about the cameras. In one instance, a father explained to a boy knowledgeably about what the machine did. Despite having cards that slide up and down about each of the Etcher, Stepper, and Furnace, both children and adults only pulled them and glanced at them for a second.
The greatest number of interactions happened at the microscope. 9 out of 10 interactions in the room involved this station. Three children on their own spent time exploring it. Time spent at this station ranged from 1-3 minutes for children on their own. They appeared to have difficulty focusing and adjusting the microscope. None of the children looked at the signs.. In several instances, the parent would call their children over to the microscope and talk to them about what they saw. While children looked, they often read the signs behind the microscope about Moore's Law.
The other most often looked at station was the wafer machine. Only adults read the signs, but most children and adults would peer into the machines briefly.
During the hour, several adults interacted with the room for 5-10 minutes. They read many of the signs and watched 1-3 videos. These adults in every case returned later, within the hour, with their children or another adult and pointed out what they saw, and discussed the exhibits.
In later observations (when I returned to take photographs), extensive discussion around the stations occurred with school groups and teachers, who asked questions and encouraged students to watch the videos. One teacher gave students questions to think about when exploring the exhibit.
At the Jet Pack Simulator
During the one hour observation, there were 11 groups of visitors. Most of the visitors were families who participated in various ways. There were three instances where children participated in the activity while parents encouraged them from the side. There was one instance where a father and son participated in the simulation together because the son was too short to do it by himself. There were two instances where the parent and the child both participated in the experience of the simulation. There was one instance where a young father tried the simulator while his wife and infant looked on. The other groups of visitors were male and female couples, a group of girls, and pairs of men.
The noise and the cheering attracted visitors to this exhibit. When families approached the simulation, the kids would run to get in line. One father commented to his son,” All those PlayStation games come into good use” as his son prepared to begin the activity. The son clearly enjoyed the activity, but there was little conversation around the meaning of the simulation. Neither parent nor child read the information in the display cases. This behavior was common in families. It was rare that a parent or child would read the information in the display. There were also no obvious conversations around the ideas of zero gravity or weightlessness. There was one father who read the challenge explanation to his son. But there was no immediate follow up discussion after the two had left the exhibit and after both had participated in the activity. But the potential for a discussion around this experience is high, and may be occurring in other places in the museum away from this exhibit.
The emotional response to this activity was extremely positive. Smiles, laughter, and “that’s fun!” were common affective responses after completing the activity. The same father, who had read the activity challenge to his son, and his son returned a second time. One man who looked to be retired tried this activity 5 different times. He walked away on two occasions. After he returned the second time, he brought a man in his early 30s to try the activity. While they were waiting in line, this older man says to the younger man,”I got three.” Later this retired man exclaims,”All right, Chris!” when this younger man is in the simulator. I approached both men. The retired man explained,”You get better with each try. I went from a 1 to 4 in 5 tries.” He continues to tell me that it doesn’t work how you’d expect it, but after a while you get it. He also tells me that it feels like he’s “in water, experiencing weightlessness.” Overall, participants walk away from this exhibit seemingly satisfied and are often talking about their experience with parents or friends.
Everyone who passed by tried the simulation with the exception of two men, who only read the display cases and watched the participants. Though the simulation was 60 seconds, each participant took about 90 seconds from start to finish. Participants stood in line for no more than 10 minutes to take their try at the simulation. Reading the information in the display cases was not an obvious behavior.
A high school aged Asian boy operated the simulator. He told me that he usually volunteers in this space section. He provides people with an explanation of what to do, provides encouragement while participants are in the simulation, and offers suggestions about how they should do. He never explains the connection between the simulation and outer space or the idea of weightlessness or zero gravity to the participants. His role seems to be similar to that of an amusement park ride operator. His interaction with the participants is minimal.