Exhibit Design Inspiration: Fasten-ating!

There's something satisfying about taking/recycling pieces of cardboard and fastening them together to make interesting new creations.

To that end, check out the video above of the automated cardboard horse that gallops around Bulgaria. Using cardboard, and what appear to be "zip ties" the artist has made not only a cool kinetic piece, but has also created something that gives community members an excuse to gather together  --- big fun!

If you're not ready to create your own animated cardboard beast just yet, you might be interested in checking out MAKEDO, a reusable building system from Australia, that enables materials including cardboard, plastic and fabric to easily join together to form new objects or structures.  

MAKEDO looks like a great "maker" activity for museum programs or "crafty" exhibit areas.

So, look around for project scraps, or ask your your local appliance store for some old cardboard cartons, and get building!

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Exhibits Exchange Now LIVE!

Think green!  Help find a "second home" for the many well-used (but still usable) "retired" exhibits, instead of letting them gather dust in storage or being tossed out!

Following up on the positive response I received on a recent blog posting about giving "retired" exhibits a new home,  I've just started a new Google Group called the "Exhibits Exchange"

 

The "Exhibits Exchange" group is a place to post information regarding used exhibits and/or components for sale, trade, barter, or exchange. 

     

It is free to join and free to post exhibit offerings on the "Exhibit Exchange" so please let friends and colleagues know about the group --- the more group members, and the more postings of  "used but usable" exhibits, the better the entire experience will be for everyone. 

Feel free to contact me directly if you have questions, comments, or concerns. 

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Design 101: What's Your Story?

What's Your Story?  If your answer involves some hand-waving and referring to some cool new technological gadget in your lobby, I'm afraid you've lost me (and probably a large portion of your audience.)

Gizmos are NOT a story, but merely one possible way to tell a story.  Simple right?  You would think so, but unfortunately the siren-song of shiny, techy goodness often has a way of getting people to forget about, or rationalize away, their core messages (The Story!) that they want to impart.

Recently,  I've been in Helena, Montana working with the fine folks at ExplorationWorks Museum and I also attended the excellent SMartCAMP conference in NYC.  As I look back at my activities in both of these disparate situations, it is interesting to think about how many times the notion of "telling your story" or "staying on message" recurred.

If the notion of "story" is central to thinking about the next steps in the evolution of a nascent museum in Montana, and the common thread in the discussions of the social media hipsters at SMartCAMP, then I ask again, "What's Your Story?"

And are you spending enough time honing and polishing it to engage your audience with it?

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Museum Exhibit Design Inspiration: Bernie Zubrowski

If ever there was an "unsung hero" of the interactive museum exhibit game it's Bernie Zubrowski.

If you counted up all of Bernie's books, exhibitions, educational curricula and programs, you would find a vast body of work that has had a tremendous impact on everyone (whether they realize it or not) who struggles to create interesting interactive exhibits.

But leaving all that aside, Bernie is also a wonderful artist --- a true master of the kinetic, elegant application of simple materials and phenomena.  Now Bernie has turned loose videos of his work on his new website.  It's well worth a look!


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Be Part Of: GLOBE at Night

GLOBE at Night is an annual March program designed to highlight the effects of global light-pollution.

As noted on the GaN website, people from all over the world record the brightness of the night sky by matching its appearance toward the constellation Orion with star maps of progressively fainter stars. They submit their measurements on-line and a few weeks later, organizers release a map of light-pollution levels worldwide. Over the last four GLOBE at Night campaigns, volunteers from over 100 nations have contributed 35,000 measurements. What a great use of the Web to engage a group of citizen-scientists in a project!

You can participate by clicking over to the GLOBE at Night website to download free materials and instructions. This year's program runs from March 3rd through the 16th.

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Museum Exhibit Design Toolbox: Gear Template Generator

Did you ever have the need/desire to cut some gear shapes out of basic materials like wood or phenolic using basic tools like a band saw?

If so, you owe it to yourself to check out the Web-based Gear Template Generator created by Matthias Wandel.  Using simple fill-in boxes to set the parameters, you can generate paper templates to cut many types of standard gear arrangements, as well as planetary gears, and rack and pinion setups.

If you are really into such things it is also worth checking out Wandel's "Woodworking for Engineers" website.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)