McWane Pitches



mcwane_pitch.doc

mcwane_followup.doc

McWane Center

I'm interested in becoming a designer of what I've dubbed "Creative Interactive Activities -- interactive creative activies or exhibits in which average people can in a fun way can get in touch with their own creativity, can can have a lot of benefits for them and society, and be very entertaining.

I have collected these together under the umbrela of what I call The Creative Zoo. Similar to such institutions as The Zeum in San Francisco and __, The Creative Zoo would be part Discovery Place, part theme park, part carnival, perhaps even part funky roadside attraction. A fun and invitomg place where regular people discover and delight in creativity.

Help me. I want a carreer. I have a degree in advertising and minor in psycholology and concentration in statistics, and a later associate degree in Information Technology. I created "The 5-cent Advice People", hosted of one of the very first ever Internet Radio programs.

Statistics and computer science has taught me to think systematically about problem-solving but with a creative bent. I've been struck by the creativity and sense of whimsy present in math, statistics and problem-solving and also by the sort of rigor and dedication and methodical nature of creative activity. By having The Creative Zoo partner with an institution like McWane, it brings together two parts of the brain, two parts of the culture

I have developed a list of over 100 "Creative Interactive Activities" (CIAs).

My current vision is having some of these CIA's plus creative people (such as painters painting) on display

Rat Basketball

This is a very popular daily exhibit that The Discovery Place in Charlotte has. It teaches the concept of "positive reward conditioning" and is very entertaining, with pom pom being passed around, a "Rat-feree" and volunteer score-keepers.

Colors Colors (or "Whats Your Favorite Color?")

Consists of

Top Half of the Screen:

Difficulty Levels

1

(most kids)

Just move the sliders at random to see what happens.

2

(older kids, some adults)

The bottom half of the screen shows a random RGB Value like "D2 69 1E" and when V matches it, siren/flashing light to congratulate. And then it changes to another random selection

3

(most adults, super smart kids)

Bottom half of screen shows a random color and challenges V to use slider bars to match it. When they do, sirens/flashing light to congratulate. And then it changes to another random selection.



Flip Charts / Display

re base 2

Oversized hands

2 sets:

  • One (with 10 fingers) has regular decimal numbers on the tips

  • one (with 16 fingers) has hexadecimal numbers on the tips

4 (8) on/off lights

To show how 16 (256) can be represented in computers using only 4 (8) lights

Magic Erase Board or oversized calculator

How many different colors are possible with RBG.

Can flip up a board to see the Hint: "What is 256x256x256?"

Type in your answer and siren/lights go off if correct. Or it stays higher or lower if incorrect.

Various Tiles of similar colors with RGBs values on back

Are these colors the same? (Put their RGB values on the back)

How many different colors can the eye see?

Scanner / reader

Could have a reader that takes a color (skin, article of clothing) from a V and interprets it to a RGB value

Re-Create your color

There are slips of paper nearby where people can write the RGB value down. Typed out already on the paper is the html code and instructions how to (at home) make a simple html web page where the favorite color is the background.

<HTML><BODY BGCOLOR = "#______________"><font size = 7>I love the McWane Center

Save as "mcwane.htm"



"Mr Organs" / diagnosis

Mr Organs

There is a full-sized mannequin (or torso) with exposed organs (no skin). He has a speedo or swim trunks that say something like "rated G".

Vs use a stethoscope-type apparatus (with headphones) to interact with this exhibit.

The stethoscope has 3 level settings: "kid", "young adult" and "adult" -- each with a different levels of sophistication in terms of explanation.

When the stethoscope is placed on an organ, V hears explanation of that organ: heart, lungs, appendix, liver, spleen, pancreas, kidney, gall bladder.

For example, kid level on heart says "I'm a heart. I pump the blood throughout your body"

Notes:

  • Could sell shirts showing organs (in different sizes in gift shop)

  • Could be sponsored by a hospital - maybe Children's Hospital -- or a medical school

Diagnosis

Part 1

Have outlines of patients (ideally these are real patient cases), and their name and age ("Ed", age 57, "Sandy", age 11).
Have the Outline be sitting so kids can easily reach mouth. (Chair is mutely-painted on wall in background.)
Each outline is a different basic color.
  • Press the button (where the outline's mouth is) to hear (in real patient's voice) the presenting symptoms.
  • If fever, V can place hand on forehead and feel the heat
  • Could lift a panel and see the heartbeat (video monitor) or feel the pulse on wrist
  • Lift the panel on the chest, and see the chest xray

Part 2

Across from the patients, there is a mural on the wall of a kindly doctor sitting behind his desk (diplomas behind him). Sticking out of the wall is a private speaker that V puts his ear beside.
V uses a slider to select which patient they're interested in. Then they press one of several buttons to hear doctor's voice....:
  • Press to hear dx process
  • Press to hear dx
  • Press to hear prognosis
  • Press to hear how pt is actually doing now (in doctor's and patient's voice)



Human Kaleidoscope

Various versions of this are done at science centers throughout the world.

Using mirrors and a circular viewing frame, parts of V bodies become a kaleidoscope image

When I grow up

“When I Grow Up I Want To Be..."

There are various traditional old-style wooden cut-outs of what kids traditionally want to be when they grow up:

A V (would primarily be kids) puts her face in one of these things. A photo is taken and printed out and then a list of things a future nurse (for example) should know about / focus on is printed on the right side of the photo frame: Example

Picture of wooden nurse cut-out with V's Face

A future nurse

  • should takes lots or science classes

  • Volunteer at a hospital

  • etc etc


This can be sponsored by a local nursing school, the Miss America pageant, local pro football team, etc.

There are also audio tapes (or a CD that fits nicely in the photo display behind the worded description on the right) are available that (for the nurse example) has:

Scientist Cards

When you first go into the Holicoust Museum, you got to choose a card. The cards are shaped like greeting cards/Christmas cards, and are only divided into "men" stack and "women" stack. They are of an individual person affected by the holicoust, and there were multiple people. Each card included a photo and details about the person's life before, during and after the war. I really enjoyed looking at all the different ones.

Do this with lesser-known scientists, dead and alive. Have a childhood photo and adult photo of the scientist would have to be someone who supported him/herself as a scientist, but that aren't well known. This will help Vs immediately identify with scientists and show the multitude of different people who are scientists.

Show real working (local?) scientists like on baseball cards.

Have their current and childhood photo and interesting stuff about their life and work

Each child gets to pick just one (that way they'll value it more). They'll usually pick one that looks like them or has their name.

A complete deck of these cards -- in greeting card (or pared-down to playing card deck format) available for sale in gift shop.

Dancing Feet

Inspired by

A person puts on hospital style footies -- like green for the left foot, orange for the right foot. And then whenever they see a green light on the small individual dance floor, they know to put their left foot there and whenever they see an orange light, they know to put their right foot there. And then they just follow that simple pattern and before you know it, they're dancing.

Notes:

Scientific Method

This really shows two scientific ideas:

A simple throw-the-ball thru-the-hoop-or-hole. But first they hear "the rules.":

Each V gets randomly assigned to group A, B, or C:

After their throws, they get to see the running tab of hits/misses of each group and see/hear an explanation of hypotheses, control group, randomization (as well as a separate display about "the power of suggestion").

Me - Only Bigger

People/kids enjoy watching themselves on TVs set up in Circuit City type places.

This feeds on that plus the desire for kids to feel bigger.

V sits on stool (with adjustable height). The wall has a sign "align nose here; face forward".

4 video camera get close ups of eyes, nose and mouth. These images are projected onto 4 large TVs that face the V, thus forming a giant face of the V.

Possible sponsors:

Laced Faces

Very cheap for a very cool effect.

3 horizontal strips of double-sided mirrors. 2 Vs sit across from each other with this set-up in the middle between them.

They see their faces laced together with each other.

Upside Down Birthday Kid

Demonstrates the concept of Blue Screen.

Upside down Birthday kid photo could be a birthday party option.

  1. Birthday kid (BK) hangs upside down in front of an upside McWane backdrop. This makes his/her face look weird and his/her hair "stand straight up".

  2. In front of a blue screen, the guests sit around a table with an empty spot at the back/head of the table. The table has the birthday cake on it.

  3. When these 2 things are combined in real time, it looks like the BK is just electrified/surprised.

  4. This could be done in just a still photo or in video. If video, an out-of-frame fan could blow the candle out as the BK blows.

Creative Family

Visitor can bring in old photo of long-deceased family members. We project the photo to life-sized onto a wall and the living family poses with the dead relatives. It will look contrived but it will still be very cool. A photo of it (in black and white) is taken, and sold to Visitor.

Have a select of old clothes people can wear, and the living family members could dress up in clothes from eras gone by and thus make the merged photo look less hokie.

Technically, this could be done like this:

This will get grandparents to bring their grandchilden and photos of THEIR grandparents. There could be a display about the importance of family history.

Plaza Pitches



1-Playpumps



 
I think I've mentioned this idea to Lamar before....
This would allow kids to just plain play (normal playground style) while learning about physics, water, the role of water in society, climates, and economics.  Plus, there is a large largely-untapped African-American audience in Birmingham that this could especially appeal to.
 
Play Pumps is a movement in Sub-saharan Africa to install water pumps that work by kids playing on them.  Have one of these Play Pumps outside on the plaza that kids can play on.  Ideally it would pump up ground-water just like the real Play Pumps*, along with exhibits inside of the mechanics of how it works.  This could also be a fund-raising center (good public relations possibility!) where kids could leave money (pennies to dollars) toward buying a Play Pump for a community in Africa.
http://www.playpumps.org/site/c.hqLNIXOEKrF/b.2589561/k.C08/The_PlayPump_System__The_Water_Problem.htm
 
I've contacted the Play Pumps people about this idea, and if you're at all interest, I'd be happy to forward their response on to you.
 
* if it can not truly pump up ground water due to the location or whatever other problems, it could still be made to look like it does.  An alternative to water is to have the Energy of the kids playing be converted into something else: perhaps power for a speaker of audio of the African-kids playing or African music or info about the Power Pumps, or a bunch of flashing colored lights.

2-Whisper Dishes
http://www.whitakercenter.org/science/PurchaseExhibits/index.asp#2
The Seattle Science Museum has a pair of these outside their building and they're very popular.
They do well in weather and can be enjoyed by all ages.
 

 
This would be a similar style as the "Birmingham Prime Matter" in that it is big, without much detail to it.  Other advantages: This is a tried-and-true exhibit.  You know it will work, no moving parts.  You don't have to prototype it or build it yourself, you can just buy it.


3- Telescope Have the plaza be a "gateway to the planets".
 
This can be done in a number of different ways (you might choose one, some, or all of the following):
 

  1. Have Tuesday be "Planet Day" or "Planet Night."  Have volunteer astronomers set up telescopes (for a few hours) outside on the Plaza, and let any interested visitors look through the telescope.  The volunteer astronomer can explain to the visitor what the visitor is seeing.  http://www.sfsidewalkastronomers.org

  2. Have a sturdy telescope (that will withstand the weather and public abuse!) set up on the plaza that is programmed to automatically track/adjust so that anytime a visitor looks into it, she sees something interesting.  To inform her of what she's seeing, play audio (started when a motion detector is activated) of an excited group of people who are happily, busily discussing what the Visitor is seeing in the telescope (as though they've just seen it too): "Wow, so that's Saturn?" "Yep, cool, right!" "Yeah, I've always wondered about those rings -- I mean I've seen them in books and stuff, but I guess I never really thought they were real"  "Yeah, do you know they're only half a mile thick?"  "Really?  But we can see them from this distance!!!! - that is sooo amazing"  "How far away is it?" .... etc, etc.

  3. Get people to donate their old telescopes, and then McWane Science Center Members can borrow a telescope (public library style).  This is another perk of membership, and includes a free "how to use" class (taught by a volunteer astronomer).

  4. At night, using a remote telescope, project "real time" images of "cool sky stuff" onto an outside wall of McWane.

Note: Go for the "wow factor" on this: Show the rings of Saturn as opposed to a barely visible comet. 

4- Duck In Kaleidoscope
Conveys to the user (inside): the wonder of seeing things from different perspectives.
Conveys to those watching the user (outside): a sense of awe, delight, and childlike wonder
 
  
For details and pix see: http://www.exploratorium.org/cmp/exnet/exhibits/group4/duck/index.html
 
I suggest we use the "2-way" glass (that is used in police station interrogation rooms), so that the user (inside the duck-in kaleidoscope) sees multiple images of herself in the mirrors but people watching can see into it, watching the user turn around "in awe, delight, and childlike wonder".
 
(Also knowing that you're visible to the outside deters vandalism to the inside.)

5- Musical Run
Here's a video that somewhat demonstrates what I have in mind.

http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/video_player/index/php/925658.phtml
shows Michel Lauziere performing "The Toreador Song" from "Carmen" using 300 bottles.
 
In my idea, a kid can run with some small piece of wood (like a chop stick*), hitting a series of note-producing items (obviously not bottles as in the above video link; would have to use something that can't be easily broken) to "play a song".  Can have several of these "Musical Runs" each producing a song that is familiar to the visitor, like Mary Had a Little Lamb (or perhaps a Bob the Builder song).
 
 
[* a chop stick is inexpensive and readily available (perhaps even free if you allow a sponsoring company --like a musical instrument company-- to put their logo on it).  Or you can just require that the parent provide a stick-like object, like a writing pen.]
 
 
 
All the following could be compliments to "Musical Run":

6 - “That's My Idea" or "I have an idea"
This is an ever changing display (changed at least once a week) that really highlights the imagination and cleverness of children.
 
Let Visitors submit ideas they have, or inventions they've come up with:
Examples:
 
The display (which is "lightbulb shaped" -- to convey "Idea") can include ...
All the ideas can ultimatley be put in a book for sale in giftshop or as a fund-raiser.




7 - “We've come a long way" or  "Evolution of Man"



This is the classic "Evolution of Man" image.
Paint it as a mural on an outside wall at McWane (or better yet create statues of each of the figures.)
 
This would be a super-fun photo-op that let's a visitor pose (to the right of the other figures) as the "most evolved" of all.
 
(In the traditional version of this, there is a monkey off to the left, but to avoid the whole "creation vs evolution" controversy, just don't include the monkey, and just title it "We've come a long way" instead of evolution of man")
Notes:
  1. Could also do a smaller version for children (with each image being that of a chid)
  2. Could have the figures facing McWane's entrance, thus implying that as you evolve you become interested in science.
  3. Could add to the right a figure of a modern human dressed as a scientist to indicate our current level of evolution (and to tie in with the "science center" theme).
  4. Could indicate on the ground where to stand for the photo op, but I believe the visitors will figure it out and be delighted by how clever they are!!
  5. The privilege of painting (or sculpting) it could be a competition among area high-school students, and perhaps 4 or 5 different winners could be chosen (each getting to paint one of the figures).  This is good P/R too.

8-"You create, You decide"

Select a theme, for example:

Then have a city-wide competition (with a cash prize) only open to young people (21-and-under, or 18-and-under), for a statue idea with that chosen theme.
 
A committee picks 5 of the submissions (or 3 or 10 or all), and an exhibit inside McWane lets each visitor vote for the one of these 5 ideas he likes best.  Here's how:

The winning entry then gets built (possibly by an artist at McWane Company), and the young person gets paid and gets his name on the statue.
 
This is a good public relations story and lets many people in the community (the young artists plus the people who vote) feel involved.


9 - “Sidewalk Solar System"


I saw this when I visited Washington DC.  In DC, you walk along a straight sidewalk, first seeing the Sun (about the size of a soccer ball, if I remember correctly), then a block away you see Mercury (which is maybe marble-sized), then a block or so after you see Venus, etc.
 
http://www.sites.si.edu/exhibitions/exhibits/voyage/main.htm
 
This is a true-to-scale model of the solar system, and it really (for me, for the first time) made me truly understand how much empty space there is out there.
 
In DC, the planets are all lined up in a row, but in real life of course that never really happens, so my idea for the McWane/Birmingham version of this is:

Notes:

10 - “What's in your head?"
Alternative names:
"What do you put in your head?"
"What do you want in your head?"
 

Have super-sized hollow and clear Plexiglas "kid-head" – about 6 to 8 feet tall.

 

The top-part of the giant head is hinged and opens up, so things can be inserted inside.  Have the hinge and the line that separates the 2 parts of the head be very visible, to convey the idea of “putting stuff into the head.”

 

Have a collection area inside McWane where visitors (over a year’s time) can bring in representations of what they want to go into their head (i.e., things they want to know about, learn about) – this could be a wide variety of things.  Some things I can think of right off-hand are:

 

 

[* = of course, these would be miniature, toy or plastic versions.]

 

Notes:


How its great for...


People who donate

They get the joy of participating; can show their friends what they donated.

Gets a “thank you” gift for each donation

Possibly win a prize/fame.

As with many of my ideas, the community is involved, and therefore invested, and will do "word-of-mouth" advertising for you.

Visitors

Gets an ever-changing display.

This changes over time (every month or so if you re-mix and every year completely), and so it keeps the returning visitor’s interest.

McWane

Indicates to visitors that they are going to get a lot of different things into their brain inside McWane.

Gets $$ -- from the year-end auction

Good p/r, every year.

No moving parts, yet is still “interactive”



11 - "Hello Tree"
Alternative names:
"Trees and me"
"That's my tree"
 
I notice you already have trees planted outside in the plaza area, but many visitors hardly even notice them.  How about if you took the trees that you already have, and turned them into star attractions.

Have a big plaque beside each one (or better yet, a belt around each one -- like a "Championship belt", see photo)...

... that has statistics about the tree, including some fun ones:

Notes:



---- "Giant THE CLAW" arcade game
 
Each object can be an advertisement for what's inside McWane. -- see SKETCH#14

Have to drop object thru levered “trap door” which activates a prize dispenser.