Oregon State University Free Choice Learning Lab

Oregon State University

The funny thing about having the money to revise an exhibit that’s already installed is that, well, there’s already a version out there that people are using, so it sometimes falls to lower priority. Even if you know there are a lot of things that could be better about it. Even if, as I said, the money is in hand to update it. That’s another thing about outreach being still sort of the afterthought of scientific grants; even when the scientists have to report on their grant progress, if the outreach effort isn’t in that report, well, the grant agencies aren’t always so concerned about that.

So we’re trying to revise our salmon fisheries exhibit, and we have a concept, but we have to constantly remind ourselves to make progress on it. It’s an item on my list that is “Important, but not Urgent,” (one of those Seven Habits of Highly Effective People things), and it keeps being shoved out for the Urgent but Not Important and even Not Urgent, Not Important (but way more interesting!) things. I think it’s like revising a paper; sometimes, the work it takes to come up with the ideas in the first place is far more interesting than more nitpicky revisions. And, again, a lot less urgent. So, we’re setting interim milestones to make progress: 1) we have our visualization collaborator working on new images, 2) we have text to re-organize and re-write, and 3) we have a basic logic about the new version that we’ve sent to the developers so they can write the automated data collection tool that records what a user does and when and for how long. So, we feel confident in progress since we’ve farmed out 1 and 3, but that still leaves #2 for us to chip away at. And sometimes, that’s what it takes. A little bit of time here, a little bit there, and eventually, there’s a lot less to get done and the task seems less overwhelming. Maybe the blog will help keep us accountable for getting this exhibit done by … the end of the summer?

We heard recently that our developer contractors have decided they have to abandon their efforts to make the first facial recognition system they investigated work. It was a tough call; they had put a lot of effort into it, thinking many times if they could just tweak this and alter that, they would get better performance than 60%. Alas, they finally decided it was not going to happen, at least without a ridiculous amount of further effort for the eventual reward. So, they are taking a different tack, starting over, almost, though they have lots of lessons learned from the first go-round.

I think this indecision about when it makes sense to try and fix the leaking ship vs. abandon ship and find another is a great parallel with exhibit development. Sometimes, you have a great idea that you try with visitors, and it flops. You get some good data, though, and see a way you can try it again. You make your changes. It flops again, though maybe not quite as spectacularly. Just enough better to give you hope. And so on … until you have to decide to cut bait and either redesign something for that task entirely or, if you’re working with a larger exhibition, find another piece to satisfy whatever learning or other goals you had in mind for the failed piece.

In either situation, it’s pretty heartbreaking to let go of all that investment. When I first started working in prototyping, this happened to our team designing the Making Models exhibition at the Museum of Science, Boston. As an intern, I hadn’t invested anything in the failed prototype, but I could see the struggle in the rest of the team, and it made such an impression that I recall it all these years later. Ultimately, the final exhibit looks rather different from what I remember, but its success is also a testament to the power of letting go. Hopefully, we’ll eventually experience that success with our facial recognition setups!

In my living room sit several boxes of LEGOs awaiting desecration. Over the weekend, I must find a way to contain the cheerful, rainbow-colored dust that this gruesome operation yields.

I have decided to give my game the working title “Deme.” I feel the word more or less sums up what the game is about, and I felt the need to call my project something other than “the game.” It feels more real, and real is what it will have to be before terribly long.

A sticking point in the concept is how we should handle mating and aggression. My instinct is to portray these things as they are, to the best of my ability. I have a couple of reasons. First, wild animals are not subject to our cultural notions of propriety. Second, these things are kind of what the game is about. It would feel weird blotting them out.

However, Deme is going to be available to a general audience. For an age bracket that might not know the ins and outs of reproduction (so to speak), these elements will need careful presentation. Unplanned family discussions about where babies come from are not among my learning goals.

A child might play the game, with the guidance of a parent or teacher, to learn why elk are important. An adult might play to see if she can breed a super-squirrel or beat her personal record for screech owl polyamory. Both learners have different goals and perhaps very different approaches to games in general.

The experience of playing a given game differs from person to person, and from instance to instance. Players can define their own roles and experiences within the rules of the game. This may make our work easier in some ways and harder in others.

Some of these issues can’t be addressed realistically until we get into technical details, but it’s worth starting the conversation now.

Kent got a new toy recently. It’s a kit by Industrial Fiber Optics, Inc. called “Adventures in Fiber Optics.” If you’re like me, fiber optics don’t exactly signify “adventure.” They may be vital components of adventurey things like airplanes and MI6 gadgets, but they don’t get your heart racing on their own:

Source: Uploaded by user via Free-Choice on Pinterest

But wait! When Kent gets done with this kit, it will become an interactive element of the Life History Transmitter exhibit. If history has taught us anything, it’s that Kent can basically deconstruct and rebuild fun itself. I won’t be moping long.

Meanwhile, Mark and I are playing with LEGOs. By “playing with,” I mean “damaging with power tools.” They’re going into the wave tank, so they should be somewhat destructible. This requires us to undermine their defining characteristic of not falling apart. A Dremel tool works well for this. The tough part is that damaging LEGOs sort of hurts. LEGOs became an internal currency of my very imagination during childhood. Defacing them feels like some sort of crime under the jurisdiction of my brain’s Secret Service.

As with Kent’s fiber optics kit, the work should be well worth it in the end. You’ll be able to play with our toys soon.

Quick post today. Linda Norris ran this piece a couple of weeks ago about novel labels at the Minnesota History Center and Mill City Museum.

“Over and over again, text was displayed in surprising ways, that encouraged me to read more, to explore, and to appreciate the sense of humor and playfulness that the exhibit teams brought to projects.”

The interactive sausage grinder label is great. Have a look.

The Free-Choice Learning Laboratory at HMSC

Informal science education research

Swimming Upstream

The End of the Road?

Working title

Fiber optics and LEGOs

Minnesotan labels (from the Uncataloged Museum)

Wave tanks: A wonder of the modern age

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