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Ideum collaborated with Exploratorium’s Global Studios on a project that drew us outside of the realm of multitouch table development. We built a series of highly customized interactives for the Kayseri Science Center in Turkey.
In the interactive game, “Treasured Materials,” visitors learn about materials found in nature (wool, nacre, petroleum, etc.) by matching those materials with clues about their unique properties. This interactive can be played in single-player or two-player mode.
Each player has a set of 10 clear acrylic pucks that are embedded with natural materials and have a unique RFID tag on their underside. Clues are presented on the player’s touchscreen, and they must determine the material that those clues are referring to. To answer, the player places a puck on an animated 32x32 LED panel powered by a Teensy microcontroller. An embedded RFID reader scans the tag from the puck, and the visitor receives virtual feedback. Points are awarded based on correct answers.
Photo Courtesy the Exploratorium.
Went down to check out the Exploratorium's new location. For two nights they had a show where they projected images on the front of the building. Pretty cool stuff and incredibly well done.
The kid in you takes over when you go to the Exploratorium. Don't fight it, just go with the flow. FUN!!
Yesterday (3-14-15) was Pi (3.14159265359......) Day (see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi ). So we went to the Exploratorium in SF to celebrate. It was our first visit to the Exploratorium since they moved to their new home, and it is a great space!! We had a lot of fun.
San Francisco MUNI PCC No. 1015 departs the Exploratorium stop along the Embarcadero.
This car is painted to honor Illinois Terminal Railroad System (ITS), which once ran an extensive interurban passenger service in southern Illinois.
Most of its service was run by classic interurban style electric cars. However, buoyed by what turned out to be artificially high ridership during World War II, ITS ordered eight double-end PCC streetcars for its shortest route – a suburban service running six miles from St. Louis, Missouri across the Mississippi River to Granite City, Illinois. Those eight PCCs had bodies identical to No. 1015 (except that the Illinois Terminal cars had no rear doors).
Like their Red Arrow cousins in Philadelphia, the Illinois Terminal PCCs were equipped for multiple unit operation and ran at times in two-car trains. However, despite the modern PCCs, the company saw patronage fall rapidly on the Granite City line as more commuters could afford — and chose — automobiles. The route was abandoned in 1958 and the PCCs were put up for sale. But their lack of rear doors and the high asking price kept buyers at bay.
All but two of the eight Illinois Terminal PCCs were cut up in 1964, but the survivors, Nos. 450 and 451, returned to service in Cleveland from 1975 to 1979, leased from the museums that preserved them to run on the Shaker Heights line during a severe car shortage.. But in their brief nine years of service, the big Illinois Terminal PCCs, like their longer-lived Red Arrow cousins, proved their capability in suburban service.
One wonders what might have been if Muni had made the commitment to upgrade the famed interurban 40-line to San Mateo with fast new streetcars like No. 1015, instead of abandoning the line in January 1949. None of Muni’s ten new double-end PCCs was even tried on the 40-line in the brief period between the cars’ arrival in San Francisco and the line’s abandonment, although the long-standing competition from the parallel Southern Pacific commuter trains (now Caltrain) and automobiles had badly undercut ridership, just as for ITS’ Granite City line.
Instead, No. 1015 ran on Muni’s J, K, L, M, and N lines until 1982, when it was retired and stored for a time, when it was restored to serve the new F-line starting in 1995. After almost 25 years of daily service, it was restored again by Brookville Equipment Company in 2020.
A view of the exhibit from the ground floor level.
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For the last forty years or so the Exploratorium, San Francisco’s venerable science museum, occupied the Palace of Fine Arts, a cavernous Beaux Arts building that served a centerpiece of the 1915 Panama pacific International Exposition in San Francisco’s Marina District. A few years ago the museum decided to relocate and selected Pier 15 on the city’s Embarcadero as a new site. Thus began a massive project with architects Esherick, Homesy, Dodge, and Davis to transform the pier into a home worthy of the Exploratorium heritage of hands-on science education. The results will soon be public with a grand opening on 17 April 2013. Having seen the project develop I can report that it is a grand success. The original pier building retains its wonderful utilitarian nature and offers visitors the fine experience of occupying the threshold between bay and city. A new glass structure at the end of the pier – the Observatory – offers the perfect foil to the darker volumes of the pier and an ambitious program to “uncover the stories embedded in a place by directly observing the geography, history, and ecology of the San Francisco Bay region.”
During a sabbatical leave ten years ago I had the great fortune to serve as an Artist-in-Residence at the Exploratorium and have kept in touch, working on occasional projects over the ensuing years. My Hidden Ecologies Project, and the salt pond landscape work it spawned, originated during my sabbatical at the Exploratorium. So, I was particularly delighted when they commissioned an exhibit of photographs from my salt pond work for the new building. The exhibit is made of fifty-seven 9” x 12” prints mounted in a tight grid. The twelve rows of photographs are placed on three walls adjacent to, and above, a stair that leads from the ground floor biology exhibit area (with halophile tanks adjacent to the photographs!) toward the second floor observatory and an exhibit area on landscapes.
I had a fun time working on the photo layout with the idea that lines, colors, and shapes would tie the multiple images together when seen from a distance while each image would hold its own on close inspection. I am very pleased with the way it turned out.
Went down to check out the Exploratorium's new location. For two nights they had a show where they projected images on the front of the building. Pretty cool stuff and incredibly well done.
The Exploratorium
The museum of science, art and human perception.
San Francisco, CA
An enlightening way to spend the day.
A view of the mezzanine level group.
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For the last forty years or so the Exploratorium, San Francisco’s venerable science museum, occupied the Palace of Fine Arts, a cavernous Beaux Arts building that served as the centerpiece of the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. A few years ago the museum decided to relocate and selected Pier 15 on the city’s Embarcadero as a new site. Thus began a massive project with architects Esherick, Homesy, Dodge, and Davis to transform the pier into a home worthy of the Exploratorium's heritage of hands-on science education. The results will soon be public with a grand opening on 17 April 2013. Having seen the project develop I can report that it is a grand success. The original pier building retains its wonderful utilitarian nature and offers visitors the fine experience of occupying the threshold between bay and city. A new glass structure at the end of the pier – the Observatory – provides the perfect foil to the darker volumes of the pier and an ambitious program to “uncover the stories embedded in a place by directly observing the geography, history, and ecology of the San Francisco Bay region.”
During a sabbatical leave ten years ago I had the great fortune to serve as an Artist-in-Residence at the Exploratorium and have kept in touch, working on occasional projects over the ensuing years. My Hidden Ecologies Project, and the salt pond landscape work it spawned, originated during my sabbatical at the Exploratorium. So, I was particularly delighted when they commissioned an exhibit of photographs from my salt pond work for the new building. The exhibit is made of fifty-seven 9” x 12” prints mounted in a tight grid. The twelve rows of photographs are placed on three walls adjacent to, and above, a stair that leads from the ground floor biology exhibit area (with halophile tanks adjacent to the photographs!) toward the second floor Observatory and an exhibit area on landscapes.
I had a great time working on the photo layout with the idea that lines, colors, and shapes would tie the multiple images together when seen from a distance while each image would hold its own on close inspection. I am very pleased with the way it turned out.
Bernoulli cone | Exploratorium, San Francisco. ATKS loved this beach ball. | April 20, 2016 | Canon EOS 5D Mark III | ¹⁄₂₅ sec at f/1.4 1000
Recently, Ideum collaborated with Exploratorium’s Global Studios on a project drawing us outside of the realm of multitouch table development. We built a series of highly customized interactives for a museum in Turkey.
In "Star Colors," visitors play a game to learn about star identification. At the heart of the activity are 3 prop “telescopes” through which visitors view star types and their corresponding spectral patterns.
The Exploratorium was founded in 1969. The Exploratorium is a museum in San Francisco with over 475 participatory exhibits, all of them made onsite, that mix science, art and human perception. It also aims to promote museums as informal education centers. It has a vast collection of online interactives, web features, activities, programs, and events that feed your curiosity. In 2013 the Exploratorium will have a new home: Pier's 15/17 (Reference: www.exploratorium.edu/).
Paul Baker performs scientific magic at the Exploratorium's Thursday Night Party.
Photo by Lynn Frieman
Palace of Fine Arts, 3601 Lyon Street, San Francisco, CA 94123
The Exploratorium moved to Piers 15 & 16 on the San Francisco waterfront. It's a short walk to the Ferry Building and the Financial District. We parked in the Golden Gateway Garage for $3 after we got our parking ticket validated at the Ferry Building. $3 for all day parking!
Took a trip to SF. One of the stops was the Exploratorium. This place is absolutely fascinating. Definitely a must see when you have a few hours to roam, walk, enjoy and learn so many awesome things.
The Exploratorium was founded in 1969. The Exploratorium is a museum in San Francisco with over 475 participatory exhibits, all of them made onsite, that mix science, art and human perception. It also aims to promote museums as informal education centers. It has a vast collection of online interactives, web features, activities, programs, and events that feed your curiosity. In 2013 the Exploratorium was moved to a new home: Pier's 15/17 (Reference: www.exploratorium.edu/).