ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions. ***************************************************************************** My name is Erin Ries and I am a senior in Graphic Design at Iowa State University. I am helping figure out some fabrication for an Environment Exhibit design with one of the exhibit classes here. The exhibit is geared towards younger children and will be installed in a conservation center. I have compiled a list of questions regarding the different aspects and part of the exhibit I am unsure about. If you would like to me to post some images to help in understanding the exhibit better, let me know. If you have any suggestions or answers to any of these questions please let me know. Thank you in advance for any help you can offer. The Questions: 1. There is a large magnet board that the children will be placing magnets on. How would we fabricate the actual board itself? Is there a metal that would work better then others? And more specifically we would like to have an image/scene on the board. How would we fabricate that? Would it need to be a digital printout attached onto the metallic surface or would that scratch too easy? Is there a different way that an image could be applied so that it can still be used as a magnet board with the least amount of upkeep? How do we protect the image from scratch abuse from the magnets? 2. One of the exhibits uses a balance scale in order to show how certain things would be good or bad choices for the environment. So when tokens are placed in either side, the scale would tip. Do you know of anywhere that sells or would create such as scale? Do you or anyone else you know have experience with scale exhibits that would be willing to look at the image? As a second component for the exhibit, instead of showing the weight of the tokens it would change the smile of the persons face regarding which way the scale is tipped. Can you refer us to anyone that might know how to make something like that work or be able to fabricate it? 3.Several of the exhibit designs require push buttons that either light up or activate something. Can you suggest any good suppliers of such buttons? What type of button would be used to activate rotating panels? 4. Another part of the exhibit uses a shingshot/pinball type mechanism to project a ball into a hole for an interactive aspect. Do you know of anywhere to purchase such a deviice from? or do you know how we would fabricate a pinball device to project the ball? There is also a part in the exhibit that blows wind so that light weight particles/balls float from one side of a inclined box to the other. What type of wind creating machine would we use to blow the objects around? Can we buy it or would we need someone to create something like that? 5. AND finally....... This last part of the exhibit uses fading lights to show the changes in the numbers of wildlife found in the area. So there is a use of lights starting out bright and diming as the years go on and then getting brighter again when the numbers increase again. It shows a timeline effect using light as the graph of the data. Where can we get lights that we can control how bright and dim it is? Are there different colors, sizes, shapes? Are there different kinds or ways of doing this same thing that might be cheaper or easier? Again Email me and let me know if you would like me to post some PDF images if it would help anyone. Thanks again Erin Ries *********************************************************************** More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the Association of Science-Technology Centers may be found at http://www.astc.org. To remove your e-mail address from the ISEN-ASTC-L list, send the message SIGNOFF ISEN-ASTC-L in the BODY of a message to [log in to unmask]