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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

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