ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
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I made a beautiful wooden cross sextant back in the mid eighties for a
sextant display we did at the Franklin Institute. The cross piece slides on
the longer stick. I don't know where we got the design but I believe it
predates the familiar triangle shaped sextants. For the same exhibit one of
our machinists/ techs made an aluminum triangle sextant twice the size of a
normal one. We kept it on display partly because it was pretty, but it was
a classic mistake. Making something bigger is more often than not a
mistake, and especially in this case, when the thing in question is a hand
held tool, designed in the first place to be the right size for people to
hold and use.
My suggestions are:
With a bit of research I'm sure you can find pictures of a cross sextant and
make a nice one.
Buy a number of real, high quality triangle sextants on ebay and let
visitors use them one at a time till they die. Putting the real instrument
in their hands is the best experience for the visitor. High quality ones
feel that way even to the unexperienced, and will be treated better because
they get respected by the user. But as soon as they wear out and lose that
feel, they will lose visitors respect and the wear rate will noticeably
accelerate. That's why it's best to buy a couple of them.
On a personal note I just got home at 1:30am from an exhibit shakedown trip
for "A Garden of Gizmos" at Exploration Place in Wichita, Kansas, exhausted
but happy. I love what we get to do, creating interactive exhibits that
humans are suckers for, but this is not an easy business we are in. I've
been doing nothing but creating interactives since I started at the Franklin
in 1980 and have gotten pretty good at it, but I still get stretched out by
all the work. I have put four years into just this exhibit, faced two major
deadlines getting it done, each with months of all waking hours going into
the effort and still I have just a bit of shakedown work to do on it. I say
all this sympathizing with all of you who started museums from scratch,
doing the marathon of getting to the point of opening your doors only to
realize that the majority of the work is still ahead of you, dealing with
the all the teething problems of new systems, personnel, and exhibits. A
toast to surviving all that, as so many of you have, with flying colors.
This is in response to the question of how much maintenance staff for
exhibits. Young (new) exhibits are by definition the hardest to deal with
since exhibit shakedown hasn't happened. There is a downward exponential
curve of exhibit maintenance (assuming we are doing our job right and fixing
whatever problems do come up not just back to what they were when they
broke, but better, so the same thing doesn't happen again). Opening day,
you will have the most problems, ever. The first couple weeks will be
hell. The next couple months will be constant work. Over the next year
flaws will show up. And by year three or four once in a while something
will always come up.
The same exact downward exponential curve shows up when you move to another
place using professional movers and they put a sticker on each item they
move. The first days of unpacking you will remove lots of stickers. The
first week, every third item or so will still have a sticker on it. By the
end of a month you'll be down to finding one a week. And in a couple of
years you will still find the occasional sticker. (There's a math exhibit
component in this, somewhere) :-)
So if you are new and are asking about how many repair people to have on
hand, don't ask the older museums who are out on the flatter part of the
maintenance curve, ask your colleagues who just opened their doors.
Maybe it should be standard operating procedure for all new museums before
opening to put out an all points bulletin for retired engineers to volunteer
day one for being on hand to fix the new exhibits.
Here I am at home and so ready for a few days off. It's an interesting
time, theoretically finished with a new exhibit. But I don't look for a
finish line anymore, just a slowing down of the work curve. And after all
this, the long days and nights of work, the moments of "Who the $%#X
designed this piece of crap!" (blaming myself), after the seeing the delight
in the visitors using the stuff we've created, I might be just be willing to
do it all once again.
Love to all my colleagues everywhere,
Clifford Wagner
www.scienceinteractives.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michelle Nichols" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 1:18 PM
Subject: sextant interactive?
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
institutions.
>
****************************************************************************
*
>
> Anyone know of any museum that may have done an interactive exhibit
> element on the workings of a sextant? We're curious to get any feedback
> on such a thing, if it has been done before. We're hoping to include one
> in a planned exhibit about the Copernican Revolution (earth-centered to
> sun-centered universe; time period 1550-1850) and would like to avoid any
> previous pitfalls, if possible - we're working on our prototype right now
> & will be testing with visitors, but would appreciate any additional
> information.
>
> Thanks, in advance! Replies off-list are fine.
>
> Michelle
>
> Michelle Nichols, Senior Educator
> Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum
> 1300 S. Lake Shore Dr.
> Chicago, IL 60605
> 312-322-0520
> 312-322-2257 (fax)
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.adlerplanetarium.org
>
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