{"id":1231,"date":"2018-10-03T00:40:16","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T00:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/?p=1231"},"modified":"2018-10-03T17:21:58","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T17:21:58","slug":"noted-astc-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/noted-astc-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Noted @ ASTC 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

New technology, research, and exhibitions from the ASTC annual conference.<\/h4>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

This weekend I attended the Association of Science-Technology Centers’ annual conference<\/a> in Hartford, CT. With dozens of exhibitors and educational sessions to choose from, I couldn’t see everything, but here are a few random highlights from my trip:<\/p>\n\n

Creative Spaces & Environments Flash Session<\/h4>\n

\"Flash<\/a>The first session I attended was in fact a grouping of shorter presentations connected by their focus on exhibits and environments. I enjoyed Katie Flavin’s presentation on the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s LabVenture<\/a>, which combines live animal interaction with digital touch-tables to help students build observation and classification skills. Aaron Price of the Museum of Science and Industry<\/a> presented fascinating data from a study into how “awe” impacts visitor learning and emotion in the museum’s large-scale spaces and experiences. And John Bull showed off plans for Expo 2020 Dubai<\/a>‘s spectacular Sustainability Pavilion, which will live on after the event as a permanent science center.<\/p>\n\n

digiPlaySpace<\/h4>\n

\"digiPlaySpace\"<\/a>In the exhibit hall, digiPlaySpace<\/a> caught my eye with a clever ‘art mirror’ installation that reinterpreted its video camera feed in the style of a Kandinsky painting. I’ve seen these types of experiences before, but this one was particularly sophisticated and inspired me to look deeper. An initiative of TIFF (the Toronto International Film Festival), digiPlaySpace is a technology playground of interactive digital art targeted to kids 3-13 (and their adults). An expansion of an annual event at the film festival, the travelling exhibition can be adapted and customized to fit a variety of audience and square footage needs.<\/p>\n\n

Researching Science Identity, Learning, and Narrative Engagement in Different Formats<\/h4>\n

Another interesting session I attended was focused on evaluation of a large-format film, Amazon Adventure<\/a>. Going beyond an assessment of the film itself, Mary Nucci of Rutgers is examining how its impact differs when presented in a variety of formats, from classroom lecture to 3D to giant-screen dome. Initial data suggests that full dome presentation may have better learning outcomes than 3D, though Nucci emphasized that the study is incomplete and inconclusive; still, it’s interesting to consider how the choice of presentation platform can make a difference in educational impact.<\/p>\n\n

PolarScreens<\/h4>\n

\"Polar<\/a>Toronto-based PolarScreens<\/a>‘ new autostereoscopic display uses Steerable Light Field Technology\u2122 to present glasses-free 3D content. The device combines a transparent LCD display with custom backlights and an eye-tracking device. When users stand in front of the display, the backlight adjusts to ‘project’ distinct images into the viewer’s right and left eyes. The effect seemed fuzzy at first, but when I settled in to manipulate a virtual 3D object, it worked surprisingly well, presenting an effective illusion of reality. Between this and the latest devices from Looking Glass Factory<\/a>, I’m excited to see how the new wave of technologies for glasses-free 3D will be implemented in multimedia exhibitions.<\/p>\n\n

Breaking News! Communicating Science Headlines while They\u2019re Hot<\/h4>\n

This session addressed the challenges museums face when science makes the news; how can they provide related content and interpretation while it’s still relevant? Presenters from the Boston Museum of Science<\/a> and Sciencenter <\/a>Ithaca described their processes for incorporating science headlines into live presentations and programs. Patty Rhule of the Newseum <\/a>discussed how her in-house content, exhibit, and printing departments have created pop-up exhibits around relevant news the day it happens. And Ling Lee, from the UK Science Museum Group<\/a>, described her team’s strategies for creating monthly interactive exhibitions using both collection objects and a robust digital content management system. <\/p>\n\n

City Lab Augmented Reality Table<\/h4>\n

\"City<\/a>City Lab, developed by the exhibit team at the DoSeum<\/a> in San Antonio, drew my eye with its colorful blend of tactile and digital content. The exhibit challenges young visitors to design their ideal city, using simple blocks representing an assortment of buildings and resources. When viewed through an AR tablet app, the digital city becomes 3D and animates, and visitors can see whether their creation has everything it needs to survive a flood. The software is free for iOS <\/a>and Android<\/a>, and can be used with printable cards, but the physical exhibit’s colorful wooden landscape makes for an elegant hands-on experience.<\/p>\n\n

Overall, I had a great experience at ASTC, though there was a noticeable lack of session content directly related to exhibitions. I look forward to next year’s event<\/a> in Toronto and hope to see more exhibits, experiences, and technology on the session schedule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New technology, research, and exhibitions from the ASTC annual conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[30,11,32,51],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noted","tag-best-practices","tag-exhibition","tag-science","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1256,"href":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}