Techno Gumbo

Advice for Building a Museum or Visitor Center

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:06:36 EST

I have been really lucky and plagued at the same time to be the last person in line for delivering several exhibits to the general public for facilities ranging in cost from thousands to millions of dollars. As the last person in line I am the person responsible for bringing it all together. I'm not a consultant, I'm not an adviser; I am not a producer. I'm the person responsible for making sure your exhibits work as specified and it doesn't ruin your opening party. I've played the role of making those crazy dreams a reality and I wanted to do my best to provide advice from the front lines on developing original museum dreams from conception to completion.

General Advice For The Exhibit Development Team

I would strongly urge any organization to try their best to assign a smaller working group to exhibit development. When working with media companies and fabricators on developing original exhibits, there are several deliverables and review periods that must be met in a timely manner to make sure your institution opens on time. Assigning a large working group has the tendency to fragment exhibits and delay production. If possible, try to assign small groups of individuals passionate about the exhibits they are helping to make.

Opening an Institution

How to Build a Quick and Easy 24V DC Power Supply

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:21:30 EST

I recently needed a 24V power supply for testing a programmable logic controller(PLC). 24V is very common in industrial settings, but not readily available for hobbyists or consumers in the form of the common wall wart transformer. Exploiting the properties of series wiring in DC, it is pretty simple to create a low amperage 24V DC power supply for testing purposes.

I only needed 24V with low amperage for testing sensitive input output lines in my specific application. Maybe this methodology will work for your application too.

Planning the Opening of a Museum or Visitor Center

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:00:59 EST

I have had the pleasure of opening quite a few museums during my time working in the industry. There seems to be a few common planning mistakes that I've noticed across institutions that causes everyone involved added stress and headache when trying to open a museum or visitor center.

The issue has to do with scheduled date of opening. Obviously you want a date that will captivate the press and potential visitors as well as hold a huge party for all the donors and investors. However, the date you have in mind; stability of your new original exhibits, the reality of the competency of your brand new staff, and contractors making your institution a reality almost never line up.

I'll say it flat out. DO NOT SCHEDULE YOUR OPENING NEAR HOLIDAYS.

People working in the museum and visitor center industry will make your schedule happen no matter what; but your local contractors such as general contracting firms, electricians, and union based labor generally don't care about your schedule and will take time off. This will in turn delay everyone else that requires basic items like, electricity, lighting, a non hard-hat work environment, running water..etc.

A brilliant strategy that I have seen work wonders and would suggest is as follows:* Schedule a private pre-date of opening a month away from any holidays, and a month in advance of your public opening and donor parties. Inform all contractors and schedule exhibits, media..etc that this is the opening date. This opening could for example; be dedicated to new staff, contractors, and their families. Children are an important part of this pre-opening as they will treat exhibits, staff, and the entire facility in a way that may have been unintended or unplanned for (I doubt there were any children on your planning committee).

I'm willing to assert that you'll find that there are a daunting amount of rough edges during this initial opening. Technical exhibits will break, staff will encounter problems, and you'll be happy you aren't open to the relentless onslaught of the public yet and have another month to refine your staff, and make changes to exhibits.

As long as you plan an opening trial avoiding holidays and well in advance of your real opening; I'm almost certain you will be able to come out on top with a situation that promotes how cool your new facility is, and in turn gives your contractors and staff the time needed to refine a beautiful original institution.

Migrating to Javascript from the Google Maps API for Flash Using Adobe AIR

Fri, 2 Dec 2011 22:59:58 EST

Google recently depreciated the maps API for Flash, which according to their terms of service looks like will be completely dead within three years. Despite everyone freaking out about Adobe's recent announcements, Adobe AIR will still be supported across several platforms. In the museum industry I've used Adobe AIR on many projects. Utilizing certain techniques available in AIR you can implement the fully supported Javascript V3 Google Maps API and have close to the same functionality as the Flash API.

The Adobe AIR HtmlLoader classes provide access to a built-in webkit browser that has Javascript rendering capability. The HtmlLoader is the avenue that I used to implement the Javascript V3 library. Using AIR you can make calls to Javascript functions, and Javascript can in-turn preform call-backs into your Actionscript functions if you set them up properly and pay consideration to the AIR security sandbox. The HtmlLoader can properly render the Google Maps in the browser, so there really isn't much work that needs to be done.

I'm going to walk you through how to get an example working that uses the directions service to request directions between two points with a way-point between them. I wanted to use this service because I initially had trouble with the google.maps.DirectionsRoute object because it contains a lot of great data and I made a tiny mistake when initially trying to parse it in AS3.

Prototyping Original Museum Exhibits

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:58:57 EST

I've been very fortunate over the years to become involved in the museum and visitor center industry. It is by far the most challenging and most rewarding industry I have ever worked in. Building exhibits that require custom programming and electrical engineering tend to defy some of the best practices utilized in companies that primarily focus on electrical engineering or software development.

The underlying reason for the deviation from best practices has to do with the custom nature of work. At a very abstract level, some of the work can be re-utilized from project to project, but largely each exhibit differs so much that it is difficult to iterate proven engineering and code unless you specialize in cookie-cutter exhibits. Those of you that have been engineering for a while will recognize based on my description, that the museum and visitor center industry is not an area where you can work normal hours and succeed.

In my experience, looking at others work; the majority of technical exhibits break often. I'll admit that I've had my own share of exhibits I messed up and taken responsibility for; but by learning from mistakes and adapting a certain set of behaviors I've been able to make kiosks and custom electronics that have run for over six months without ever being turned off.

So with all that said, here are the practices that have worked for me:

1. Have an overly paranoid attitude toward the project. Anything not tested or planned for will likely break.

2. Simulate the final environment the exhibit will be in during development. This means if you are making a kiosk, run it on the final computer it will be on. If you are making custom electronics, power cycle, and run them the same way they will be run once installed. Technology changes so quickly, that its hard to describe how many stupid scenarios I have encountered with different computers in kiosks including heat, power issues...etc.

3. Do not trust third parties. From a programming perspective this includes external libraries, and from an electrical standpoint this involves others electronics. It is imperative to realize that many off the shelf products and libraries are not tested to the extent that is needed to withstand the general public without intervention. You must prove that the libraries and electronics will withstand the final scenario prior to their installation or you are setting yourself up for failure and an unhappy client.

So now that I have described the three main behaviors that drive my attitude towards exhibit development, let me describe how I handled the most recent electronics project I installed last week on the western side of the US.