Museum Virtual Worlds

MIND THE FISH Augmented Reality exhibit at CineKid Festival, Amsterdam, Oct 2011. Image by Sander Veenhof

Ever wondered what your goldfish are thinking about? A playful exhibit called MIND THE FISH at the Cinekid festival in Amsterdam this month allows visitors to peer into a fishbowl via AR and read discussions the fish are having with themselves, with other fish, and with visitors. The amusing texts, like “I feel like everyone is looking at me … or am I crazy?’ appear as thought bubbles projecting from fish as they swim around their aquatic habitat as seen by a movable screen with an augmented view of the bowl. The interactive work was made by Arthur van Beek, Sander Veenhof, Edith Kuyvenhoven, and Tijmes Woudenberg, collaborators from the Netherlands who each contributed different skills to bring the inner thoughts of the fish to light.

I asked AR artist Sander Veenhof some questions about creating the work and the reactions of visitors.

What are the challenges of designing an AR exhibit that incorporates a physical interface beyond a mobile device?

The subject matter we were trying to augment caused the foremost challenge. Since no off-the-shelve and open source system for tracking and tracing goldfish exists, we created one ourselves. Fish are quite challenging to track, because of their shininess and moving and turning in front of the camera. To our distress, when the lighting of the festival was installed, it appeared that orange was the a very popular light color, changing the whole surrounding into orange, so our system detected numerous invisible fish all the time.

The physical interface is actually not very physical. There’s no movement sensor or angle detection involved. Just by turing the device and the webcam, new fish enter the visible screen, and the software handles the placement of text call-outs.

What are the fish saying?

The fish stories are written by an expert in the field of children stories, and she even had experience writing stories in which animals play the main role. A couple of stories are about fish wondering what to do. Playing computer games, seeing a movie. And of course: playing hide and seek. Lucky for them, there’s one plant in the fish bowl. Once in a while, a virtual fish appears. Its remarks indicate that it has no clue how things in the real world work. Not even knowing what a dictionary is, when being suggested to look into such a book. Furthermore, one of the goldfish acts as a #twittervis relaying recent tweets including both #twittervis and #cinekid

What were the roles of the different collaborators on the project?

This was collaboration to the extreme. Every part was done by someone else, and all the components came together in the last few days before the opening. The system had an optimal modular set-up. The hardware was designed by Arthur van Beek, based on an original concept developed by me and him. He reserved space for a laptop on which Tijmen Woudenberg put his ‘orange tracking’ software. The tracking software kept track of fish, numbering them uniquely. His software did requests to an online dialogue server I created, which analyzed which fish were available, if a monologue or dialogue was going on, and if the involved fish were still present. If not, a new one-liner or story was started. All monologues, dialogues and even trialogues were written by Edith Kuyvenhoven, who could keep contributing new texts until half an hour before the opening, fine tuning the texts based on the experience of seeing the installation working as a whole for the first time.

There must have been a great sense of wonderment and whimsy for people who engaged with the exhibit. Were any observed reactions surprising?

I found it fascinating to keep getting the question: “How do you know what they are saying? Is this real? Or not?”. The fact that it is a question, means it did look convincing to the children. Many wanted to install such a system at home, pointed at their own fish bowl.

Besides the AR aspect, the installation functioned in a very almost analog way. Kids are of course checking how they look, when being viewed at from within a fishbowl. Actually, it was something I was curious about too. How does it look when looking to the outside world from inside? We’ve a lot of plans for variations and new versions of the installation. One of them is to check the effects of installing a fish-eye webcam. I’m very curious how the world in the bowl will look like then.

MIND THE FISH at CineKid Festival, Amsterdam, Oct 2011

Recently, Paul Doherty and I met in SL with New York Hall of Science (NYHOS) curriculum developer (and Museum Virtual Worlds contributor) Ray Ferrer, along with some adventurous high school Explainers.

The Hall is working with their first cohort of high school Explainers to envision, design, and facilitate the virtual space that will be the new Virtual Hall of Science (VHOS). The meeting/tour participants had a look at what the Exploratorium has been doing with exhibit development in virtual environments and got an introduction to some of the environment and object building processes in Second Life. We played with different exhibits and chatted about things the Exploratorium has learned in developing exhibits there, including the interaction benefits of putting the avatar into the exhibit as much as possible and of moving the avatar as part of the exhibit experience. I’m looking forward to seeing how the new VHOS develops!

Visitors from NYHOS check out some exhibits on 'Sploland in SL

Trying out Dance Floor Color Mixer

NYHOS Explainer avatars being moved in an exhibit

For those not familiar with the VHOS project, it is essentially a virtual space within the Active Worlds Universe in which the New York Hall of Science intends to create explorable/interactive exhibits through a collaborative process involving the contributions of Hall staff, Hall Explainers, participants of the Hall’s camp programs and finally (and ideally) casual visitors. The first phase of the VHOS project was simple enough– train a group of 18-23 year olds to use Active Worlds to a point in which they are comfortable creating things as well as showing others how to create things in-world. The second phase was a reminder that no design can be efficient without prototyping; middle schoolers have knack for showing you that the way you think they think is wrong and so anything designed for them will likely have to be revised on the fly. The third phase of the VHOS project was an interesting reminder for myself about how the process of designing something that actually meets needs is iterative. So while I was thinking that I could have veteran participants take a hand in delivering basic skills to newer participants, they just weren’t interested in being teachers. As a solution to this we introduced the “Easter Egg“. As new participants acquainted themselves with the basic navigation and building skills, veteran participants were given a “mission”; first, create an easter egg containing some scripting skills considered advanced for the newbies, then secretly place that egg somewhere on a newbies virtual property. So here we have veterans showing off there skill in a way that newbies can glean important skills from. Some veterans went as far as to create portals that will take you to a secret location containing your personalized easter egg.

Unlike the second phase, the third phase was focused on one content area. Participants designed and developed virtual exhibits dealing only with the phases of matter. During phase two of the VHOS project it appears that participants were a bit overwhelmed by the option of selecting any STEM topic of their choice. Too much time was spent narrowing down the focus of their designs and not enough designing. The effects of this can be seen when contrasting a phase two exhibit, which often illustrates a broad concept, with a phase three exhibit illustrating some characteristic feature of a substance transitioning from one phase of matter to another.

Phase 2 Exhibit

Phase 3 Exhibit

As we continue to run camps the VHOS becomes richer with educational experiences which will inevitably lead to the issue of categorizing the exhibits and directing the user/casual visitor in a way that facilitates learning. I’m excited to see where this is leading as there is already a feel of being in a place where someone has been before you, giving the space and how you experience that space siginificant thought.

VHOS Home Level

Hello World! My name is Ray Ferrer. I’m a Digital Learning Curriculum Developer at the New York Hall of Science currently incorporating virtual worlds into the learning experiences here at the Hall. As the Hall’s first endeavor using 3D virtual environments to facilitate learning, I’m excited to report that our first run was promising as an indicator of the type of learning experiences that can be had.

Using an Active Worlds space graciously donated by Cornell University, participants of the VHOS project went through a four-day camp learning how to navigate and build in the environment, research a STEM topic of their choice, learn exhibit design from and expert, and finally design their own exhibits in-world. But that’s not where it ends– in fact that’s not even how it began. Prior to the camp, a team of Explainers (the Hall’s equivalent of a docent) went through a series of AW trainings in order to help  camp participants realize their designs. At the conclusion of the camp participants completed a draft of their exhibit designs. The images included below are samples.

 

Networks

Airpressure

During the week of April 14th-17th, new participants will begin the process of populating the VHOS space with their own exhibit designs while returning participants work on reiterations of their designs as well as help teach new participants the fundamentals (and obstacles) of designing in the AW environment.

The aprenticeship model that we are using has been succesful for the Hall in past programs and I trust that it will be as effcective in virtual environments. I’m eager to see the designs that come out of this project and will keep the readers of this blog posted.

Creating objects and experiences that tell the multifaceted story of the number Pi is nothing less than serious fun.  Now in it’s third year being celebrated by the Exploratorium community in Second Life, and in it’s twenty first year being commemorated world-wide, Pi Day is a unique opportunity to be amazed by the relevance of the ever repeating number yielded by dividing the circumference of a circle by its diameter.   Exploratorium staff and SL community members  have created  unique exhibits that let avatars experience, learn about, and contemplate Pi.  Exhibits on display all month with a special event on Pi Day 3/14/2009 from 1:00 – 3:00 PM PDT on Exploratorium Island and at Sploland.

Pi Day 3/14/2009 in Second Life

On August 1, 2008, the Exploratorium will webcast a total eclipse of the sun as seen from remote Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern China near the Mongolian border.  Our scientists and media development crew will capture dramatic telescopic images of the eclipse, which will be webcast via the Exploratorium’s website and in Second Life. The program will be hosted by Exploratorium scientists Dr. Robert Semper and Dr. Paul Doherty and feature NASA Heliospheric physicist Dr. Eric Christian who will show some of the latest imagery of the sun from NASA’s SOHO and STEREO missions, and explain how the solar wind can impact us here on Earth.

On Exploratorium Island in Second Life, we’ll host an eclipse viewing event featuring the live webcast, interactive exhibits, and music.  You can view the eclipse webcast in the amphitheater on Exploratorium island as well as other sims including Sploland, Spindrift, Nanotechnology, UK Future Focus, Science School, and SciLands.

Avatars watch a total solar eclipse in Second Life

Putting on this event in SL is presenting some different challenges than the first time we brought a total solar eclipse webcast there in March 2006.  It’s a great opportunity to continue to learn about putting on museum events in a virtual world.  I’ll be sharing more details of the event as well as details of those challenges in the coming days.