Both Laura and I defend next week, which is why the blog has been a little quiet of late. So, hopefully, it’s the end of our dissertations, and the beginning (or really, continuations) of careers working to create fun and engaging science learning opportunities for all. We both came into the program with a lot [...]
Tag archives for design
“Make it work” in the FCL Lab
If you’re a fan of “Project Runway,” you’re no doubt familiar with Tim Gunn’s signature phrase. He employs this particularly around the point in each week’s process, where the designers have chosen their fabrics and made at least their first efforts at turning their design into reality. It’s at about this time in the process [...]
Holding us “accountable” – jargon board introduction
A reader just asked about our post from nearly a year ago that suggested we’ll start a “jargon board” to define terms that we discuss here on the blog. Where is it?, the reader wanted to know. Well, like many big ideas, sometimes they get dropped in the everyday what’s in front of our faces [...]
Bits and Pieces
-A simple hex map -A bag of small rocks -Two dozen tiny plastic dinosaurs -Two 20-sided dice -Nine six-sided dice -100 poker chips Deme‘s trial form is just about ready to emerge—marsupial-like—to finish its gestation outside the warm pouch of my imagination. Since its dramatic overhaul last year, the core concept has been consistent: a [...]
More prototyping at the wave tanks…it’s lego-tastic!
This past week at HMSC, we have been getting back to my old favorite – exhibit design and prototyping. Katie and I have been planning the prototype of the video booth that will go in to the new wave tank area, which is intended to capture visitor reflections when they test out their wave-resilient lego [...]
Exhibit or research platform?
Our climate change “exhibit” is rapidly losing its primacy as an exhibit on which we do research to instead becoming a research platform that we set up as an exhibit. The original plan was to design an exhibit on a multitouch table around climate change and research, among other things, how users interact and what [...]
“Board games by the numbers” (From The PA Report)
As I gear up for Deme‘s first play tests, I find it useful (if intimidating) to look past the initial design phase to what its future might hold. If I choose to publish Deme as a boxed-and-ready board game, I’ll have in mind Ben Kuchera’s recent piece for the Penny Arcade Report. Kuchera interviewed James [...]
With their shovels slung behind them
Source: Uploaded by user via Free-Choice on Pinterest We spent this morning doing renovations on the NOAA tank. We deep cleaned, rearranged rocks and inserted a crab pot to prepare for the introduction of some tagged Dungeness crabs. NOAA used to be a deep-water display tank with sablefish and other offshore benthic and epibenthic [...]
The Juggling Act of the IRB process
I want to talk today about what many of us here have alluded to in other posts: the approval (and beyond) process of conducting ethical human research. What grew out of really really unethical primarily medical research on humans many years ago now has evolved into something that can take up a great deal of [...]
Prompting Reflection
As the lab considers how to encourage STEM reflection around the tsunami tank, this recent post from Nina Simon at Museum 2.0 reminds us what a difference the choice of a single word can make in visitor reflection: “While the lists look the same on the surface (and bear in mind that the one on [...]