A Visit to the Science Center

Typography

The Games Exhibit : Typography

The Variations of Type changed through each section and theme that appeared in the Science Center. Above is an image taken from the Games Exhibit section of the Science Center which features stories about the creation of games, playable versions of these games and local games created in St. Louis. The Type displayed in the gaming area focused heavily on neon lights and serif types which displays the retro idea of games as they grew from the early SpaceWars! to the games we see and play in our modern day.

The Grow Exhibit : Typography

Other themes portrayed are like the Grow exhibit of the Science Center which gives the average person a glimpse into the life of farming with a chicken pin, modern day tractor and an exhibit with vegetables and fruits explaining the uses of each. The type chosen for this section, in stark contrast to the gaming exhibit, is decorative with plant like ornamentation stemming off the edges. This seems to be chosen to give a happier, nature feel to the farming exhibit.

The Experience Energy : Typography

Energy is in constant motion, as such is the type for the Experience Energy which portrays bright, shinning colors relative to that of a bustling night club or busy city street. Packed inside this corner of the Science Museum are instruments that give examples and show us how energy is created from Solar power to the creation of Kw.

People

The gaming exhibit presented various forms of gaming medias from the creation of SpaceWar! too Nintendo’s Mario all the way to modern day Vive Pro headsets to let the average person experience the Vive. Included within these exhibits were hubs filled with games from Sega, Dreamcast, and various other gaming consoles for people to play and read about. One of the more substantial corners in this exhibit showed games created by Game Developers here in St. Louis with featured games from my own School — Maryville University.

We attended this exhibit not long after Elementary School kids got out of school and luckily we were able to watch as parents and their children enjoyed the history of Video Games through the day until the science center closed

Certain observations noticed were that people

We attended this exhibit not long after Elementary School kids got out of school and luckily we were able to watch as parents and their children enjoyed the history of Video Games through the day until the science center closed

Certain observations noticed were that people

People Observations

• Enticed, and watched their children as they played games developed and in their prime long before these children were around.
• Taught, and helped their children play games they did not understand or were simply wanting to play such as in the Local area where one could create the game as they played by placing blocks onto a board which put the blocks into the game played on a few iPads located in the corner.
• Classmates of mine as well as myself joined a game of passing a ball from one side of a table to the other using our brainwaves.
• Parents and passerby’s read from many of the informational pieces placed around the exhibit.
• Children circled around areas in which games were being demoed
• The area where a game is shown that tests your response time was largely ignored by Children but engaged by Adults
• Although the VR station seemed to be malfunctioning people still attempted to use them. The video shown was one where the viewer is under the sea watching as sea creatures pass the screen.
• People mostly crowded around the large Mario playing area where the controller was on the floor and you had to use your feet and jump to move and jump in game.

Wayfinding

The Wayfinding System

Despite themes varying from all over the Science Center, the way finding system remained constant all except for the change in the Games Exhibit sign. Accessible and necessary areas were noted in red as seen in the pictures above of the Elevator sign and the Restrooms sign. Locations within the Science Center which includes Exhibits and general areas were done in a standard green. The signs pointed as arrows to the general direction of the area and due to this system, areas were easy to find. The only sign that deviates from this design is the Game Exhibit which is a sign down in black with the Games Exhibit logo done in its Exhibits style.

Interactive Exhibits

There was one interactive Kiosk that was introduced to me by our professor which gave snippets of information about construction and demolition. I thought to myself before accessing the machine — This could be cool. Thinking that a demolition and construction kiosk would feature a game or interactive element in which something is destroy-able like the arch type cubes that are placed in the hallways of the Science Center bridge. Instead I was greeted by a static page with two links — some story and some videos. In the videos section only two popped up. Design should be fun, interact-able and captivating.

Kiosk Observations

• The kiosk’s design was very plain and did not capitalize on its theme of construction and demolition
• There were large amounts of whitespace that were not used wisely.
• Two buttons adorned the main screen
• When the Story was checked into the text fit into the center of the screen and spanned across at least 60% of the screen filling up the useful white space available.
• The Videos popped up after clicking the individual video link but took a moment to load in.
• There were no true interact-able elements besides standard mouse-click elements.

Learning

During a less recent visit to the Science Center (only a few weeks before.) I visited the Game Exhibit for the first time and that’s where I first ran into the game SpaceWar! I didn’t know much about it at the time but I toyed around with the game and then read about how it is technically the first video game to ever be created. The gameplay I later learned has been slightly modified for the Science Center but the way they presented it gave it that old fashioned look that It would have had many many years before when it was created. Within the next week I learned about SpaceWar! and its creation in Video Game History class. The game itself was set to be two player in the museum with buttons to press set in front of the monitor. A panel nearby detailed the point of the game — kill the other player before you both get sucked into the star in the middle of screen. To learn that this game was created on a machine the size of a room was astonishing.

Conclusion

Visiting the Science Center is never a boring experience, especially when classmates and friends are involved. The Science Center has a presence, they create a fun atmosphere for children and adults alike to enjoy science in ways that are innovative and exciting. This trip in particular was fun for various reasons. Stated before, going with classmates is a blast, seeing everyone’s similar or different reactions to different exhibits is interesting, learning together over an exhibit you tinker with is even more so.

At one point we played with an exhibit where the goal was to move a ball into a hop using nothing but hot air to lift the ball up.

In regards to Interactive Applications, I found that a lot of the interactive exhibits that were fun were more game based. There was a sense that something should be done within this exhibits and therefore they were more engaging and captivating. However, the Interactive Exhibits which were just text and video based weren’t nearly as fun as a) either the information wasn’t fun or b) the interactive element of the theme was not captivating. An example of one that was boring was the City Creation and Demolition exhibit which was just three panels in a wall. It was a web page with text and videos which were dull to read and engage in. I learned that Interactive Exhibits need to have a mechanic like games do, they need to be engaging and involve the viewer in a way that they can learn while doing something.