Project Details
Power of Science is a permanent exhibition at the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science in Miami. The exhibition explores the scientific process across four frontiers: Our Oceans, Our Environment, Our Bodies and Our Universe. We created a suite of media, interactive games, and hands-on exhibits that invite guests to step into the shoes of researchers, explorers and inventors.
Client
Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science
Location
Miami, USA
Sector
Museums & Attractions
Collaborators
Frost Museum, Thinc Design, Kubik Maltbie
The Brief
Create a range of educational and fun exhibitions that explore the scientific process across four frontiers: Our Oceans, Our Environment, Our Bodies and Our Universe.
Our Response
We created interactive games and exhibits that explore the power of science. At the centre of the exhibition space, we worked with Thinc Design to create a three-screen Periodic Table that features all 119 elements. With this digital interactive visitors can select multiple objects, such as the Sun and the Human Body, to see a 3D animation of the overlapping elements that make up both. Smaller monitors on either side invite individual exploration of each element of the Periodic Table. There are Easter Eggs hidden within the Periodic Table. Part of the Ocean display is a rare, preserved Elkhorn Coral specimen. To illustrate the life cycle of coral, we 3D scanned the specimen to projection map the various stages of healthy to dying coral. Visitors can toggle parameters in the ocean, such as temperature and nutrients, to see how this affects the coral’s health. Allowing visitors to explore the ways small changes in our oceans, like temperature rises, can impact the long-term health of these ecosystems.
To illustrate the sometimes extreme weather of the region and the scientific research behind it we created several interactive experiences for visitors. Wild Weather is an augmented reality experience that places the visitor in the midst of a hurricane. Next to this experience is an interactive, multiplayer game for all ages centred around Hurricane Sebastian, a fictional hurricane, which is about to hit Miami’s shore. Players must decide whether to stay or evacuate, as a stream of information comes in from multiple sources and the risks constantly change: Twitter, texts from friends, weather reports, and more. Based on each player’s choices, they find out whether their house survived or not at the end.
“Squint/Opera are delighted to launch this experience for the people of Miami and beyond, and contribute our media expertise to such a universal topic: the Power of Science,” – Holly Houghton, Squint/Opera Managing Director NYC.
Close by is Build Your Own Coastline, a large tabletop interactive, where visitors compete to protect a stretch of the Miami coastline using 3 different elements, mangroves, sea walls and palm trees, within a fixed budget. Over three rounds a giant wave hits, and each time players can choose to reallocate resources and funds to better protect the coastline and save houses, roads, cars and wildlife. Each of these experiences touches on the extreme weather experienced in Miami and aim to educate in exciting and fun ways that are accessible to a range of ages. From unlocking the mysteries of the universe to those inside our bodies, the Power of Science exhibition highlights science as a powerful tool to aid our understanding and help solve problems.
