Connect, Royal Museum, Edinburgh
Interactive science and technology centres go in for mysterious names - Techniquest, Launch Pad and Inspire spring immediately to mind. Now there's a new one - Connect. So what is Connect all about? What or who is being connected?
Connect fills the ground floor space between the Royal Museum and the Museum of Scotland, and so literally lives up to its name. It immediately strikes visitors as a vibrant and active area - it was bustling with families on the Saturday of my visit.
Clearly evident are the large objects such as the Black Knight rocket, the Boulton and Watt engine and the Wylam Dilly locomotive, while Dolly the sheep rotates gracefully on one side.
Many science centres struggle with the best way to interpret interactive exhibits and how much information to provide for visitors - some exhibits are intuitive and require little interpretation, but sometimes visitors want to explore a little further. Here, the connections are made quite explicit by placing interactives and objects together in the gallery.
A number of objects and exhibits are arranged within five clear themes: Move It! covering transport, friction and forces; Robots, with Freddie 'the world's first thinking robot'; Me2 where Dolly takes centre-stage; Power Up, with James Watt's steam engine demonstrated; and Blast Off! where space travel is explored.
Tucked away in a corner at one end of the gallery is a small science show area with a regular programme of events. The one I saw was a dialogue between two presenters discussing space travel. It was well attended and the presenters kept the audience's attention by threading together a simple but effective series of facts about life and travel in space, and this was combined with a number of 'wow' effects.
One visitor remarked as he left, 'now I understand how rockets work' - clearly something had connected for him. The show area would benefit from more seats and better signage, as it clearly provided a welcome change of pace for the visitors.
In each colour-coded zone there is something for all members of a family - such as a simple push-along air track investigating friction, or Robot Ships where I had to wait behind a line of five-year-olds for my turn. For adults struggling to answer the question, 'what is a robot?', there was some useful background to hand.
Each zone has an information point that involves a mixture of approaches intended to give more detail about the theme. These include 'talking heads' with a number of provocative opinions and also technical or historical information related to the zone's theme and exhibits.
A wide range of activities are provided - from individual touchscreens, to working with others to generate energy, to watching a science show or adding your views to contemporary science debates. There are a few 'must do' exhibits in Connect including a photo opportunity while sticking your head in a Gemini space suit and a Formula 1 test drive around Scotland. Gallery staff engage with visitors and offer further help.
Connect also challenges visitors to make their own connections - between the information they discover in the gallery and how their own lives have an impact on global issues. By raising such questions it successfully combines challenging viewpoints with providing information, and several exhibits provide opportunities to express one's views by voting on issues.
The touchscreen interactive How Green do You Travel? challenges visitors to consider their own CO2 emissions through their daily transport choices. Another exhibit, about the GM debate, revealed that 62 per cent of visitors thought it was fine to grow a 'vaccine banana' to deliver the measles vaccine to children in the developing world.
Teething problems are inevitable with interactive galleries. A couple of exhibits were not working on the day of my visit - but staff were quick to sort this out and one of the exhibits was soon back in action. The volume levels on the information points are a little variable and the positioning of one or two labels could be improved, but these are relatively minor issues. The website is already encouraging visitors' views and the indications are that visitor research is taking place.
It was not clear to me whether the gallery was intended to link with the other galleries in the museum - but as the museum is currently undergoing a major development programme, this should become more apparent.
One message I did take away with me was that many of the iconic objects on display have strong connections with Scotland - such as Freddie the Robot and the SF-2 Formula 1 racing car from Jackie Stewart's Stewart Ford team. And did you know that Dolly was Scottish?
So did the gallery connect with me? Yes, it did - my only regret is that I didn't take my kids as they would have loved it. Still, it kept the CO2 emissions down.
Alison Porter is a museum learning consultant
Project data
Cost: £1m
Main funders: The Wolfson Foundation, Wellcome Trust
Curators/project management: Frances Yeo, Lyndsey Clarke
Exhibition design: Portland Design
Robot Ships exhibit: University of York
Interactive science and technology centres go in for mysterious names - Techniquest, Launch Pad and Inspire spring immediately to mind. Now there's a new one - Connect. So what is Connect all about? What or who is being connected?
Connect fills the ground floor space between the Royal Museum and the Museum of Scotland, and so literally lives up to its name. It immediately strikes visitors as a vibrant and active area - it was bustling with families on the Saturday of my visit.
Clearly evident are the large objects such as the Black Knight rocket, the Boulton and Watt engine and the Wylam Dilly locomotive, while Dolly the sheep rotates gracefully on one side.
Many science centres struggle with the best way to interpret interactive exhibits and how much information to provide for visitors - some exhibits are intuitive and require little interpretation, but sometimes visitors want to explore a little further. Here, the connections are made quite explicit by placing interactives and objects together in the gallery.
A number of objects and exhibits are arranged within five clear themes: Move It! covering transport, friction and forces; Robots, with Freddie 'the world's first thinking robot'; Me2 where Dolly takes centre-stage; Power Up, with James Watt's steam engine demonstrated; and Blast Off! where space travel is explored.
Tucked away in a corner at one end of the gallery is a small science show area with a regular programme of events. The one I saw was a dialogue between two presenters discussing space travel. It was well attended and the presenters kept the audience's attention by threading together a simple but effective series of facts about life and travel in space, and this was combined with a number of 'wow' effects.
One visitor remarked as he left, 'now I understand how rockets work' - clearly something had connected for him. The show area would benefit from more seats and better signage, as it clearly provided a welcome change of pace for the visitors.
In each colour-coded zone there is something for all members of a family - such as a simple push-along air track investigating friction, or Robot Ships where I had to wait behind a line of five-year-olds for my turn. For adults struggling to answer the question, 'what is a robot?', there was some useful background to hand.
Each zone has an information point that involves a mixture of approaches intended to give more detail about the theme. These include 'talking heads' with a number of provocative opinions and also technical or historical information related to the zone's theme and exhibits.
A wide range of activities are provided - from individual touchscreens, to working with others to generate energy, to watching a science show or adding your views to contemporary science debates. There are a few 'must do' exhibits in Connect including a photo opportunity while sticking your head in a Gemini space suit and a Formula 1 test drive around Scotland. Gallery staff engage with visitors and offer further help.
Connect also challenges visitors to make their own connections - between the information they discover in the gallery and how their own lives have an impact on global issues. By raising such questions it successfully combines challenging viewpoints with providing information, and several exhibits provide opportunities to express one's views by voting on issues.
The touchscreen interactive How Green do You Travel? challenges visitors to consider their own CO2 emissions through their daily transport choices. Another exhibit, about the GM debate, revealed that 62 per cent of visitors thought it was fine to grow a 'vaccine banana' to deliver the measles vaccine to children in the developing world.
Teething problems are inevitable with interactive galleries. A couple of exhibits were not working on the day of my visit - but staff were quick to sort this out and one of the exhibits was soon back in action. The volume levels on the information points are a little variable and the positioning of one or two labels could be improved, but these are relatively minor issues. The website is already encouraging visitors' views and the indications are that visitor research is taking place.
It was not clear to me whether the gallery was intended to link with the other galleries in the museum - but as the museum is currently undergoing a major development programme, this should become more apparent.
One message I did take away with me was that many of the iconic objects on display have strong connections with Scotland - such as Freddie the Robot and the SF-2 Formula 1 racing car from Jackie Stewart's Stewart Ford team. And did you know that Dolly was Scottish?
So did the gallery connect with me? Yes, it did - my only regret is that I didn't take my kids as they would have loved it. Still, it kept the CO2 emissions down.
Alison Porter is a museum learning consultant
Project data
Cost: £1m
Main funders: The Wolfson Foundation, Wellcome Trust
Curators/project management: Frances Yeo, Lyndsey Clarke
Exhibition design: Portland Design
Robot Ships exhibit: University of York
