One of our latest projects was Professor Pennypickle’s lab for the Temecula Children’s Museum. The project was designed and implemented in conjunction with Thinkwell, and what a nice result.
The concept was to create a room with interactives for children from 4 to 8 years old (we caught some very much older folks having fun with it…).
We started out with a 13′ wide by 8′ high moving gear wall, very much like a huge clock (the hands turn, obviously both running in opposite directions), with a “Sit and Spin” exhibit where kids sit on a small platform and when they spin around its hub, they activate gears within the wall that features a small generator (a coil with some magnets on a gear with a current meter showing that electricity is being generated), and a compass (to show that the magnets moving around on the gear are in North-South and South-North configuration). There is also an oval and a square gearset that kids can rotate to see some unusual shaped gears work together, with the square gear activating a bellows with a train horn through a set of partial gears. Simple fun.
Professor Pennypickle has an assistant, his capable mouse Beaker, who himself has an IQ of over 180; we recreated Beaker’s lab where he is working on a … hmm, that must be a time machine! There is also a morse (mouse?) code interactive that allows kids and courageous adults to use a morse key to ask Beaker questions, as well as one of our “MovieViewers” that lets visitors see Beakers house from the inside by rotating its dial. Beaker’s house was created in a number of modules, each designed and assembled by museum volunteers.
A pachinko machine, made from what must be the Prof’s old tools, is used to test gravity, and simple interactive pulley mechanisms show that he must be thinking about gravity in some detail.
A much earlier project required us to produce a Peppers ghost that was based on a model of the Temple of Apollo at Pompeii. We had one artist impression of the temple, and found some archeological information on the internet, and that was about all.
First of all, we started building a 3D model of the temple in 3D Studio Max, and once we had the basics together, our 3D printer was used to generate a fully detailed model of the model that was to follow. This model, shown below, was used for customer approval, and they found a handful things that had to be changed before the real thing was manufactured.
This model took about 8 hours or so to print; the real thing, which measures 36″ deep by 24″ wide and about 18″ high, took many, many more hours and had to be printed in chunks which were then assembled together before being detailed and painted. Modifications included the addition of a second floor to the gallery on the sides and rear of the temple, and a handful or other details that just had to be right for the resulting exhibit to work.
Once we had the “real thing” together, we mounted it into its case, and then the filming was done at our shop while we were looking at the resulting video in the peppers ghost so that we could see that the actors were pointing in the right direction. This kind of thing requires a lot of careful coordination.
Another new project we are working on requires that we make some gears (actually – more than a few). This movie shows us creating a 4 foot diameter wooden floating gear (the finished outer gear has teeth on the inside AND on the outside) with 3 planetary gears, using our waterjet cutter. It’s all wood, and it is interesting to think that we’re building things that would have been built in the middle ages (wooden clocks, effectively!) but using the very latest in manufacturing techniques to get there.
This tool starts off with a CAD file generated on a PC (wouldn’t those cathedral builders in the 1500s have loved to have had one of those) using a 50,000psi beam of water with some garnet (sand, basically) to cut through just about anything – you’re looking at the only tool that can cut through the armor on an Abrams tank. We normally use this unit to cut through metals, but with an accuracy better than 3 thou, it is obviously the ideal tool for this project too.
We’ll post more images and movies as we get further into this one, it really is a fun project. Watch this space!
The cutting we’re doing here is unusual, in that most cutting is done with the object under water; however, wood floats, and it would release and come to the surface as soon as it is released. We also try to keep the wood from getting too wet, so cutting it above waterlevel is a lot better.
One of our “odd” projects – we needed to ignite a miners lamp, and most of these lamps have problems with the flint mechanism that was originally used to ignite them. Mad to the rescue! We removed the flint mechanism and exchanged it for an electrode. Modifying the wick so that there is a discharge to the case, we found a box, water jetted some components, and assembled a mechanism that the lamp fits on, and allows the taser to operate and generate sparks to ignite the lamp only when the lamp is on the base. This means no one gets tasered, and as many lamps can be ignited as can be found – the flint is no longer a required tool. Obviously this is not approved by the ministry of mining for use in gaseous environments…. but it solves a problem for our client.
Mad’s 3D printer (”rapid prototyping machine”, to use a mouthful), can print objects in ABS plastic from a 3D file such as may be generated from 3D studio Max. This shows the printer at work. It lays down 6 thou layers at a time using the white ABS material, while filling any voids with the brown “support” material. This brown material is fairly fragile, and can be partially broken out, before the entire unit is dunken in a bath of a sodium hydroxide solution where all the brown is dissolved.
This is the “finished product” as it comes out of the printer, and you can see that this is just a single piece, built on top of a layer of support material.
The adjustable spanner we’re producing here is made in one part, but once all the support material is gone, the three actual parts (the handle, leadscrew and moveable section) separate out, and you end up with a fully function tool as shown below.
Mad Systems loaded up another system on Friday 6th November on its way out to a job. Watch this page for updates once this new and quite incredible gallery opens!
oh – and yes, this was edited a little from the original form, as there were some moments that just needed a little enhancing.
The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago opened their latest exhibit gallery, “You the Experience” on the 8th of October 2009. Mad Systems are proud to have provided all the AV design, infra-structure and equipment for this equipment. Another cutting edge PC based system, the “You” system comprises well over 100 computers, which are all networked, and all available over a secure remote link to our office, so that we can assist the client with remote maintenance of the system – Mad can access and control all of the computers in the system. Split over 3 phases and 2 control rooms, the 14 racks of equipment are linked and controllable from one of three housekeeping stations. Three cameras are also included in the system so that a real time link between exhibit technicians on site and at Mad Systems can look at the status of the system.
