Open Forum

Hi all,

Some colleagues and I are toying with the idea of creating an interactive activity using modified legos and colored water to teach visitors about microfluidics (the science of manipulating fluids at small scales, which is used in medical technology for things like capturing circulating tumor cells to asses whether a cancer is metastasizing). This is based on a technique that's actually used for prototyping. The activity would be geared for all ages, with different levels of complexity and intended takeaways depending on the audience.

When I picture legos and water in a museum activity, I picture a larger science museum or a children's museum, with a dedicated area for this, plenty of space to get messy, maybe a water table with deep sides, maybe some child-sized smocks, some anti-slip mats on the floor, and work surfaces of different heights. That's... not us. Depending on where we put the activity, we have up to a 2 ft x 5 ft x 28" table or smaller, with room for chairs around it and some space to stand around it. We are prepared for some legos ending up on the floor, some going missing, etc, and we don't have any historic artifacts nearby that we'd have to worry about getting wet (although we do have some historic artifacts elsewhere in the room), but we need to figure out what we'd be getting ourselves into and how to prepare. We have under 50 visitors a day in the slow season and 100 - 150 a day in the busy season, and the gallery is staffed but this particular activity won't be specifically staffed. I would love input on:

• What do we need to do to make a legos and water activity safe and comfortable for visitors -- can we get away with just cleaning up spills as they happen, or is some kind of anti-slip mat or carpet a must?
• Your experiences, the good, the bad, and the weird, with free-play type interactives in small or awkward spaces
• Any resources you can recommend

Thanks very much!

------------------------------
Tegan Kehoe
Exhibit and Education Specialist
Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation
Boston MA
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Tegan: Take a look at the National Mississippi River Museum in Debuque, IA. The Splash Zone exhibit, to me, was the success storys for using water in a museum environment. https://www.rivermuseum.com/all-exhibits#item=425646 . That said, I do not know if the curators have any lessons learned from this very fun exhibit. I'd reach out to them.

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Linda Sinnwell
Exhibit Design/Coordinator
Sacramento CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-21-2018 10:15 AM
From: Tegan Kehoe
Subject: Containing the chaos in a legos + water activity?

Hi all,

Some colleagues and I are toying with the idea of creating an interactive activity using modified legos and colored water to teach visitors about microfluidics (the science of manipulating fluids at small scales, which is used in medical technology for things like capturing circulating tumor cells to asses whether a cancer is metastasizing). This is based on a technique that's actually used for prototyping. The activity would be geared for all ages, with different levels of complexity and intended takeaways depending on the audience.

When I picture legos and water in a museum activity, I picture a larger science museum or a children's museum, with a dedicated area for this, plenty of space to get messy, maybe a water table with deep sides, maybe some child-sized smocks, some anti-slip mats on the floor, and work surfaces of different heights. That's... not us. Depending on where we put the activity, we have up to a 2 ft x 5 ft x 28" table or smaller, with room for chairs around it and some space to stand around it. We are prepared for some legos ending up on the floor, some going missing, etc, and we don't have any historic artifacts nearby that we'd have to worry about getting wet (although we do have some historic artifacts elsewhere in the room), but we need to figure out what we'd be getting ourselves into and how to prepare. We have under 50 visitors a day in the slow season and 100 - 150 a day in the busy season, and the gallery is staffed but this particular activity won't be specifically staffed. I would love input on:

• What do we need to do to make a legos and water activity safe and comfortable for visitors -- can we get away with just cleaning up spills as they happen, or is some kind of anti-slip mat or carpet a must?
• Your experiences, the good, the bad, and the weird, with free-play type interactives in small or awkward spaces
• Any resources you can recommend

Thanks very much!

------------------------------
Tegan Kehoe
Exhibit and Education Specialist
Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation
Boston MA
------------------------------