Another one of the company “visits” during this study trip was the Tekniskmuseum, the technology museum in Oslo. Some of installations are completely based around interaction like the “science field” where children can experience science in a fun way, and some are not. Because CreaTe and I-Tech students are focussed on identifying problems and brainstorming a solution we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to apply this to the museum. Here are the results of the assignment:
Bram van Driel & Ben Ligthart
Name of the installation: InfraShock
Installation topics: You have heard it plenty of times: wear your sweater instead of turning on the radiator. Still, the latter option is chosen plenty of times. This increases the consumption of gas, a finite resource of this planet. People are most of the time unaware of the effect it has to put on warmer clothing, since heat is something you cannot see. Therefore, this installation aims to visualize the effects of putting on different pieces of clothing on the containment of body heat.
Exhibition theme: Science Lab
Full explanation:
Original installation
The installation which we will base our assignment on is part of the Science Lab department of the museum. An infrared camera was placed in a semi dark space, the footage of this camera was displayed on a big screen. When walking in front of the camera, the user can see infrared footage of their own body. This will give an insight in the loss of body heat and the comparison between different pieces of clothing and the heat loss. In this small report we will introduce our own interpretation of this installation, furthermore offering additional explanations regarding the SDG’s and the correlation between the curriculum of Creative Technology and Interactive Technology.
How does it work?
A person approaches the installation. They see a big screen with a video camera on top(1), displaying real life infrared footage of themselves(2). An infographic will explain what they see: the redder the body, the more heat is exposed and thus lost. A rack of clothing is placed next to the screen, the user can choose an item to put on their body(3), put it on (4) and see the effect it has on their heat loss(5). These items range from cloaks to caps. Next to the infrared camera displaying the real life footage, the screen offers additional information regarding the amount of degrees you need to put your radiator on to get the same amount of warmth as before(6). This to make the user aware of the impact of putting on warmer clothing.
Connection SDG
Our installation is very much connected to sustainable development goal (SDG) number 13. This SDG is all about taking actions to reduce the effects of humans on the environment. Also thinking about the future, we should change the way we currently live and use the resources the environment provides us. Gas is a finite source and therefore we should learn how to live without it. In the future gas will probably not be a source we can use and therefore lowering the use of it is something that is closely connect to SDG 13. In another way lowering the use of gas to heat our homes also relates to SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities. By using fewer finite sources cities and communities become more future proof.
Connection Create/ITECH
Although most people already know that lowering the thermostat a little bit is good for the environment it is still quite a common practice to walk in a t-shirt in the winter while the thermostat is blowing. CreaTe and Itech is also a lot about conveying a message to the users. In this case we want to clearly show the users of our installation the impact of simply putting on a sweater. Since it is such an easy thing to change we believe that our installation could affect the behaviour of the users.
Imke Verschuren & Sebastiaan van Loon
Installation name: Precious life
Installation topics: Climate change and the universe
Exhibition theme: The installation is based on the planetarium exhibit at the museum
Full installation explanation:
A few billion years ago, perhaps by chance, life started on earth. As far as we can tell earth might be the only planet to sustain life (at least in the area of the universe we are able to explore right now). Just how rare is life in the universe? The balance of elements and properties of the planet have to be perfect. With this installation we want to show visitors just how many different things have to be just right for a planet to sustain life.
We think this is important because the earth’s climate is changing more and more rapidly. For example, energy-related CO2 emissions increased with 6% in 2021[1]. It is important to show people that life on earth is fragile and we should all be working hard to preserve it.
The goal of the installation is to show participants just how strict the conditions for life as we know it are and to hopefully make people aware of the value of all life and the effect we humans are having on our unique planet.
Our installation consists of a giant sphere, which represents a custom-made planet, and a touchscreen display with a pen. On the display the participant can control different aspects of the planet. The installation lets the participant first customise the planet in whatever way they see fit; choosing colours and placing continents using the pen. After this, the participant can play with sliders to assign values to all the necessary components to life (oxygen, water, temperature and others). A list of the other planets in our solar system is also put on the screen once they have made a first attempt, so visitors can compare their planet with the other planets we share a sun with.
An inner projection display (such as the one used for the Furhat robot) will be used inside the globe to display the effects of the customisation and the sliders on the planet. The participant is likely going to fail in making a planet capable of sustaining life, because the values are so precise. Afterwards, participants get to see the statistics and composition of all the planets inside our own solar system and get to tweak their own planet.
[1] “Goal 13 | United Nations SDG’s,” United Nations, 2022. https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal13 (accessed Jul. 18, 2022)
Rachel den Otter & Ilse de Haan
Installation name: finding yourself in the sand
Installation topic: awareness of mental health and well being
Exhibition theme: new telecommunications and data exhibition: I / O
Full installation explanation:
The installation consists of a circular sandbox (diameter 1.5 m) with a circular magnet (diameter 2 cm) inside it. This magnet is moved around the sandbox by a hidden magnet underneath the box to create patterns in the sand, like in figure 1. Besides, there is a led strip on the sides of the circle on the inside to lighten the installation. A sketch of the installation can be seen in figure 2.
Figure 1
Figure 2
A person can stand in front of the sandbox and look into a camera that will track the emotions on the person’s face. Depending on the mood of the person the patterns will change in the sandbox: a happy reading will correlate to a smooth rounded pattern, while an angry reading results in an angular rough pattern. Examples for this can be found in figure 3. The speed with which the magnet moves can also indicate a mood. A faster smooth pattern is a happy mood, while a slow moving ball indicates a sad mood. The LED strip will also give direct feedback to the user on the mood detected. For this we will use the color standards associated to these feelings: yellow for happy, red for angry, blue for sad.
Figure 3
Over time, the installation will display all the emotions of the many visitors that came before, also seen in figure 3. In this way, the installation links to the sustainable development goal of mental health and well being and it aims to make speaking about this topic easier and stimulate talking about feelings.
Awareness for mental health and well being is very important for everyone, especially after a lot of people struggled with this during the corona crisis. The united nations sees this topic as very important since one of their sustainable development goals is; “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”[1]. In the installation AI software is being used to recognize someone’s mood, which isn’t completely accurate yet since the AI will need to use a lot of training to be able to recognize someone’s mood accurately. The technology can recognize the emotion by comparing all types of facial expressions and body clues to each other [2]. This type of technology is being used increasingly, which also results in some ethical questions. Like how much does this invade the privacy of the users? How much racial bias does the product have? How save is it to use this product? [3] All these dilemmas will need to be taken into consideration when creating the installation.
Our installation consists of the following technical components: a camera with emotion AI to read the face’s expressions and decoding it, and a LED strip and servomotors controlled through Arduino. The servomotors are programmed to have three movement patterns while the ball is moving outwards from the middle.
[1] “Goal 3 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs.” https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal3 (accessed Jul. 18, 2022)
[2] “The Value of Emotion Recognition Technology | IT Business Edge.” https://www.itbusinessedge.com/business-intelligence/value-emotion-recognition-technology/ (accessed Jul. 18, 2022)
[3] “AI is increasingly being used to identify emotions – here’s what’s at stake.” https://theconversation.com/ai-is-increasingly-being-used-to-identify-emotions-heres-whats-at-stake-158809 (accessed Jul. 18, 2022)
Floor Lieverse & Tristan van Marle
Installation name: Omnilux
Installation topic: Inclusiveness & diversity
Exhibition theme: ON – TV
Full installation explanation:
The theme of the exhibition of our choice is about optical illusion by using light and colours. Multiple installations were present that explored these aspects. Some installations showed optical illusion with mirrors, while others used different lights to show the effect on different colours and what happens to them. According to us, the general theme for this exhibition is that different optical illusions can create different outputs and can show persons in different ways.
Therefore, the specific topic that we have chosen is that everyone of us is unique and different in comparison to other people. Theoretically, everyone should always been included no matter their race, religion etc. However, this is unfortunately not always the case. According to the US Loneliness Index, 47% of the Americans experience a feeling of being left out. This can be the case for friend groups excluding one specific friend, but also in some cities specific races are being excluded. However, ideally everyone is always included. Inclusion is also closely related to diversity. With the different lenses and colours that can be added to our installation diversity is addressed as well.
The aim of this installation is to show that everyone is different and unique. This is emphasized by using different lenses and colours that make everyone look different on the pictures. With this we also want to show that being different should not be included and that everyone should be included no matter how they look in this case. But they should also be included no matter their race, religion and beliefs.
Finally, the technical details of this installation will be discussed. The idea is to make a kind of photobooth, so a dark room with one white background wall. This wall will be the background for the picture. On the wall opposite from the white wall a camera installation will be placed and a button to take the picture. The camera installation will consist of a camera casing. In front of this casing five different lenses will be place on a wheel, so the different lenses can be selected. The following lenses will be included; a diverging lens, a little diverging lens, a regular lens, a little converging lens and a completely converging lens. These lenses will show the persons in different ways depending on which lens was selected. Furthermore, there are colours to be added to the environment. These will consist of the primary colours; red, yellow and blue. Users will be able to choose the colours by putting in flacons with the primary colours onto pressure sensors in the camera. Secondly, the user will be able to choose how much of every colour they want to be added with the use of sliders.
These colours will then be shown by the use of adjustable coloured lighting onto the white canvas. The combination of these different colours and the different lenses will show everyone that people should be free in who they are and how they want to look.
Anaïsa van Dinter and Kim de Weger
Installation name: Moment Without Power
Installation topic: Power outage (loss of electricity)
Exhibition theme: Power failure (are you prepared?)
Full installation explanation:
The installation teaches the user how to act when there is a power outage. It shows the user how important it is to be prepared for such an occasion.
When you walk up to the installation the user can see a screen with a puzzle structure beneath it (see the pictures below). The screen is surrounded by circles, these represent all the steps that the user must have taken at the end of the interaction. The puzzle pieces consist of different steps the user must take when there is a power outage. The user must move the steps in the correct order. There is an animation playing on the screen that helps and explains things to the user. Once one of the puzzle pieces is in the correct place, the corresponding circle that surround the screen will light up green. If the puzzle piece is in the wrong place the circle will turn red. The animation will act as a guide, and once the puzzle piece is in the correct place the animation will show/give the user some background information.
This is a relevant installation because power is becoming more and more scarce. [1-3] There is an electricity shortage due to the lack of adequate coal supply to thermal plants, and the power demand is rising due to the increase in temperatures. [2]
Due to the above stated causes, this installation helps prepare the people for the future possibilities of more power outages.
This installation will several technical aspects, for example, there are LEDs that light up when a correct connection has been made (powered by Arduino), there is a speaker that plays the sound of the animation and some ambient music, there is a big screen that plays the animation, the puzzle pieces have RFID chips that will check if the correct piece is in the correct place, and many more.
[1] Global Energy Shortage: Why is Everyone Talking About a Power Crunch? – Bloomberg
[2] Power crisis in India: These states facing electricity problems; full list – BusinessToday
[3] Surging electricity demand is putting power systems under strain around the world – News – IEA
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Puck Kemper & Philippe Tuinman
Installation name: STEAM – Steam Train Explaining All Mechanic
Installation topics: Steam locomotive engine explanation, thermodynamics, heat expansion, heat transfer, steam pressure, general mechanics, embodied interaction, and animation.
Exhibition theme: Transportation
Full installation explanation:
Why is this important?
Old techniques or technology might be more easily forgotten now that newer technologies are taking over faster than ever. These new technologies are closer to our everyday experiences since we use similar technologies ourselves, that’s why older technologies might be less interesting than the newer developments. These are speculations of course. What is for sure not speculation is that newer technologies or technological developments are more conceptual than the older technologies we have witnessed in the Transportation exhibit of the museum. Older technologies revolve mostly, if not completely, around mechanical principles with little to no “technology” as we know it involved. The steam locomotive uses no electricity, just coal, fire and water to function. Even though these principles in themselves are more easily graspable than the chips, software and all other things in modern technology, it still is a large machine with complex mechanics, which makes it difficult to understand still. These “simple” mechanical principles are what gave rise to a large industrial evolution, which propelled our society forward by a lot, which is why we think it’s important for younger generations to still understand how this works because the “generation gap” in the old technological development and the new one is becoming larger and larger.
There was seemingly also a natural interest in this big machinery. We saw this while visiting the exhibition. Children had a natural attraction and were excited about the big machines or vehicles and in this case the steam locomotive. Where does this natural interest come from? According to this article [1] that might be based on biology. Learning about rolling and moving things is said to improve the understanding of the 3-Dimensional space which in turn improves spatial reasoning. These furthermore aid the development of important STEM skills.
Our solution?
The benefit of the exhibition was that the sides of the locomotive were already cut open and colour coded to show the inner workings. This only shows how the locomotive is built on the inside, but not how this works. Even we as university students couldn’t naturally figure out how the mechanics were supposed to work, let alone that children will be able to understand it. How we aim to solve this: projections on the parts of the locomotive to show how it works and involving embodied interaction to “act out” the actions that are needed to get the locomotive engine to work. Why embodied interaction? This makes it more understandable as those acts translate directly to visualisations and it makes the whole experience more memorable as well. These interactions will be executed using a variety of components (NFC, potentiometer, LEDs, etc.). We will not go into depth but just explain the general workings.
The user will first need to fill the boiler, which will be done by opening a faucet. Opening the faucet will light LEDs in the faucet indicating that water is flowing. The projection will show the full boiler filling with water (blue light or water animation). Since this was not immediately clear when we looked at the locomotive, we think showing this step in detail will be helpful. Next, the user will shovel fake coal into a fire chamber. They will light a fake match through a matchbox to simulate lighting the coal. The match will glow with red LEDs. The projection will show the fire chamber filling with heat (red light or flames). A fake valve will need to be pulled which triggers a large part of the projection. The steam will be able to flow through the pipes, through the boiler and into the actual engine, engaging the full engine system. The projection will keep animating to show and make clear how this all works together.
[1] M. Oliver, “The Science Behind Why Kids Are Obsessed With Trains,” 29-Jan-2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/science-kids-train-obsession. [Accessed: 18-Jul-2022]
Veronique Kochetov, Feline Waardeburg, Ilse Westra & Thea de Kluijver
Installation name: Release your music
Installation topic: Music: creation and cooperation
Exhibition theme: Musical machines
Full installation explanation:
“Release your music” is an interactive tunnel which you can traverse. During your journey you are on a quest to find out which musical instrument you are. With every step you take, you produce a sound. You are followed by your own colourful shadow. More participants can join who will be represented as different instruments. Cooperate as a team together to create the perfect symphony.
The installation will be created as follows:
The main interaction is based on a Kinect that tracks the movements of the different participants. The tunnel’s walls are marked with musical notes which light up with LEDs when the participant walks past it, which are powered by Arduino. The speakers playing the music are placed on the ground in the tunnel. Projectors are connected at the roof of the tunnel to project the sparkles on the ground following the participant. These are different colours, each colour representing one individual participant/instrument while they are in the tunnel. The participants will be tracked using the Kinect, to make sure the right notes light up as well as the right colour being assigned to each participant. Lastly, a dark hallway forming half a circle will form the base of the installation, with a clearly indicated beginning and end.
The relevance of the installation can be seen in what the participants experience while interacting with the installation. There are two main factors involved: music and cooperation. Music has been proven to have a beneficial impact on health, mood and relationships [1]. Furthermore, music also has the potential to unlock different emotions within each person, and can alter one’s mood [2]. Research has also shown that a “ Movement and Music curriculum promotes social interaction and personal expression while building dance and music skills.” [3]. This specific research was centred around a music programme for children with autism.
The take away from the musical installation is that music both requires and stimulates teamwork. Furthermore, the health benefits as mentioned earlier in the paper will also be a form of education as is fit for a museum installation.
[1] G. Galindo, “The importance of music in our society,” GILBERT GALINDO. [Online]. Available: https://www.gilbertgalindo.com/importanceofmusic#:~:text=Music%20can%20raise%20someone’s%20mood,The%20possibilities%20are%20endless. [Accessed: 18-Jul-2022]
[2] “9 health benefits of Music,” NorthShore, 31-Dec-2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.northshore.org/healthy-you/9-health-benefits-of-music/#:~:text=Research%20has%20shown%20that%20blood,production%20of%20the%20hormone%20dopamine[Accessed: 18-Jul-2022]
[3] S. Statton Gonzalez, “A movement and music program for children with autism,” Taylor & Francis, 01-Apr-2015. [Online]. Available: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23734833.2015.990339. [Accessed: 18-Jul-2022]
Renske Mulder & Hannah Ottenschot
Installation name: Flying through time
Installation topics: Showing airplane engineering of planes through the years
Exhibition theme: Airplane engineering
Full installation explanation:
During our visit to the Norsk Teknisk Museum in Oslo, we got to see many different installations about different kinds of technologies. Many of these installations were interactive and gave (especially children) the chance to gain more information on topics such as gas and oil use, physics, electronics, and many more things in a playful way. There was also one whole floor dedicated to different kinds of motorized vehicles, such as planes, cars, and motors, and how they evolved throughout the years. However, in our opinion, this floor was a bit behind the others. There were no interactive installations, only pillars with textual information. That’s why we came up with a way to show visitors of the museum information about these vehicles, airplanes in particular, in a more interesting way.
The basic idea is as follows: the user is interactively guided through the history of airplanes and gets an introduction to which parts of an airplane can be upgraded in order to make it more modern. Additionally, information will be given on the power, efficiency, and impact on the environment of the plane. This last point ties into the SDGs as well and ensures that the topic is currently relevant, as well as important for the future. Below, this concept will be described in more detail.
The user will be presented with a large touchscreen. On the screen, the model of the Wright Flyer, the first airplane built in 1903, is shown. Textual information is displayed on the history of how this airplane came to be, and what its capabilities were. Afterward, the user is shown where the motor of the airplane is located and prompted to improve it by interacting with the screen. This ‘evolves’ the plane to a newer version, which will be another flagship plane from history. Again, information on the history and the specs of the plane are shown. This continues for a few more iterations, taking the user through the history of airplanes and introducing them to which aspects of a plane were upgraded over time. To guide the user, certain events also take place, such as: the wind is very strong today, so your motor is not strong enough. Or: a new technique has been developed to shape metal into thin sheets, which can be used to improve the airflow of a plane and protect the pilot. The installation will also provide the user with a view on what the future of airplanes will be like, including technologies and techniques that are currently being worked on. The impact of planes on the environment will also be considered in this.
With this installation, we hope to improve the experience of visitors when it comes to the airplane section of the museum. Additionally, we want to focus more on explaining the history of airplanes in a clear overview, as well as showing the specs of these planes. This will give users a better idea of which parts are inside of a plane, and how these evolved through the years. This is important since it is very unlikely that airplanes will leave our daily lives. For this reason, it is important that children’s interest in this topic is peaked from a young age. Additionally, the installation aims to inform the user about the environmental impact of planes, which is a current topic.
