Space Centre Report

Good Exhibit: The space pilot console

AV Elements: It's essentially an arcade game. The user controls a ball-style mouse device, moving a cursor around a smallish, low quality monitor. As a mouse-button-style input, there is a very inviting 'big red button' next to the ball.
When prompted, the user is supposed to use the cursor as the pilot's hand, to press buttons and drag levers on a virtual space shuttles control panel.

How successful were the multimedia elements?

The videogame likeness of this exhibit is probably what drew me to it, and indeed what kept me in 'the zone' for about 15 minutes - the longest amount of time I paid attention to any of the exhibits that day. Similarly it’s the only single-user exhibit I saw with a queue! I imagine it has the same effects on similar aged-guests.

Do I think the interactive elements helped me engage with the information in a new way?
Wow, umm, let me think.
They helped me grasp some of the physics behind piloting a space craft, and what is basically involved in getting a shuttle into orbit. Is this a new way of engaging? It’s better than just reading - and it made a nice change from reading, because there was a lot of reading to be done elsewhere in the centre! Also, I'd never played a realistic space flight game before, so yes; I guess from my point of view, it is a new way of engaging with the information, (if we want to put some grown-up words into it.)

Bad Exhibit: The 'Be an Astronaut' area

Its Problems:

• I thought it was not strict enough with participation - one could easily miss out bits, which at the end, meant you got a crap score. OK, it can't realistically imprison guests until they had done the tasks, like some prison of war concept, but more guidance could have been in place.
• The overall fantasy of going to Eutopia and maintaining your shuttle was somewhat lost by the spotty teenage staff on site: "Orright mate? Jou wanna come froo 'ere or not?" "I am attempting to re-configure your oxygen supply if you don't mind you cretin! ...Oh brilliant were all dead. Cheers." Fantasy lost.
• It would have been nice of everybody could get a personal score at the end of the 'mission'. Which was, admittedly, what they were trying to achieve, but if you missed out bits as I said before, or like me, the state of the art barcode readers failed to recognize you, or see you as worth remembering, you got a crap score or no score at all. Again, fantasy lost, point lost, interest lost.