Thursday, November 27, 2014

25/11/2014 – Let’s get scientific.

We went to our client Science Center Spectrum in hopes of finding someone to talk to about the institution and to see the exhibition. We met a really nice guy who was checking tickets and taking people’s coats and he told us a little bit about the museum. He said that
-          - the majority of guests were school trips
-         -  It’s the oldest science museum in Berlin
           - They don’t really do any advertising, people just show up
-         -  Sometimes they have to send school groups to other parts of the museum complex in order to accommodate everyone
-          - That often times, parents hang out and have a coffee in the cafeteria while the kids roam around upstairs. They also enjoy the car showroom.

After our little chat he promised us to find the team leader for the Science Center and we went to check out the exhibition.
The museum consists of four floors, each with its own theme.
-          Ground floor: Tickets and information, Cafeteria, Lockers, Bathrooms and an adjacent Vintage Car Showroom.
-          1st floor: Microcosmos – Macrocosmos, Light and Vision, Seeing and perception.
-          2nd floor: Mechanics and Motion, Force and Energy, Electricity and Magnetism, Heat and Temperature.
-          3rd floor: Music and sound.

The museum was really cool. There were different interactive experiments set up all around the place with an adjacent description of what you were supposed to do and a little bit of theory about the science involved. One experiment had four colored lasers that you could manipulate with crystals. Another had you push a button and it made artificial lightning. There were pendulum swings to illustrate newton’s laws and a thermal camera just to name a few. They all had one thing in common. They demonstrated some kind of scientific principle, they were interactive and they were very kid friendly.
This led us to believe that the target group of Science Center Spectrum is kids and young teens, along with the people that bring them there, like parents or teachers.

Later we had a short interview with the team leader, which wasn’t all that constructive. He kind of misunderstood what we wanted to do and kept saying that the website wasn’t part of his job and we should talk to some other random person that was nowhere to be found. He did give us an email though, where we could send all our questions and he promised they would send us some information.

The rest of the day we spent making a survey (see later blogpost) and brainstorming a bit about the website. We thought it would be cool if we could
-          - Incorporate the interactive elements into the website. For example we could make a few online experiments which could be a gif or flash animation to illustrate color mixing.
-         -  Use the brand name Spectrum and their logo to make the website really colorful, which would appeal to kids and young people and help strengthen their brand.
-      -  Make each part of the website have its own color scheme. One page could be orange, another red, a third purple, etc… If we wanted to have a picture on the purple part of the site that picture could have a purple tint for example.
-         -  Make a concept where you put QR codes next to the experiments. You could then scan the code with your phone and get more information and theory about that particular experiment.

We also thought about our communication plan. We thought it would be great if you could book an instructor to come to your school or institution and demonstrate some experiments as well as educate the kids on the science behind it. At the museum kids were running around everywhere, pushing all the buttons and almost nobody read the descriptions. We think that it could be a bit more educational and our solution would get the kids interested in science and generate some income for the museum.


When the survey was done we called it a day. 

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