The Austin Children's Museum came to us with a rough sketch of a three-story playscape that would give young children a sense of Austin's history while playing games and having fun. Our goal was to make the network ubiquitous and embed the I/O in the playscape so that the electronic media could be smoothly integrated with the rest of their primarily kinesthetic experience. Upon entering the TimeTower, children crawl through the inland sea and make their way between life size mammoth bones to get to the capture tunnel, where a full-body image of each child is routed to the other computers in the tower. On the first floor, bamboo binoculars focus on scenes containing prehistoric beasts in size proportion with visiting children. A 52" billboard display broadcasts the scenes inside over the rest of the museum gallery.
In a wood framed LCD with other print photographs on the 2nd floor parlor wall, children see themselves in and among notable figures from Austin's history. Here's a visitor with the Tonkawa Indians.
Through a cutout in the 12" x 12" scaled-up computer chip plugged into the floor of the 3rd level, children see themselves and their friends speed through the circuitry of a modern Motorola microchip.
Looking through a hole in the 1st floor cave wall with bamboo binoculars, children see themselves in proper size relation with a number of prehistoric beasts from the Austin area. Here's a visitor with a Triceratops.
MONKEYmedia principal, Janna Buckmaster Bear, at the construction site testing size and placement of the 52" billboard screen over the museum gallery. Today, the gallery billboard displays animated sequences of chroma-keyed historical events going on inside the tower to visitors throughout the rest of the museum.
Austin Children's Museum Web Site