Drawing Conclusions

From the desk of Kim Gough, Program Developer at the Royal BC Museum

What is that expression – “a stitch in time saves nine”? With that in mind, we tested kid’s interactives for Behind the Scenes back in May. During that time I had put out a different specimen in a case everyday and invited kids to draw or write about it. As I suspected, a fair number of kids participated in the activity and proudly posted their pictures.

When we installed the activity in the AmusEum – the children’s gallery in the Behind the Scenes exhibition – instead of inviting kids to draw an actual specimen, we installed a light board and a stack of laminated images for them to trace. Enthusiasm for this activity went through the roof! More magnets had to be made for the kids to post their pictures and I was off to the printer to get more templates copied.



Is it the lure of the light board that attracts them? Is it the act of tracing vs. drawing? Or is it the opportunity to hang their picture in the museum gallery? It is also interesting to look at the images they are copying and to see what is popular. Kids can choose from fish, fossils, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, mammals, insects and flowers. The most popular so far? Scroll down to see…

…you might be surprised.

Invertebrates! Shells to be exact. I know, weird huh? A close second is mammals – the bear in particular, and in third place reptiles – especially turtles and snakes.



I am very pleased with the activity, not just because of the high volume but because kids are slowing down and looking more closely. And because they have the option of tracing or drawing, everybody can do it!

The Mother of Invention

Some places are cool because of the mess. When you step into our basement audio visual workshop, you just know you’re not going to be able to understand what goes on down there… but that whatever it is they do… it’s damned clever.

It looks like that place in Star Wars where the obsolete droids were dismantled for their parts. The place is strewn with circuit boards, wires and computers with their innards exposed. It’s here that invention takes place, or rather where invention is tested. View of the audio visual workshop below:

The moment of invention took place over a morning coffee. We needed a microscope for our upcoming Behind the Scenes exhibition… one that would allow visitors, particularly children, to study specimens – and one that would also allow for more than one person to participate. We could not quite find anything on the market that fit the bill. But a coffee-time discussion between four members of our staff led to a beautiful solution. The Masterminds at coffee below – from left to right: Mark Dickson - Manager of Exhibitions, Ken Johnson - Senior Exhibition Designer, Norm Charbonneau - head Image Management and Technical Services and Nigel Sinclair - Exhibit Arts Technician:

Instead of a microscope, this team imagined that a tiny high definition digital camera linked to a flat screen monitor would do the trick. The camera moves back and forth on a rail over an illuminated box holding the specimens. The whole unit is transportable… which makes it useable elsewhere in our galleries when the current show ends. Prototype of the unit on the IMTS lab bench below:

And once the testing is complete, the unit can be reproduced. In Behind the Scenes, we’ll have seven of these… these… now what should we call it? Anyone want to suggest a name? The almost finished …er …thing being prototyped with visitors below:

Two things stand out for me as I observed the development of the magnifier. First of all, the inventive process was just such a modest, collaborative affair. No great fanfare or eureka moment, just a group of colleagues talking over coffee, bringing their collective experience to the table. If I came up with this idea, I’d be dancing in the street! The second thing that struck me was just how much work was needed to take the idea to completion. Initial prototyping of the technology (camera, lighting and monitor) was followed by the evolution of the mechanical parts of the device: parts were machined, tested with users and then reengineered repeatedly until it worked smoothly without failure.


Tim Willis