The Carver Discovery Center

Project Details:  A 6,700 square foot interactive science and history museum designed especially for children of various ages.  This was a design-build contract in which Color-Ad partnered with the design firm Exhibit A.  The fabrication phase of the contract lasted from June 2006 through October 2006 and was contracted for $415,335 ($523,391 total with the design fees).

Hands on Interactives:  This project was loaded with low-tech interactives designed for children of various ages.  The designer and museum worked with the local schools to develop a curriculum appropriate for the different grade levels.  Each age range had several interactives designed around their school curriculum.  Color-Ad built a reproduction 19^th century school room, completely furnished with 19^th century reproduction artifacts, which became the orientation area for each class entering the museum.

Kindergartners were able to play with easy to understand interactives like placing magnets on maps.  Slightly older children used interactives like flip-doors, Q & A buttons, spotting scopes, spin games, discovery scopes, and an animal identification diorama.  Older children got involved with more advanced interactives based on writing, interviewing (they got to record themselves interviewing one another and answering questions), selling goods (how to place items for sale in an aesthetic way that could lead to more sales), crop rotation, and recycling.  These examples are only a partial list of the many interactive games that were created to teach and entertain the visiting students.

Work:  Besides the interactives mentioned above, the project included the following elements:  lots of DHPL graphics on various substrates, dioramas, replicated furniture, table top graphics, AV programming and installation, artifact cases, artifact mounting, internal case lighting, and cabinetry.

On a tangential note, we just received a work order from the staff at the George Washington Carver Museum (July 8, 2009) to replace some of their preexisting cases that were not included in the original contract almost 3 years ago.  We believe this is a testament to our working relationship with past clients and the durability of the interactive exhibits we create – we have not needed to repair or modify our exhibits since project completion.

Challenges:  Similar to the Johnstown Children’s Museum, we were given only design documents that described what each exhibit does and how it looks – not how it was supposed to work the way it was described.  These exhibits were less complex than the ones we did for Johnstown, so it served as a good transition into Johnstown.