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| Kayseri Science Center, Turkey |
Last year February I took a fixed term position at the Exploratorium to engineer and build exhibits for a new science museum opening in Kayseri, Turkey. Turkish government have a policy in place where the designers had to be different from the builders to stop corruption. The appearance of the museum and exhibits were design by Northern Lights from the Netherlands and engineering and building would be done by the Exploratorium.
Brine Shrimp and Photosynthesis Exhibits:
These two exhibits utilized similar water tanks each with a slightly different conditions.
The brine shrimp needed cooled and still water with very little light and the photosynthesis exhibit need occasional circulation with intense grow lighting. The challenge of these two tanks where to fit the required components under the top cap while follow the appearance dictated by Northern Lights.
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| Design drawings for approval. |
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| Finished Photosynthesis Exhibit undergoing burning and testing |
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| LED grow lighting system |
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| Brine Shrimp Exhibit undergoing burn-in and testing |
Ferrofluid Discs Exhibit:
At Ferrofluid Discs, visitors use a magnet to create intricate designs in a thin layer of Ferrofluid, a liquid containing small particles of iron oxide suspended in alcohol. The challenge of this exhibit was designing the disc with no visible hardware and work with a offset two post support while dealing with the abuse of the visitors.
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| Final design drawing for approval. |
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| Disc assembly drawing |
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| Magnetic patterns in the ferrofluid. |
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| Completed Ferrofluid exhibit |
Tornado Exhibit:
The Tornado exhibit creates air movements with the combination of a large fan at the top and air blowing out the tubes generating a vortex. The vortex can be seen when the mist from the fog machine is caught in this air movement. There were two major challenges with this exhibit.
First challenge was the initial design concept from Northern Light, which was intended as a passage way in and out of the area. This concept would have had issues with the stability of the vortex and had a poor user experience.
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| Initial design from Northern Light |
To demonstrate this I built a mock-up in the Tornado exhibit and made a video convince the Kayseri officials as changes to the design were a big issue for them.
Second challenge was the height of the exhibit, the design called for a 10m(33ft) high exhibit. The building itself was 11.5m to the ceiling and the exhaust from the exhibit would hit it and cause drafts that would blow out the vortex. If the air were to be exhausted outside, then the HVAC system would have to replace the large amounts of air which would also generate drafts. In addition to these issues there was no where at the Exploratorium to build it to that height. After discussion with the Kayseri officials we compromised to build it at 7.3m(24ft) with extentions to raise it to 30m to be attempted at final assembly in Turkey. In the end the 30m height did not work and the exhibit was lowered, but even at the lower height, this is still the largest Tornado Exhibit the Exploratorium has built to date.
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| Final design drawing for approval. |
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| Baffle design drawing. |
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| Initial construction at the Exploratorium. The lower height of 7.3m(24ft) was needed inorder to fit inside of the building. |
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| Assembly at 10m(33ft) extended height at Kayseri Science Center. The tornado was only able to form once at this height and attempts at tuning were unsuccessful. |
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| The Tornado Exhibit was brought back done to the 7.3m(24ft) height and worked right away. |
