BD One of the things you were talking about that was very interesting was about the messages of an exhibit; there could be a distinct message but also there were multiple messages. Could you do a little bit more about this message business.
DB
I think, I guess - within that exhibit, part of the thing that makes it exciting is that it has the element of competition. So the message within it is that if you keep on sending your car off the track you're not going to win the competition you know, the, the other person who turns the car, the energy, the wheel slowly and just does the tortoise and the hare approach in that they keep the car going slowly they don't come off the track, they will actually win, compared to the, the other person. So it's sort of real life - ideas - that, that, that makes it stand out within that exhibit because, it's making you think, about all of those different things. You've got a goal that you might want to win you might just want it to go on the track. The great thing about it is that where the track crosses over there's an insulating section and when you turn your handle - the majority of people probably won't sort of link in turning the handle and actually what's happening but it does actually go over a point where it's isolated so the handle's easier to turn all of sudden because there's no load on the generator. If the car comes off the track there's no load on the generator so it's easier to turn, which can relate back to - a really kind of tenuous link but generating in the power station. If all of a sudden everyone turns the kettle on after watching, the football match, generator has to, to turn more to create more energy. And so, so we're not explicitly going to show it as a parallel, but if from a, helper explained that information you wanted to talk about "right ok, turn the handle, spin the wheel, lift the car off. What happens to the handle? Is it easy or more difficult to turn?" So, within, that exhibit you've got, a platform that people, from an explainer point of view can, can do a number of, call them experiments but, you know, we could call them experiences, with that exhibit, that, that really points out the kind of science, behind it. But it's actually there. Many of the kids will, will, find that the car doesn't move because they put it back on the insulating section or they put it the wrong way round, it goes the wrong way. So, but then if they change the direction of turning the handle the car will go backwards.
We could stop with an exhibit design and we could easily say "no you can only turn the handle in one way." And we could put a number of mechanical elements in there to either stop it rotating backwards like a freewheel on a bike. Or we can make it so that if you rotate the wheel in either direction it will actually, the car will only move in say a clockwise direction. We could do that, if we wanted to, but part of the beauty of the exhibit is actually getting that feedback in that, if I do something different other than was, say, originally intended within the exhibit what happens? And that's part of the freedom of, of, within the exhibit.
If the, the wet chemistry exhibit, say is an example of an exhibit that you can't really have that much freedom in because you have to do a number of things to actually get a result and do the experiment. But we tried desperately to add some freedom into it - by having the buttons. And that's why any computer interactive, fails so badly because the user interface is tends to be button based. You've only got one layer and level that you can interact with. And there's only a certain number of ways you can press a button. You can press it quite slowly quite hard most computers don't actually see any difference between the pressure you put on a button so there's not, there's nothing that, I mean the next level with all of that is how, how the user interface with, you know. You see it with drawing pads, you know the pressure that you apply on the pen will alter the thickness of the line on the screen. And so we, we're, we're trying to interface, complicated human beings - with a, very much I think generally, all of us now with a computer sort of idea that you, a digital idea a world of, digitality, see. Is that a new word? ((laughs)). That, that, you do that thing and that thing will happen. You click there and it will save a document, you know. That's the kind of way that we're going. It's not that way in an exhibit that's got all the physical, physicality of being able to do different things.
So hard to brainstorm really hard to get a group to sit down and design and think about. Really hard to evaluate because different people will - many people won't pick up any of it. But certainly a huge number of people will know that they need to put the car in the right track - so it's the right circuit - effectively. They need to actually turn the handle in the right direction. If they turn the handle in the wrong direction, it might be an informed view that most people are going to turn the handle clockwise. They will turn it clockwise whatever you do. We could wire it up so you walk up to the exhibit and you turn it clockwise and the car goes backwards. If, if, if you designate, the idea of the track I'm willing to bet after a while everybody will be turning the handle clockwise and everyone will put the cars on the other way and get it to run round in the other direction because that's, that's, kind of what we do. Was that?