Interview with Heath Whitaker - Concept Development Director

BS One of the terms that's used in a lot of the brochures is the idea that Techniquest is a fun place to come to. Would you see fun as the same thing as playing or how would you describe fun, particularly in the context of what Techniquest is?

HW Generally, playing is aimed towards having fun. I think that, outside, Techniquest or anything in particular, you usually find that, the only fun worth having is the serious fun, is the hard fun, you only get out of things what you put into them. It takes a while to learn that, you know, there, there are no free rides or, what - free lunches, whatever the phrase is. So, we need to use the exhibits and their appearance and the attract modes that we put into them, to bring people to the exhibits so that they get a little bit of feedback, something happens, a little bit of pleasure from the exhibit. Then they like it and they'll do more and they'll build the experience of it. There are things like, you, you can look at the puzzles on the floor where kids'll spend half-an-hour working on the puzzle, rapt in concentration you know, you know the, the state of flow or however you choose to describe it. Exhibits like "Sketching Symmetry" where they just, you know, run the pen over and "Oooh! That, I didn't expect that. That was interesting." And then they start doing things and then they become entrained with it, and they can spend a long time with it.

One of the criticisms of science centres is that the kids go round and press the buttons and don't understand anything and don't spend long enough. If you watch a school group, when they come in first they'll do that, and that's the same mode as forces me to go around the whole of the science centre when it used, you used to have to, science museum, when you had to pay for it, you know, The Science Museum in London, I had to look at every gallery to see if things had changed, because I'd paid to go in there, I was going to get my money's worth. So I turn what could be a quite pleasurable into experience into something quite horrible, making sure I've seen every single bit of it. But, when the kids come in, they're going to make sure they've seen every exhibit, they know everything that's here. Then they go back to the ones that appeal to them and spend, longer at them and get more out of them. You'll see them beckoning their friends over "Have a look at this" and, you know, things, build from there. But the overall impression because these, school parties are arriving in blocks every now and again is of lots of kids moving round really fast. They don't notice the ones who are still on the exhibits and are having the real, real experience. But, talk to kids afterwards, they'll always, they'll point out an exhibit to you, you know, that they, when they, when Techniquest is used as a cross-curricular exercise, you find kids will draw, really accurate pictures of the exhibits. At Heave-Ho they get the number of ropes right, going up and down, it's, it's amazing, not always but, sometimes.