The Future Is Exciting

My final exam was yesterday.
I am no longer a student.


This is a very strange feeling for me - everything academic I've done for the last four years will be summarised in one grade, and there's nothing more I can do about it.  I should find out that grade in late June (I think).


I know I started this blog specifically to talk about one of my coursework modules (see the intro blogpost here) but I like the idea of having a space online to talk about things I find interesting and what I've been doing so I shall continue to write as and when I have something to say.  I considered beginning a new blog, a fresh start, but I'm proud of the project I handed in and I don't want my first attempt at a blogging history to be completely forgotten (plus I like the name and don't have any other ideas for a new one!).

On that note, if anyone wants to see the finished exhibition I designed (or any of the surrounding information) then drop me an email on mwhewell15@gmail.com.  I'll post about my results when I get them, but I don't want to upload my actual coursework online at least until it's been marked.

So, what am I going to do with my time now I don't have coursework or revision to do?
The next two weeks I have given myself completely off (although seem to have planned lots of fun things already!) and on the 31st May I go back to ROG as an education volunteer.  I say "go back to" because I spent three months there last summer and it was amazing.  This time I'm only going to do three days a week so I have time to look for paid work as well, but I will be doing more public based work - I'm very excited about giving planetarium shows!  I'll also be spending time with their digital department, helping mainly with the Astronomy Photographer Of The Year competition (APOTY) which I'm looking forward to a lot - nothing which involves astronomy and photography could be boring!  This will all be for June and July and once August comes hopefully someone will be paying me to talk about stars...
Who knows where I'll be or what I'll be doing after that!


The future is exciting!

Ongoing...

I haven't been updating this much recently but I have been working on content, both the text/image based graphics and the interactive side (as discussed in my previous blog post).  Besides enjoying the general process of choosing and summarising information I am learning a lot about Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.


In other news, the real Impact exhibition at the ROG opens in under a fortnight.  I'm sure it'll be great and well worth the walk up the hill, especially as it's in the part of the site that is remaining free entry.

Impact Calculator: Input and Output Alteration Ideas

Output Screen

Since my previous blog post about this Impact Calculator I have been considering how to make it more suitable for an exhibition.  Specifically, the output screen doesn’t give an immediate sense of scale of any devastation and while the more detailed areas contain useful comparisons like “Glass windows will shatter” and "Standing motor cars rocked noticeably".  I can’t imagine many people standing in a museum would go through all those pages, but the comparisons made on the detailed output screens would be more interesting and relevant to most museum visitors.

“Glass windows will shatter”

"Standing motor cars rocked noticeably"

The input screen could also be improved for this purpose.  I like that the information you are asked to decide upon is generally given as choices, but I feel the differences between those choices could be shown in a clearer way.  For example, when choosing the diameter of the impact object three different units are used (km, m, ft) which is especially misleading as they are not put in a relative size order (eg smallest to largest).  Giving an example of an object for each size is a good comparison to have but I think the numerical value distracts from this, especially with the confusion of different units.

I think the impact angle parameter is done well, as the on screen image changes when the parameter is changed, although ideally I’d like to be able to move the image as well as the sliding tool.

The same on screen image changes when the impact velocity is altered.  Again I like the visual representation of altering the parameters but the problem I have with this particular parameter is the lack of reference to any real life experience of velocities.  This is mainly a problem because the units are km/s or miles/s and they obviously have a significantly different numerical value than the same velocity in the more commonly used units of km/hour or miles/hour.  For the context I am imagining for this interactive I believe it would be more effective to give five or six choices of velocities by comparing them to modes of transport (eg passenger planes) instead of using numerical values with unfamiliar units.

The final part of the input screen I would like to alter is the “Distance From Impact” parameter.  I think having this as a free choice for the user isn’t informative enough when there is no indication of the range of answers that could give interesting results.  Obviously the type of impact object and strength of impact drastically alters the range of distances from impact that different effects take place, but I feel that within a museum context the different scales of impact effects could be demonstrated more fully by restricting this to three or fewer distance choices.

I do like the overall style of this impact calculator and especially the animation of an asteroid getting closer to Earth that plays while the calculations are being made.  I hope that by designing possible improvements along the lines I have outlined above it can become more suitable to be used as an exhibition interactive.

Asteroid Impacts on TV

I have watched a few documentaries/videos as research into how the topic of asteroid and comet impacts has been previously presented to the public.  I shall briefly discuss them all together here, instead of an individual post for each.

“Asteroids: Deadly Impact”; National Geographic Society (NGS); 54 min 26 sec; 1997

“Asteroids: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly”; Horizon; BBC; 58 min 51 sec; 22 Jan 2011

“The Asteroid Apophis: What You Need To Know”; Tony Darnell; youtube.com; 6 min 15 sec; 10 Feb 2011

The Horizon and NGS documentaries were similar in the sense that they both chose one particular scientist’s work to follow throughout the programme, using that story as a basis to come back to after deviations into different aspects of impact science.

Horizon followed Prof. Dave Jewitt’s work; starting with his fascination for all things asteroid related, travelling via NASA AMES research on impact craters and how the Minor Planet Centre collates information on all known objects that could be an impact threat, to Jewitt’s discovery of evidence for water ice within the asteroid belt and therefore the possibility asteroids could have been a significant factor in creating the water-filled Earth as we know it today, before finally finishing with the idea that huge impact effects on Earth could be caused by much smaller asteroids than we previously thought a threat.

The NGS programme tracked Dr Eugene Shoemaker as he developed his love of the Moon and its craters, and therefore impact hazards in our Solar System.  This led them to cover Meteor Crater in Arizona, the Apollo missions, systematic searches for hazardous asteroids/comets, Chixculub Crater and comet Shoemaker-Levy 9’s collision with Jupiter, before concluding that impact hazards are a significant worry for human survival on Earth but are also the only natural disaster that in principle we could prevent.

Both of these programmes ended by leaving the emphasis on ‘an impact could be devastating for human life on Earth’, while implying that more scientific work could be done to identify specific threats or develop methods to protect our civilisation.

The final video is from youtube rather than TV, therefore quite a different style.  It is significantly shorter than the others (6 minutes instead of an hour) and describes the facts and theories without personalising the scientists who discovered or developed them, as opposed to Horizon and the NGS programme.  The topic of this video, the asteroid Apophis, is a good case study to show the role of probability and uncertainty in orbital calculations, as well as the gravitational effects that Earth itself can have on these bodies.  I also found it interesting to note the name Apophis relates to the adversary of the Egyptian sun god, Ra, and has meanings including darkness, non-being and un-creator.  This was the only reference (certainly the only one I noticed) in any of the programmes I’ve just discussed to cultures other than modern Western life in relation to asteroids or comets.  Even though this reference was only in the explanation of a name, I think it hints at the far wider range of discussions that can be had about meteorites and comets, their appearances and any impacts caused, in terms of their interpretation by cultures other than our own.  I’m not sure the exhibition I’m designing now will have enough space for this type of discussion, but it is an interesting point to keep in mind nonetheless.

Content Ideas

I have been thinking more specifically about the content of my exhibition this week, so have drawn a spider diagram/mind map of possible content directions.  This is by no means a final set of content themes, or a completely exhaustive list of ideas, I simply wanted to set out general areas worth doing further research into.
I think I shall be setting out the exhibition in terms of three or four areas within the general impact theme, and the overall message will be "The Impact of Impacts" (title to be confirmed - I might think of something better!)
This is the diagram of subject areas I came up with from my general knowledge of the subject.  Apologies for the few words written in green being difficult to see.

 

Impact Earth (Disaster Calculator)

While I was looking through a National Geographic blog I came across an online tool which calculates how much damage an asteroid impact would do to Earth, based on various parameters describing that impact.  It was developed by Purdue University and Imperial College London.

I'm thinking about using this (or something like this) as an interactive feature in my exhibition design.

Science Museum Lates

Last Wednesday I went to the Science Museum Lates event. This is an over 18’s event that happens on the last Weds of every month, with a different theme each time – this month’s theme was “The Science of Attraction”.

The event as a whole was very enjoyable (I particularly liked the Bubble Show, which they usually present to children), but I was really there to look around the “Exploring Space” gallery while there were no kids and generally less people in the museum.

I haven’t been to this particular gallery for a few years and I was disappointed by the Science Museum’s website only recommending spending 15 minutes there.  It seems to me that there’s a lot of interest in space exploration and astrophysics and the suggestion of 15 minutes implied very little of this would be covered.

Overall the gallery was relatively interesting, but focussed very much on the exploration and engineering of space travel with much less about the science discovered on these journeys.  In fact the most information on the nature of space was contained on quite badly lit display boards as you got into the gallery.  I assume the light level is either to do with conservation of some of the objects on display or as some sort of reference to the darkness of interstellar space, but it did impede my enjoyment of the area.  I did think the model of the Earth mapping various natural phenomena and the concentration of man made lights at night was very well done.  I liked the perspective it gave on our Earth as we looked at it from an outside point of view.

Part of the "Who Am I?" gallery

There was a distinct lack of interactive features in this gallery, especially when compared to the newer “Who Am I?” and “atmosphere” galleries (both pictured).  I’m sure there are a lot of options, even in keeping with the focus on exploration rather than scientific discovery, for example perhaps simulators where the visitor could land some sort of spacecraft or rover on the surface of various solar system bodies and compare the effects of different atmospheres and gravities.  If you can drive a tube train in the London Transport Museum you should be able to pilot a spacecraft in this part of the Science Museum.

The "atmosphere" gallery

I do very much like the Science Museum as a place to visit but I feel the “Exploring Space” area could be improved.  There are so many exciting parts of space (stars, comets and galaxy interactions to name but a few) that I feel it’s a shame our national Science Museum doesn’t explain much about them, especially considering that research in many areas is happening throughout British universities (such as here, here and here – and that’s only looking at UCL).