Chicago Scenic Parntered with the Museum of Science and Industry to Create an Interactive Exhibit about Sunlight for the Museum's New Exhibition, Science Storms.

Working with the exhibit designer Evidence Design and the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI), Chicago Scenic Studios Inc. (CSSI) developed and built three experiments that relate to Sunlight: heat, electricity, and Newton’s prism. By manipulating replica prisms and mirrors on a control panel, museum guests can convert white light into rainbows that are projected onto 30-foot tall banners. Guests can open shutter doors to reveal solar panels, and convert sunlight to electricity that powers electrical cars. Plus, guests can focus a Fresnel lens on a tray of water to illustrate heat. These exhibits are possible by using a heliostat, provided by CORT, which funnels light from the roof 75-feet above the museum floor.

The sunlight exhibit relies on 13 points of motion to deliver all of the experiments to Museum guests. At the balcony level, there are four guest control stations featuring replica prisms and mirrors that, in turn, rotate the exhibit’s mirrors and prisms. When properly aligned, sunlight reflects off of the mirror through the prism, and splashes a rainbow onto the sails that connect the exhibit’s center ring to the exhibit ceiling.

Due to the dangers of shooting sunlight into the eyes of other guests, the limits of the prisms and mirrors needed to be tightly controlled. Since the rainbows were to be centered on the giant banners, the motors were required to balance off-center loads while moving in small incremental amounts to allow fine-tuning. This was accomplished using motors manufactured by Parker Bayside with additional gear reduction and brakes.

On the first floor of the exhibit, Museum guests can run the Electricity and Heat exhibit components. When running the Electricity portion, guests use a joystick to open and close shutters and reveal solar panels. The solar panels, provided by Silicon Solar, are Thin Film 12-volt, 7-watt panels. Each of the units had two panels, which were able to disconnect and reassemble using five panels per side, wired in parallel. This arrangement provided enough power under either indoor lighting or sunlight to power a 1/32-scale race car on a slot car track. (Two cars and two sets of solar panels let museum guests race cars side by side.)

Once the system was able to provide enough power to charge the cars’ motor coils and overcome inertia, the next challenge was to limit the speed of the cars so that they did not race so quickly that they flew off of the track. Calculations were made to determine how much power was needed at the top safe speed, and a clamping circuit was built that restricted power above that point.

In the Heat portion of the exhibit, guests move a Fresnel lens in and out of focus via touch screen controls. The focal point of the lens is focused on a piece of marble in a glass and aluminum tray, which is covered in water to disperse heat. An infrared camera, provided by Mad Systems, focuses on the tray, monitors the temperatures being generated, and sends a live infrared image to the touch screen so guests can “see” the temperature rise. An SEW-Eurodrive motor at the base of the exhibit turns the four-tray clover leaf so that each subsequent guest can start the heat experiment anew with a cool dish of water.

Parker linear positioners are used to open and close the shutters, as well as to move the Fresnel lens up and down. A Parker Compax Servo Motor Control was used to drive the motors, and a Movitrac B Inverter Drive was used to drive the SEW motor. The company’s CompactLogix software was used for system programming, which included communicating to the museum’s system master controller, maintaining guest safety, and fine-tuning a variety of motion parameters to make the interactive exhibit easy to use.

Chicago Scenic’s Project team included Ross Hamilton, Senior Project Manager, Jean Burch, Project Manager, Rob Kovarik, Project Engineer and Curt Kucik, Electrics Department head, who were collectively involved in the project for approximately two and a half years through initial prototyping and technical development to build and installation. The new permanent installation occupies 26,000 square feet in the Museum’s Allstate Court and reveals the science behind the fury and grandeur of nature.

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