At-Home Activity

Summer 2020

This activity is the right blend of digital+tactile that lets you take advantage of your smartphone (without letting it disconnect you from the world around). It is really simple. Adhering a tiny laser pointer lens to your phone camera can turn it into an ultra magnifier. It is not quite the same high resolution you might get from a laboratory microscope, but it is enough to make everything you look at curiously unfamiliar.

I co-created this stick-on lens technique in 2017 as part of the Digital Experience Lab where we tried so many things - testing and curating sets of materials to present for different audiences. I have been asked to do this demo/workshop repeatedly for co-workers, teachers, board members and public events.

Since the mini-scope activity is one that I have been iterating on for a few years now, it naturally came to mind as an at-home actiivty when the museum closed due to Covid.

GOAL:
This activity is close to my heart. I have watched people's reactions of surprise and I have become obsessed with everything micro. The goal has always been to bring microscopy-like experiences to more people and more audiences. This time, the challenge was to reach people at home during lockdown.

The marketing department was hungry for content to reach museum members at home. I created a prototype and mailed it to stakeholders at home to iterate and communicate the idea.

The activity was added to the website in 2019 as part of our "Science Snacks" (see Cell Phone Miniscope) so I designed a QR code to put on the brochure which was mailed along with a lens and poster tack.

OUTCOME:
The mailer prototpye was incredibly well received. Marketing ran a small campaign (a few hundred) to family level membership holders to encourage fundraising and membership renewals. It was a hit among members and marketing leadership and a holiday campaign was also developed to keep audiences engaged while we continued to be closed.