The novel strategy of open source museum development has borne its first fruit, the Art, Film & Music exhibition which is opening next month.  All six winners from the recent SL to RL competition will be included.  To celebrate, the Tech will host a Summit on Digital Democracy in Exhibit Design on June 4, 2008, the day of the opening.  The event will take place at The Tech in San Jose, and will also be streamed live to The Tech Virtual Museum in Second Life.  Keynote speakers will be Philip Rosedale, Linden Lab founder and Chairman, and Peter Friess, Ph.D., President of The Tech. A panel of leaders from the museum and technology worlds will consider the following questions:

• How can external experts and amateurs play a role in exhibit design?
• How useful are virtual worlds for museums?
• How to build and manage an online community.
• How to foster inter-museum collaboration.

And You, as a member of the Tech Virtual community, are invited!  Remember the date:

On March 31, our panel of judges toured the 31 exhibits in Parkside Exhibit Workshop.  This week, the judges are deliberating on which exhibits will be included in the virtual museum and which will be selected for the $1000 prizes for best SL-only, most educational, best in show, best teen exhibit, and best collaboration.

The awards will be announced on Thursday April 10 at 10am SLT in Parkside Exhibit Workshop.  The teen award will be announced on April 9 at a time TBD.  After that point, winners will have until the end of April to box and prepare their exhibits for inclusion in the museum, and we will ask other exhibitors to take down their exhibits.  The goal is to have a largely open workshop by the end of April when we commence design on future exhibits on new themes... soon to be released!

Thanks to everyone who has participated in the exhibit design so far!

The two latest winners are Richard Milewski's Reprojecting San Jose and Nick Chen's MIDI -- the Golden Age.

Reprojecting San Jose explores the transformations involved in transforming flat photos into a 360 degree panorama. The Second Life prototype allows the viewer's avatar to climb up into a circular display to experience the panorama from the correct point of view. The exhibit also provides the visitor with a kit that includes instructions and a cool panoramic HUD (heads-up display) that makes it possible to take one's own panoramic photos.

Reprojecting San Jose
(click for larger view)

MIDI -- the Golden Age is an exploration of the Music Instrument Digital Interface, a standard that has lasted 25 years and is still going strong. The Second Life prototype consists of five different shapes that represent different instruments and, when touched, change color and play a short sequence of notes. There are also spots that activate several of the instruments at once when touched. In the accompanying text, Nick explains that as a digital interface MIDI can be controlled by many interfaces (including the Wii) besides a keyboard, and can control things besides musical instruments. On the project's Website, Nick includes a video showing how MIDI can sequence and manipulate video clips as well as musical notes.

Both projects are individual efforts by creators who have built their careers at the intersection of the arts, technology and education. This was the first experience of building and scripting in Second Life for both winners, and interestingly both winning exhibits are reworkings of their authors' earlier attempts.

Richard Milewski (Richard Blackhawk in Second Life) is a San Jose-based photographer and technologist. Richard's photography Website is Studio San Jose, where he specializes in panoramic photographs of urban scenes. The former InfoWorld Editor-in-Chief wears many other technology hats as well. He serves as Chief Technology Officer for the Greaves Group, a K-12 educational consultancy, and is principal of RamPage Publishing and AVWX.net, which provide cellphone access to weather maps and data for civilian aviators.

More Judging

There will be another round of judging on Monday, March 31. Actually two rounds, by two different processes. There will be a third round to select exhibits for the Art, Film & Music exhibit opening at The Tech in real life, similar to the previous rounds on March 1 and March 15. Probably only one or two more exhibits will be selected, because our engineers will be hard-pressed to complete even that many exhibits in time for the June 4 opening. The second round of judging on March 31 will be entirely different, determined by jury of a dozen distinguished experts from the worlds of museums, art and technology. The jury will choose exhibits to become part of the permanent collection of the virtual Tech Museum, and will in addition award six special, $1000 prizes. The jury will have a week to deliberate, so these awards will not be announced until the second week of April.

Today we had a small group, in part due to the time change in the US, which was not evident to our friends in the UK (sorry, Lydia!).

We discussed:

• International Museums Day (May 18), with Carla from ICOM
• Anne's gifted free exhibit that changes sound when you move it (in the back corner of the exhibit workshop)
• upcoming judging this weekend.  You must notify us by 4pm today if you want to be judged.  Judging results will be announced on MONDAY.
• Upcoming staff transitions: Nina/Avi will be moving to focus more on the RL exhibition fabrication in April/May, and Rob/Stephe will move into more virtual museum management.  I will start blogging about the RL fabrication (and share some images of the RL exhibits as they are created) in April.
  
• Opportunity to create machinima for the June RL exhibition... we'd like to feature YOU and your work on the walls of the RL gallery in machinima (video) loops.  Please join the machinima project to get involved and start capturing and uploading content.  All content must be received by April 31 to be included, and we are looking for people who want to create footage as well as those who might want to edit it.  I will try to find an expert who can offer a class sometime soon to help people who are new to machinima but want to get involved.
  
• How to promote collaboration and reward participation in ways other than with contest money.  This was a freewheeling conversation, with people commenting that the RL build opportunity is the really compelling draw, but that people like to be compensated for their time.  There were requests to see the workshop become more collaborative in terms of sharing scripts and objects. 
  

The Tech Virtual Museum Workshop, launched in December, is Museum Director Peter Friess's grand experiment in open sourcing the museum's content development process. His idea, that is, is to fill the halls of a major museum with exhibits conceived entirely by outsiders, prototyped in Second Life, and licensed under Creative Commons for all to use. Although other museums have tinkered with having visitors participate in the process of developing exhibits, or used Second Life as an alternative presentation medium, none has dared this radical step before.

Is There a Language of Science?

There seems to be. Mars and I continue to work well together, despite our different backgrounds. It's a 'professional' relationship - we pretty much show up, work on the project, and go away. And in that sense it's a great relationship.
One of the delights of being an engineer (I'm a graphics programmer in RL)is the noticably low level of office politics. Not that there's none, but there's less than in any other enterprise I've been involved in. Who needs to create an enemy when there's the code base?
Or, in our case, waaaay too many quats and Euler angles. Little did we know when we started this just HOW MANY of these 3D rotation problems we'd have to work ourselves.
  Rob  actually sent me a script for this post, so I'll try to follow it. As we explained somewhere in the wiki, Mars and I met just 1 day before we started building. I ran into him at the planetarium at spaceport Alpha (if you haven't been, GO!) He showed me the virtual tech, and we decided on the spot to try to speed build an exhibit in 4 hours.
Well, 4 hours was enough to design, but not to build. So we've been building ever since.
The combination of wiki and SL works pretty well. The wiki is a bit too 'pull'. Sometimes I wish we just had a whiteboard in the exhibit to write on. Since we're on different time schedules, we often need to pass information like 'don't move this or that'.
Second Life isn't an ideal tool for prototyping. There are too many restrictions imposed by the rather clunky nature of SL. For example, things need to be bigger in SL than in RL, since everyone is 'clumsy'.  I'm used to working with CAD tools that, while they lack the immersive reality of wandering around inside it while you work, make up for it with far greater power.
Rob's last question was why we are doing this. I can certainly only speak for myself, not for Mars. My motives are a) It's fun! Any engineer who doesn't have fun with their skills isn't a good engineer. My goal as an engineer is 'to make software that makes my users smile'. b) it's a good way to learn a new technology. I've seen a lot of interesting things I can do in SL now. c) It's a good way to meet new folks and make useful contacts.

Howdy - Rob's asked Mars and I to start contributing to the blog.

This has been a sort of amazing week. In 5 days we've gone from not even knowing each other to having built this amazing contraption.

 One of the new criteria is showing the spirit of Silicon Valley. Well, I think these amazing exhibits show exactly that spirit.   One part networking, three parts creativity, 99 parts hard work. 

Mars continues to be amazing. I had to go out for a couple hours. I came back, he'd built this great airplane gimbal lock demo. It's fun working this way - I leave, I come back, something has changed.

Today, we discussed several things:

First, some new clarification about judging, courtesy of guidance from the president of the Tech Museum.  We now have clear criteria that each exhibit must have (go through the SL-to-RL process, relevance to theme, core educational lesson, spirit of Silicon Valley) to be considered for RL creation.  We also defined judging dates: Feb 29, March 15, March 30.  To have your exhibit judged on a given date, send a message to Avi Marquez / Nina (nsimon@thetech.org) to that effect.  You do not have to be present on that date, but you do have to have your criteria covered either on your webpage or in your SL exhibit.

We also selected a new exhibit frame for the exhibits that is lighter prim-wise (thanks to Lydia Milner for the clean design).  If you own a project, please swap the exhibit frame at your convenience.  You can find the new frame in the front of Parkside Exhibit Workshop.

We also talked about possibilities for the green screen exhibit.  Finally, we are now featured on the menu at Buck's of Woodside, a famous Silicon Valley restaurant.  Enjoy the link, or if you can, go see the real thing (I still haven't gotten a chance to...)!

Many people have asked why exactly winning exhibits are being chosen.  What makes an exhibit a winner?

Because this is a pilot project, we've been learning as we go about what's possible and what to expect.  Now that we're a few months in, we have a better understanding both of The Tech's specific exhibit needs and want to share those with you.  I apologize that these were not available from the very beginning; we're learning as time progresses.

The Tech supports and encourages exhibit design on topics of all kinds, and implementations that are both RL-possible and SL-specific.  However, if you would like your exhibit to be considered for the contest to have your exhibit created in RL this spring, please read on.

In June, The Tech will open 10 exhibits on the theme of "Technology in Art, Film, & Music."  We are selecting these exhibits from the website (http://thetechvirtual.org) and the SL exhibit workshop between now and March 30. 

To be a "winner," an exhibit should meet the following four criteria:
1. have a presence as a project both on the website and in Second Life.
2. relate to the core theme of the role of technology in art, film, or music.
3. tie back to an educational "core principle" about art, film, or music.  Examples might include "what is a pixel?" "what is audio compression?" etc.
4. relate to the theme of the "spirit of silicon valley."  NOTE: This is less important, a nice-to-have but not essential.

There are many great exhibits being created that don't meet these criteria.  That's fine--and many of these will be included in the virtual museum, and are eligible for the additional $1000 prizes for most innovative virtual exhibit, best collaboration, best SL-only design, and most active virtual participant. 

IF you want your exhibit to be explicitly considered for the SL-to-RL contest, please send a message to Avi Marquez / nsimon@thetech.org when you consider your exhibit "done" and ready to be judged.  Also, please reflect how your exhibit addresses the four criteria above on your project webpage by adding a wiki page called CRITERIA or something like that.

I'm sorry that these criteria are coming out so late in the process.  They are also reflected in the FAQ on the contest.  You are all part of this early experiment for The Tech and we truly appreciate your patience and continued feedback as we learn more about how to really make this work.  If you have questions or comments about the criteria, please leave a comment on this post or join us for discussion every Friday at 10am in Parkside Exhibit Workshop.

What’s the Big Idea?

    Museum exhibit people can be obnoxious. We have to make just about everything difficult. Nearly every day, someone comes up to me and says “I have a great idea for an exhibit!” and proceeds to tell me about an interactive they’ve dreamed up, or a topic they love. (My sister insists that an exhibit about wax would pack ‘em in.) Then I ask the dreaded question: “So, what’s the point?” I’m not trying to be mean, but trying to get across that to be an effective exhibit, it needs a why. It needs a Big Idea.

    The Big Idea is a frustrating master. Without one, you cannot hope to know if your exhibit was effective. But with one, you are constantly bound by the question “does it speak to the Big Idea?” The concept has provoked many a developer ranting “but it’s fun darn it!”

    So why does this matter? Well, we hope that exhibit designers and builders aren’t creating exhibits for themselves. There are these people called visitors, and the exhibit, ultimately is for them.

     A good exhibit changes a visitor. The change can be in their knowledge or skills, their attitude or behavior, or their life conditions. An exhibit on the plight of the purple-horned snorkack could change my attitude toward them and my behavior (if I feel compelled to help them.) An exhibit about the history of 18^th century flatware will certainly add to my knowledge base. What will your exhibit do for the visitor?

If you have a project in SL, what is your big idea?

     The following is NOT a big idea: Biodiversity

     That is a topic. It’s a good one, but it isn’t a big idea.

     This is a big idea: Diversity of life is necessary for the survival of all living things; diversity is under threat primarily by human beings living in the environment, but things can be done and are being done to help. (Courtesy AMNH)

     A big idea is a complete sentence. Ideally it should answer the Enduring Question. For this example, the Enduring Question is: “Why should we care about the diversity of life?”

An effective way of creating a successful exhibit is to work backwards. Start with the end result – not the interactive, but the experience the visitor will have – and work back to the concepts.

Stages of Backward Design:

            1) Think about what you want your visitor to come away with.

            2) Think about how you will know if they “get it”

            3) Plan the experience to make sure they do!

So, what is your Big Idea? How can designing backwards help your exhibit to be more effective?

(Info gathered from The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Dr. Elee Wood and the Shaping Outcomes training)

From roughly two months of my exploration with our virtual museum project, or the Second Life platform as a whole, the collaboration feature is one of its beauties.  The fact that creative and technical minds from all over the world could meet and prototype together in one virtual space is really amazing to me.

Many thanks to Siiri4 Hirvi and Soaring2 Kondor, both are high-tech professional that live and work in Germany, for spending their time and effort in helping us to work out a solution that links events in Second Life into real life, and vice versa.  Their solution is based on the XML-RPC mechanism, where a Python script on the client computer communicates with a LSL script running inside a Second Life object.  This opens up the door to a lot of useful applications that I could think of.  Soaring2 did the whole Python and LSL scripting in just a day in his Linux box, but the porting of his mechanism into my Windows platform took much longer.  At one point when I was about to give up due to problems with the serial implementation of my Windows-based Python, Soaring2 pulled out his old Windows box that he no longer use, and worked out all the details to make it work.

Wonderful collaboration experience, wonderful peoples.

-Emil

Today, we had a great session that focused on the question of how the contest interfaces with or conflicts with the spirit of collaboration in the Parkside Exhibit Workshop.  We talked about motivating factors for participation in the platform as a whole, and most agreed that they were more interested in a creative, friendly space to realize some cool exhibits than a place to win a prize and cash out in the Bahamas (well, not exactly). 

We were mixed from the beginning about the contest/prize component of this project.  We ultimately decided to implement prizes to jumpstart participation, but our real goal is to support a creative community.  Towards that end, we do have a couple additional discretionary prizes for general participation, but ultimately, $$ is not the way to go here.

We talked a bit about ways to encourage more collaboration on exhibits.  Keystone Bouchard mentioned that he really cared more about working out unsolved problems with the Wikisonic project than anything else and wanted to work with others on it.  I suggested that we create some exhibits that are explicitly group-owned, that anyone can be a part of anytime.  Per the discussion, I also installed a drop box in Parkside where you can drop free, full-perms resources to share with other builders so that we can really create a basis of support and supportive objects and scripts.

I'd love to hear more from folks about how we can best encourage, support, and reward participation without it being fundamentally linked to money.  We have some fabulous participants sharing lots of time and energy, and I am so gratified and amazed by the enthusiasm and positivity of Parkside Hall.  I hope it can continue to grow into a really active place.  Please share your suggestions for how to enable this as comments here, or drop a notecard in the mailbox in front of the museum.

Some tangible changes that were mentioned:

• open posting board in Parkside.  When you enter, you will see this board on your right.  You can upload textures onto it with questions, challenges, creative thoughts, etc. by dragging them while holding down CTRL.
• new exhibit of Reflexive Architecture by Keystone Bouchard outside.  If you haven't checked it out, please enjoy this awesome exhibit.  We will start holding sensor scripting classes soon--let me know if you want to help.
• new museums coming soon.  I'm talking to some other museums about working their exhibits into this process.  This means more challenges, more themes, more workshops.  I'll keep you posted...

On Friday, we had a great meeting in Parkside Exhibit Workshop to discuss progress of The Tech in SL and exhibit projects people are working on.

First, we discussed new and exciting changes to The Tech in SL:

• Lydia Milner/Marie's project, The Painter, has been selected for creation in RL at The Tech!  Many congratulations to Marie on her excellent work.  You can follow the progress of this project in Parkside Hall or via its webpage, which now includes some Tech documentation on how this will be realized in RL.
  
• Help Wanted Signs for Projects.  Per requests at last week's meeting, we now have help wanted signs in the Exhibit Frame area.  Take a copy of one for free and place it with your exhibit space to solicit help with building, scripting, or other things.
  
• Exhibit Opening Weds Feb 6.  On Wednesday at 10am LST, Keystone Bouchard (Jon Brouchoud) will install three of his exhibits from the Gallery of Reflexive Architecture outside Parkside Hall and will give a talk about his work.  He will also share some code under Creative Commons for you to use to create your own sensor masterpieces.
  

• Terms of Service for building in Parkside Hall.  We discussed the proposed Terms of Service, which are currently posted for review in Parkside Hall.  They will be installed on the back wall of Parkside this week.
  

Every week, I run a short class in the Sandbox Done about building in SL. I have no real experience in building in SL, just what I learned in the Dome. But, like much in life - real or Second - you learn so much more when you teach! That's one of the things that drew me to museum education in the first place - you can share what you know, but you always learn something new with each group.

The class is very simple. We aren't making anything jaw dropping - no Greek Architecture or rocket ships - just simple prims. However, tonight, with just 4 of us, we created a wonderland of shapes, colors and physical properties. This class seemed as enamored as I with making an object "physical." So much fun to create moving teeter-totters and kickable balls!

What made it so engaging was the experimentation. Every time there is more than one person in class, we have some people who go faster than others. Due to the interactive nature of SL, we can all see if Avatar A has created something interesting, or see what Avatar B is struggling with (and maybe its the same things we are, but we are too embarrassed to ask for help). When builders are encouraged to create rather than just build, they get excited. They shout to each other when they learn something new. "Look what happens when I make it glass!" "If you make it phantom you can walk through it!"

If you haven't yet made the leap into SL, come on in, the water is fine. In places like The Tech, newbies outnumber experienced users, so don't feel nervous. We are all learning together. I hope to see more of you at tours and classes in the future! Ta for now!

Today, we had a great meeting in Parkside Exhibit Workshop to discuss progress of The Tech in SL and exhibit projects people are working on.

First, we discussed new and exciting changes to The Tech in SL:

• Open teleporting.  You can now open the map and click to go anywhere on The Tech island.  This is particularly useful if you have an exhibit in Parkside, as you can now create a landmark and SLurl directly to your project, which you can place on your project webpage.
• New classes and teacher.  Sera Wrigglesworth is now teaching intro to exhibit building classes on weekday evenings and on weekends.  Plus, we have added a vehicle workshop.  Contact Nina/Avi with requests for other workshops and or times.
• Teen grid.  We will soon have space on Teen SL with the Eye4You Alliance where teens can build their own exhibit prototypes.

• Help wanted/skills brokerage for Parkside Exhibit Workshop.  I will create free help wanted signs that people can post in front of their exhibit frames to indicate help needed with scripting, building, etc.
• Terms of Service for building in Parkside Hall.  I will draft a TOS that encourages people to share their exhibits with the group, collaborate, be respectful, etc.  We can discuss it next Friday and finalize at the meeting.
• More exhibits for the museum... working on it, trying to get some neat ones from the Gallery of Reflexive Architecture very soon.

• Musical Chairs - Garvie shared her basic concept for chairs that play sounds when you sit on them, and a way for an "audience" to choose the background music and tempo.  She is looking for help with more sound files if anyone wants to share.  Coming soon to Parkside...
• The Painter - Lydia discussed her progress.  This is a wonderful project and Lydia has been using both the web and SL to create an amazing experience.  She is looking for help with scripting animations plus sound clips if anyone wants to help.
• Avatar Mirror - We discussed going back to 01's original idea of a true RL to SL portal, potentially using volunteers to "staff" the portal whenever an RL visitor "calls."

Sarah Cole (Sera Wrigglesworth in Second Life) has joined The Tech Virtual team as a graduate student intern.  Here on the blog, she is posting her observations and learnings as a museum newbie to Second Life, and soon she will be leading tours and classes on The Tech island.

Sarah has years of experience at an extraordinary museum and she brings energy, intelligence, and an honest museum outlook to this experiment in collaborative exhibition design.  In general, you can find her in Second Life on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, as well as some time on Saturday.  She's a great resource on museum design and someone who can help you navigate the wilds of Second Life.  Say hello when you see her!

When I first tell people about the Tech project in SL, reaction is mixed. From those who say "cool!" the major questions are about how they can get involved. But an equally vocal group responds negatively - "That's not a real internship" "So you just play a computer game?" and "SL seems like a waste of time."

I'm not going to lie, time is a factor, and the learning curve can be steep. But, as I always tell my parents - "Just play with it. You can't break it."

Setting up the account takes about an hour. For people like myself, who spend many hours online, this time is not a big deal. But many of my colleagues would find this frustrating at best. For better or worse, I had a Sims addiction several years ago, which actually helped my understanding of avatar creation, as well as my comfort in the virtual 3-D animated environment. For users not used to any sort of gaming, I would recommend spending time playing "in world" to acclimate to the environment.

Finding a place to explore is not always easy, and I hope to include some good starting points in my next post. The Tech Museum is a great place to start, as it not only offers fun things to look at, but the "physical" environment is varied enough to allow you to try out a few things.

Walking: I have yet to learn of any way of walking other than using the arrow keys. Anyone who meets me "in world" would likely think that my avatar had been hitting a few SL pubs. I walk into walls, get lost in corners, and, famously, run up the down-escalator. I'm a mess. Part of me wants to blame it on my lack of video game experience, but I think some of it comes from my lack of spatial-thinking ability. That said, with practice, I am improving. Soon (I hope) I'll feel comfortable enough to weave my way around the museum like a pro. Then I can start leading tours.

Sitting: The Tech offers a few options for sitting.
* Sitting at an interactive: There is currently a lovely interactive exhibit on perspective drawing. As you approach the interactive, floating text above the seats tell you to "sit here." Sitting can be accomplished by right clicking the seat and selecting "sit" from the menu that pops up. Suddenly your perspective changes and you can interact in a fairly real way. A button at the bottom of the screen allows you to stand when you are done. (To my amusement, standing up results in your avatar leaping into the air from a seated position. Avatars, it would seem, are far more energetic than their RL counterparts.)
* Relaxing: No, your avatar does not need to relax. However, last night I found myself needing to step away for a short dinner break. Rather than completely leave SL, I headed up to the terrace, sat my avatar down, and set my status to "away." It is possible to merely stand there while away, but given that other avatars see you - it seems creepy to just be looming there, unresponsive.

Teleporting: There are some areas that SL far exceeds RL. Many people like flying (I'll get to that) but I love teleporting. The Tech is set up with large wall maps, like you would see in any museum, but these maps give you the option of teleporting to any area with the click of a mouse. Very handy when traveling with a group. Also handy when, like myself, you are lousy at walking. Now if only someone can develop this in RL, I could avoid my commute.

Flying: The "thing" that people talk about with SL is flying. Yes, your avatar can fly. Its not just a fun trick. Its actually quite helpful for navigating a new space, or getting the lay of the land. You can only fly outdoors, so in areas like the Tech, its not as useful. But for places like the International Spaceflight Museum (slurl) it is quite handy. Also useful for just exploring. Not as tricky as walking, oddly enough.


I spent the majority of the night really exploring the building and also spent time in the Sandbox Dome building and playing with scripting. Linden Scripting Language (the official scripting of SL) is actually easier than most scripting languages. However, it pays to have at least minimal exposure to another scripting language. My experience is with HTML, but it's limited. However, even a slight familiarity with another language can help you understand the "grammar" of LSL.

That's all for now. More updates soon!

-Sarah (Sera Wrigglesworth in SL), virtual intern and SL "newbie"

The Tech Virtual Museum Workshop is an experiment in adaptation.  Institutions need to adapt in response to changes in taste, technology and the zeitgeist, and museums are no exceptions.

This experiment in museum evolution introduces two innovations:

1. It separates exhibit design from exhibit construction.  By introducing Second Life as a rapid prototyping tool for exhibit design, this experiment makes it possible for individuals from around the world to collaborate on the same exhibit project.  Using The Tech Museum in Second Life to showcase these exhibits designs makes it easy for museums to pick and choose what they will build in real life for their visitors. 
   
2. It opens the exhibit creation process up to the world at large.  If you think you have the chops to design a first-class museum exhibit, you have a chance to create one for The Tech Museum of Innovation (and win a $5,000 prize in the process).

Good museums have always copied exhibits from one another.  Together with the Creative Commons license, the first innovation has the potential to create an open source market for museum exhibits, similar to the successful gift economies for open source software, scientific advances and educational courseware.  It liberates the content from the container.

The second innovation has the potential to improve the quality of museums by bringing in new talent, new ideas and new points of view.  As leading computer scientist and Sun Microsystems founder Bill Joy recognized: "the smartest people in this business don't work for my company."  By opening up the design process, it breaks down the visitor-curator dichotomy, replacing it with a continuous spectrum of participation:

VISITOR  <->  VOLUNTEER  <->  EXHIBIT DESIGNER  <->  CURATOR

This experiment proposes one answer to the question posed above: "How will museums enter the Age of Participation?"  Do you think it will succeed?  Is this the future of the museum?