Interactives, Interactives, and more Interactives!!

Hello!  Exciting things have been going on the last two weeks.  Jacob and I have built two new interactives for Up, Up & Away.  The first one in pictures is a box for a glow in the dark comic book.  (Cool, huh?) 

We started by cutting the wood at an angle and assembling the box.  What you can't see is that we also installed an area inside to put the comic book at an angle for visitors to see it.  Here is the box prior gluing and hammering together.

Guess what! I wasn't done using new power tools!  Got to use a sander to round out the edges.  

We then stained the inside of the box black and then wrapped the outside with black vinyl to give it a more shiny surface.  After that we built the lid.  The picture below is pre-staining of the lid.  After we stained the lid we covered it with plexi-glass and installed the light and light switch. 

Testing out the box: it works!! We also decided to attach a hood to the wall to help shield the box from light.  When you come to visit the exhibit, here is how it will work.  You will have to flip the switch on the box to turn the light on for a few seconds to give the glow-in-the-dark elements some light, and then turn off the light to see the comic glow!  Unfortunately glow-in-the-dark does not show up well on camera :(.

Here is the box pre-hood installation in the Anti-Hero/True Villainy area of the exhibit.  Be sure to look for it when you visit the exhibit!

Next interactive!  This one will be in the True Villainy area of the exhibit.  It is a flip-rail.  We took an existing table element from the Gadgets exhibit that used to be in the room and converted it.  Jacob built in supports for each comic book and then covered it with plexi-glass.  Then installed the hinges for the flip covers.

Each flipcover will have a comic book with a villain in it, so the flip cover had to be built with supports as well.

After building the supports we cleaned it, installed the comic book , covered it with plexi, and then installed the knob.  Here is a sample of three villains.

Post-construction.  Isn't it pretty!?

The interactive in its final place in the True Villainy area of the exhibit.

Be sure to come and visit these interactives and more when the exhibit opens October 20!  And stay tuned for my last post!

-Christina