Do kids care about museums and 3D?
As part of the #digiRDG project we recently went to Highdown secondary school in Caversham to see whether 3D scanning, 3D printing and VR(ish) would be interesting to year 8s.
We attended the same Science Fair at Highdown last year, when we had kids exploring food nutrition by making them eat insects. We went again this year with a fairly simple purpose — to trial three different uses of 3D technology using objects from Reading Abbey to determine:
- Whether students and teachers of this age group would find the activities engaging
- Which activity the pupils preferred
- How the session could be used to explore the authenticity of museum objects
- Whether sessions could be repeatable both in schools and the museums
We ran this one-hour workshop three times for different classes of mixed abilities, and at the end of each we asked through a show of hands whether using these kind of technologies in our museums would encourage them to visit.
Roughly 95% of kids raised their hands.
Each session was introduced with a presentation going over how museums are using different technologies and why, namechecking the BM’s Rosetta Stone on Sketchfab, the NHM’s VR and Mat Collishaw’s touring exhibition Thresholds.
We then split the classes up for three different activities:
3D object handling
This activity gave students the opportunity to handle:
- a piece of a vase and a floor tile from Reading Abbey
- 3D printed versions of the artefacts
- 3D models of the artefacts on tablets using Sketchfab.
The 3D printed object was passed around first and the students were asked to guess what they think it may be. Once they had guessed, the real object was revealed and the students were given a brief explanation about the object and the history of the abbey. They were then able to handle the real object and also see a 3D model on Sketchfab using a tablet.
The objects we chose were intentionally fairly boring, and particularly so when printed in 3D. A 3D-printed floor tile is a lump of unidentifiable plastic — although a couple of kids actually managed to guess it correctly, one student also thought it might be ‘poo’.
The benefit of using a unidentifiable lump of plastic, however, is that it shows how much value a real object or even a 3D model has. The design could only be imitated by using two different types of plastic, and the texture was vastly different. We also explored how 3D-printed models were useful for those with visual impairments or for fragile objects. The students all seemed to get it.
Virtual Reality (ish)
The (ish) in the title is because students could not explore an actual 3D environment. Instead, they were simply looking around inside a 360-degree photo using a Samsung S7 phone and a VR headset.
A student from each group was given the headset and asked to describe what they were seeing above. The other students then had to figure out what they were looking at, and then try it on themselves.
After this, the students were asked where in the world they would like to visit in VR. It turns out that year 8s are particularly interested in natural wonders, like Niagara Falls, the Great Barrier Reef (while it’s still here), the Grand Canyon and Space. There was a distinct lack of museums and artefacts.
Students were also quite honest in saying how the VR experience was definitely not better than visiting a place in person, but they could see the merits of it for far-away places (i.e. the Grand Canyon). When asked if this kind of VR preview would encourage them to visit a place, they had this to say:
3D Printing/Scanning
During the whole session we had our Lulzbot Taz 6 3D-printing a small butter print from the MERL’s collections, and we wanted to show students the step before this: the 3D scanning.
Normally at Reading Museum and the MERL we use photogrammetry to scan our objects (thanks to Tom Flynn), but it’s a long-ish process unsuitable for a quick event. So we downloaded the free Trnio app onto a couple of tablets and had students scan a key and a tile from Reading Abbey.
The problem with Trnio is that the scans rarely work, and when they do work you often get very funky results. We also soon realised that the students much preferred to scan each others’ faces rather than the objects, which is the mode we switched to in our second and third sessions.
Conclusions
Of the three activities, Virtual Reality was easily the favourite, followed by 3D object handling and then 3D scanning.
But what did we learn? Looking back on our Purpose, we found that the students definitely found these activities engaging but our short time frame meant we could only scratch the surface of each of these activities.
There were also mitigating factors in the success of all the activities. If we had used more exciting 3D prints it may have made the activity more engaging, and if we had more time to devote to doing proper photogrammetry instead of using Trnio then students may have got more out of it.
We explored how these sessions could be used to explore authenticity. Even though the VR view of Reading Abbey was the most popular, the students would still prefer the real thing. Equally, although our 3D-printed objects were boring, we had insightful conversations with the year 8s about both the value of real things and the benefits of having objects available digitally.
As to whether the sessions are repeatable, we think yes. For an event like a Science Fair the fast pace of moving students around among different activities keeps them occupied and gets our messages across fast. However, if we were to repeat these in a museum I think we would have to concentrate on specific aspects and do them well.
This may mean having kids signing up to a specific event where we do proper photogrammetry of their own or our objects, then invite them back in to see their finished models, and then again to see how 3D printing works and to receive a model of their scan. Or we could be exploring how to make proper 360-degree videos exploring the museums, the Abbey or our collections using directorial and audio-recording skills. These ideas are being worked up by our Museum Trainee Charlene, and we’ll be sure to blog about whatever public programme that comes out of it.
Our patient and gracious host at Highdown, Dr Toovey, enjoyed the session and thought it could be improved by making it fully accessible to people with sensory impairments, and that we could also explore the wider applications of these technologies in STEM and other fields.
Ultimately though, the kids had fun, we learnt new things and we have exciting ideas for the future!
Click here to read a full evaluation report of the session. While you’re at it, follow Reading Museum, Reading Abbey Quarter and the MERL on Twitter!
