GET ATTRACTIONS MANAGEMENT
magazine
Yes! Send me the FREE digital edition of Attractions Management and the FREE weekly Attractions Management ezines and breaking news alerts!
Not right now, thanksclose this window
POST YOUR JOB ONLINE
Free ezine/digital edition sign up
Jobs   News   Features   Video    Products   Company profilesProfiles   Magazine   Handbook   Advertise  
Science centre
Eureka!

At new children’s museum Eureka! Science + Discovery, visitors can climb inside a cat, become a bathroom DJ and get up close with the journey from chew to poo. Working closely with kids and industry was key to injecting a real sense of fun, says Yvonne Golds


Opened just before Christmas, Alice in Wonderland-esque children’s museum Eureka! Science + Discovery in Wallasey, Merseyside, UK, aims to bring STEAM subjects to life in a fun, immersive and engaging way.

Sister attraction to the much loved Eureka! The National Children’s Museum in Halifax, which opened in 1992, the new Eureka! Science + Discovery is aimed at six- to 14-year-olds. The attraction’s internal designs were created by K2 Architects, with Real Studios responsible for exhibition design.

The designers didn’t want to try and guess what young people might want from the museum; instead they asked them directly, engaging in a series of workshops between local schoolchildren and industry partners to find out their big questions about STEAM. Partners include Unilever, Sci-tech Daresbury, Arup, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and Liverpool John Moores University.

Eureka! Science + Discovery’s founding partner is renewable energy company Ørsted.

Real Studios’ Yvonne Golds talks Attractions Management through the highs and lows of this unique project.

How would you sum up Eureka! Science + Discovery? What makes it special?
We feel we’ve hit the sweet spot where play and learning intersect. Eureka! Science + Discovery is about engaging children in an exploration of STEAM subjects (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) in a way that’s rigorous, authentic and relevant, while also being visually, mentally and physically immersive.

How did you approach this project?
We were brought in four years ago to undertake the interpretive masterplanning and then the design. In the early stages, the process was very much about engaging in workshops and co-creation exercises between the client and various stakeholder groups, including local primary and secondary schools, Liverpool youth group the Hive, and local industry partners.

Our brief was to create a play-based experiential design that delivered on STEAM subjects through three narrative environments – homes, bodies and nature. The experience needed to work undirected without recourse to objects and traditional graphics; it needed to be intuitive, fun and should have no loose parts. It’s an older sibling to the hugely successful Halifax Eureka! where self-guided play-based exploration is at the heart of the centre.

The industry partners – Orsted, ARUP, Sci-Tech Daresbury, Alder Hey, Liverpool John Moores University and Unilever – played an important role in the co-creation process and helped to create and participate in workshops with children and young people; this fed directly into some key exhibits.

Talk us through the attraction
Eureka! Science + Discovery is filled with colourful, hyperreal and overscaled exhibits themed around the three key narratives. To establish each theme, key exhibits act as locators – for the ground floor area exploring the body there’s a huge, full-body MRI scan revealed on overhead lightboxes.

There’s a strong sense of fun, too. In the Body zone, the Chew to Poo exhibit is a supersized display of sculpted digestive organs revealing the complete digestive journey, allowing visitors to feed a giant mouth and see how food is broken down and processed before it emerges at the other end.

Home is a series of recognisable room sets designed to encourage exploration and play, and features a giant pet cat named Luna, whose body you can physically enter in order to see the world as a cat and test your reflexes against those of a typical feline.

Other highlights in the Home area are an energy game where visitors adjust a series of supersized mechanical devices that ‘use energy’ in the living room to see the impact on overall usage, all viewed on a supersized phone screen, as well as DJ ‘decks’ in the bathroom where you can create music using bathrooms sounds.

The Nature zone features a woodland walk, bounded by a sculptural, undulating ‘hedge’. Set into the hedge are numerous interactives exploring aspects of nature and those that live there. This section also includes a giant nest structure, housing an immersive film space, and a climbing tree inviting visitors to clamber up several different levels.

What were the biggest challenges?
Challenges come in all shapes and sizes; our task is to turn them into opportunities. The co-creation process meant that, for the first year or so of us working on the project, we effectively had a moving brief.

As more data came in we had to review and adjust how we were approaching each topic, but ultimately this was a very rewarding process and has allowed us to design something with real integrity that’s hopefully in tune with the young people visiting.

Delivering an attraction with no loose parts was another challenge – especially for an interactive science and discovery centre; it meant we had to be more creative.

And of course, working through the pandemic brought a whole slew of challenges that we had to navigate as a team.

One of the aims is to get more girls into STEAM subjects – how did you address this?
This was a key consideration when putting together co-creation groups. The client team recruited groups of female students as well as other mixed gender groups to gather any specific perspectives that they had.

We also asked STEAM partners to ensure there were female role models participating in the co-creation workshops, including scientists and engineers. And when it came to producing exhibition AV assets, graphics and illustrations, these were delivered to reflect both women and men, as well as gender neutral people.

What did you learn from working with the various partners?
Eureka! Science + Discovery’s co-creation model explores the intersection between the lives and interests of the co-creators: the young people from the community; STEAM partners from local growth industries and the education sector – and the Eureka! team.

The programme began with a series of meetings in which young people explored their big questions about STEAM, and local STEAM partners explored four questions relating to their business: Who works here? What are the big local projects you’re working on? What are the significant global projects you’re working on? What are the big challenges or important questions you want to answer through your work?

Following the development meetings, STEAM partners were paired with groups of children and young people and worked together on a series of enquiry-based learning projects, supported and co-ordinated by Eureka! The exhibition content, design and visitor experience at the new attraction all have their origins in the ideas collectively generated and developed through this iterative process of co-creation over several years.

The process was an invaluable experience and very real in terms of these young people having a say in what content we included in the spaces.

There are no introductory panels and very few objects in cases. Why was that important?
Eureka!’s DNA is very different from most of the other clients we’ve worked with. It doesn’t hold a collection, but rather explore topics through experiential spaces and the it does this is by enabling the children to engage in playful interactions.

This project gave us an opportunity to put aside any form of didactic approach and think outside the box when it came to drawing people in, getting them engaged and allowing them to determine their own outcomes.

A good example of this is the design of three pinball machines showing ways the body defends itself against infection. Each demonstrates a different defence mechanism, including tears and sneezing, nose hairs, scabs and white blood cells.

How is technology used?
We wanted to use technology in a way that doesn’t just entertain but really adds insight and engagement in real-world topics. The industry partners were a real asset and brought valuable knowledge.

In the Home area there’s a staircase with a workstation tucked underneath it. Here visitors can play a video game that encourages them to design a staircase. We developed this with Arup so the actual engineering aspects are authentic.

To make it fun, we also brought in software designers to make the whole story of staircase construction more interesting, developing different narratives and avatars – for example, in one scenario you need to build a staircase to cross a field of lava and make it back to your space rocket.

How do you design an immersive experience?
Essentially we’re transporting you to another place. At Eureka! Science + Discovery we drop people into an immersive experience right from the get-go with worlds ranging from being inside you own body to chasing through the forest with your dog.

It’s about believability and skilful use of everything in our toolkit, seamlessly knitting together the 3D aspects with graphics and software. It’s also about how you move from one area to the next and in this project, we played with a choreography of scales and activities to emphasise the sense of zooming in and out of subjects.

In the home zone bathroom, after you’ve composed a track from bathroom sounds as a bathroom DJ, you can hop into a lab-style inventors’ area inside a giant bathroom cabinet and create your own toothpaste. Next is an over-scaled, 3D mouth and a ‘smile wall’, with video showing how to clean your teeth.

We also wanted to offer photo opportunities. The hope is that social-media-savvy young people will have a blast interacting with each area and their friends.

We tried to put ourselves in young people’s shoes, never patronising them and avoiding obvious childish tropes such as primary colours and anthropomorphised animals. And of course, remembering to have a sense of humour.

What else are you working on?
Opening in 2023 are new displays at The Portland Collection and the Sands of Speed museum, both in the UK and F1 The Exhibition, a touring exhibition opening in Madrid in March.

"We tried to put ourselves in the young people’s shoes, never patronising them and avoiding obvious childish tropes, such as primary colours and anthropomorphised animals" – Yvonne Golds, creative director at Real Studios

The Home delights children with unexpected insights Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
The Body reveals more about the life within Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Nature reveals the wonders of the world outside Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Eureka! aims to help visitors learn through playful interactions Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
The exhibits have been designed with a strong sense of fun Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Exhibits in the Home (above) and Body (below) sections Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
The attraction has been designed to bring STEAM subjects to life Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Young people were consulted from an early stage of the process Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
COMPANY PROFILES
Mather & Co

We lead the world in incredible museum, exhibition, and attraction design. We work across the herita [more...]
Polin Waterparks

Polin was founded in Istanbul in 1976. Polin has since grown into a leading company in the waterpa [more...]
instantprint

We’re a Yorkshire-based online printer, founded in 2009 by Adam Carnell and James Kinsella. [more...]
Holovis

Holovis is a privately owned company established in 2004 by CEO Stuart Hetherington. [more...]
+ More profiles  
VIDEO GALLERY

Red Raion - Keynote | Moby Dick - Friends to the rescue!
It’s extremely important for us to show you the process behind every content we produce. Each of our titles stems from deep research, focused on giving you the kinds of content that best fit your venues and target audience. Find out more...
More videos:
Testimonial Richard Needham - SimEx-Iwerks Entertainment – Red Raion
+ More videos  

CATALOGUE GALLERY
 

+ More catalogues  
DIRECTORY
+ More directory  
DIARY

 

10-12 May 2023

Asia Pool & Spa Expo

China Import & Export Fair Complex, China
24-27 Oct 2023

Synergy - The Retreat Show

Palmaïa, The House of Aia, Playacar, Playa del Carmen, Mexico
+ More diary  
LATEST ISSUES
+ View Magazine Archive

Attractions Management

2023 issue 1


View issue contents
View on turning pages
Download PDF
FREE digital subscription
Print subscription

Attractions Management

2022 issue 4


View issue contents
View on turning pages
Download PDF
FREE digital subscription
Print subscription

Attractions Management

2022 issue 3


View issue contents
View on turning pages
Download PDF
FREE digital subscription
Print subscription

Attractions Management

2022 issue 2


View issue contents
View on turning pages
Download PDF
FREE digital subscription
Print subscription

Attractions Management News

06 Apr 2020 issue 153


View on turning pages
Download PDF
View archive
FREE digital subscription
Print subscription

Attractions Handbook

2019


View issue contents
View on turning pages
Download PDF
FREE digital subscription
Print subscription
 
ABOUT LEISURE MEDIA
LEISURE MEDIA MAGAZINES
LEISURE MEDIA HANDBOOKS
LEISURE MEDIA WEBSITES
LEISURE MEDIA PRODUCT SEARCH
 
ATTRACTIONS MANAGEMENT
ATTRACTIONS MANAGEMENT NEWS
ATTRACTIONS HANDBOOK
PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS
FREE DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS
ADVERTISE . CONTACT US

Leisure Media
Tel: +44 (0)1462 431385

©Cybertrek 2023
Jobs    News   Products   Magazine
Science centre
Eureka!

At new children’s museum Eureka! Science + Discovery, visitors can climb inside a cat, become a bathroom DJ and get up close with the journey from chew to poo. Working closely with kids and industry was key to injecting a real sense of fun, says Yvonne Golds


Opened just before Christmas, Alice in Wonderland-esque children’s museum Eureka! Science + Discovery in Wallasey, Merseyside, UK, aims to bring STEAM subjects to life in a fun, immersive and engaging way.

Sister attraction to the much loved Eureka! The National Children’s Museum in Halifax, which opened in 1992, the new Eureka! Science + Discovery is aimed at six- to 14-year-olds. The attraction’s internal designs were created by K2 Architects, with Real Studios responsible for exhibition design.

The designers didn’t want to try and guess what young people might want from the museum; instead they asked them directly, engaging in a series of workshops between local schoolchildren and industry partners to find out their big questions about STEAM. Partners include Unilever, Sci-tech Daresbury, Arup, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and Liverpool John Moores University.

Eureka! Science + Discovery’s founding partner is renewable energy company Ørsted.

Real Studios’ Yvonne Golds talks Attractions Management through the highs and lows of this unique project.

How would you sum up Eureka! Science + Discovery? What makes it special?
We feel we’ve hit the sweet spot where play and learning intersect. Eureka! Science + Discovery is about engaging children in an exploration of STEAM subjects (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) in a way that’s rigorous, authentic and relevant, while also being visually, mentally and physically immersive.

How did you approach this project?
We were brought in four years ago to undertake the interpretive masterplanning and then the design. In the early stages, the process was very much about engaging in workshops and co-creation exercises between the client and various stakeholder groups, including local primary and secondary schools, Liverpool youth group the Hive, and local industry partners.

Our brief was to create a play-based experiential design that delivered on STEAM subjects through three narrative environments – homes, bodies and nature. The experience needed to work undirected without recourse to objects and traditional graphics; it needed to be intuitive, fun and should have no loose parts. It’s an older sibling to the hugely successful Halifax Eureka! where self-guided play-based exploration is at the heart of the centre.

The industry partners – Orsted, ARUP, Sci-Tech Daresbury, Alder Hey, Liverpool John Moores University and Unilever – played an important role in the co-creation process and helped to create and participate in workshops with children and young people; this fed directly into some key exhibits.

Talk us through the attraction
Eureka! Science + Discovery is filled with colourful, hyperreal and overscaled exhibits themed around the three key narratives. To establish each theme, key exhibits act as locators – for the ground floor area exploring the body there’s a huge, full-body MRI scan revealed on overhead lightboxes.

There’s a strong sense of fun, too. In the Body zone, the Chew to Poo exhibit is a supersized display of sculpted digestive organs revealing the complete digestive journey, allowing visitors to feed a giant mouth and see how food is broken down and processed before it emerges at the other end.

Home is a series of recognisable room sets designed to encourage exploration and play, and features a giant pet cat named Luna, whose body you can physically enter in order to see the world as a cat and test your reflexes against those of a typical feline.

Other highlights in the Home area are an energy game where visitors adjust a series of supersized mechanical devices that ‘use energy’ in the living room to see the impact on overall usage, all viewed on a supersized phone screen, as well as DJ ‘decks’ in the bathroom where you can create music using bathrooms sounds.

The Nature zone features a woodland walk, bounded by a sculptural, undulating ‘hedge’. Set into the hedge are numerous interactives exploring aspects of nature and those that live there. This section also includes a giant nest structure, housing an immersive film space, and a climbing tree inviting visitors to clamber up several different levels.

What were the biggest challenges?
Challenges come in all shapes and sizes; our task is to turn them into opportunities. The co-creation process meant that, for the first year or so of us working on the project, we effectively had a moving brief.

As more data came in we had to review and adjust how we were approaching each topic, but ultimately this was a very rewarding process and has allowed us to design something with real integrity that’s hopefully in tune with the young people visiting.

Delivering an attraction with no loose parts was another challenge – especially for an interactive science and discovery centre; it meant we had to be more creative.

And of course, working through the pandemic brought a whole slew of challenges that we had to navigate as a team.

One of the aims is to get more girls into STEAM subjects – how did you address this?
This was a key consideration when putting together co-creation groups. The client team recruited groups of female students as well as other mixed gender groups to gather any specific perspectives that they had.

We also asked STEAM partners to ensure there were female role models participating in the co-creation workshops, including scientists and engineers. And when it came to producing exhibition AV assets, graphics and illustrations, these were delivered to reflect both women and men, as well as gender neutral people.

What did you learn from working with the various partners?
Eureka! Science + Discovery’s co-creation model explores the intersection between the lives and interests of the co-creators: the young people from the community; STEAM partners from local growth industries and the education sector – and the Eureka! team.

The programme began with a series of meetings in which young people explored their big questions about STEAM, and local STEAM partners explored four questions relating to their business: Who works here? What are the big local projects you’re working on? What are the significant global projects you’re working on? What are the big challenges or important questions you want to answer through your work?

Following the development meetings, STEAM partners were paired with groups of children and young people and worked together on a series of enquiry-based learning projects, supported and co-ordinated by Eureka! The exhibition content, design and visitor experience at the new attraction all have their origins in the ideas collectively generated and developed through this iterative process of co-creation over several years.

The process was an invaluable experience and very real in terms of these young people having a say in what content we included in the spaces.

There are no introductory panels and very few objects in cases. Why was that important?
Eureka!’s DNA is very different from most of the other clients we’ve worked with. It doesn’t hold a collection, but rather explore topics through experiential spaces and the it does this is by enabling the children to engage in playful interactions.

This project gave us an opportunity to put aside any form of didactic approach and think outside the box when it came to drawing people in, getting them engaged and allowing them to determine their own outcomes.

A good example of this is the design of three pinball machines showing ways the body defends itself against infection. Each demonstrates a different defence mechanism, including tears and sneezing, nose hairs, scabs and white blood cells.

How is technology used?
We wanted to use technology in a way that doesn’t just entertain but really adds insight and engagement in real-world topics. The industry partners were a real asset and brought valuable knowledge.

In the Home area there’s a staircase with a workstation tucked underneath it. Here visitors can play a video game that encourages them to design a staircase. We developed this with Arup so the actual engineering aspects are authentic.

To make it fun, we also brought in software designers to make the whole story of staircase construction more interesting, developing different narratives and avatars – for example, in one scenario you need to build a staircase to cross a field of lava and make it back to your space rocket.

How do you design an immersive experience?
Essentially we’re transporting you to another place. At Eureka! Science + Discovery we drop people into an immersive experience right from the get-go with worlds ranging from being inside you own body to chasing through the forest with your dog.

It’s about believability and skilful use of everything in our toolkit, seamlessly knitting together the 3D aspects with graphics and software. It’s also about how you move from one area to the next and in this project, we played with a choreography of scales and activities to emphasise the sense of zooming in and out of subjects.

In the home zone bathroom, after you’ve composed a track from bathroom sounds as a bathroom DJ, you can hop into a lab-style inventors’ area inside a giant bathroom cabinet and create your own toothpaste. Next is an over-scaled, 3D mouth and a ‘smile wall’, with video showing how to clean your teeth.

We also wanted to offer photo opportunities. The hope is that social-media-savvy young people will have a blast interacting with each area and their friends.

We tried to put ourselves in young people’s shoes, never patronising them and avoiding obvious childish tropes such as primary colours and anthropomorphised animals. And of course, remembering to have a sense of humour.

What else are you working on?
Opening in 2023 are new displays at The Portland Collection and the Sands of Speed museum, both in the UK and F1 The Exhibition, a touring exhibition opening in Madrid in March.

"We tried to put ourselves in the young people’s shoes, never patronising them and avoiding obvious childish tropes, such as primary colours and anthropomorphised animals" – Yvonne Golds, creative director at Real Studios

The Home delights children with unexpected insights Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
The Body reveals more about the life within Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Nature reveals the wonders of the world outside Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Eureka! aims to help visitors learn through playful interactions Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
The exhibits have been designed with a strong sense of fun Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Exhibits in the Home (above) and Body (below) sections Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
The attraction has been designed to bring STEAM subjects to life Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
Young people were consulted from an early stage of the process Credit: Photo: Matt Thomas
LATEST NEWS
Disney reveals plans for robot designed to have 'emotional connection' with people
Disney has revealed a new animatronic robot, designed to have an “emotional connection” with people.
London Resort Company grapples with CVA
London Resort Company Holdings (LRCH), the company behind plans to build a theme park resort in Swanscombe, Kent, has called in administrators with the aim of completing a CVA.
Number of visits to UK attractions are bouncing back says ALVA
Visitor numbers at the UK’s leading attractions have bounced strongly, getting to 78 per cent of pre-pandemic numbers.
World's first Play-Doh attractions to be built in Saudi Arabia by Thinkwell and Seven
Saudi Entertainment Ventures (Seven) has revealed plans to develop and operate the world’s first Play-Doh attractions in Saudi Arabia.
Elev8Fun to expand FEC portfolio - will feature Triotech rides
A new family entertainment centre will open in Tampa, Florida, US, this month (March 2023).
Opening date of US$1bn George Lucas museum set for 2025
A US$1bn museum funded by legendary director, George Lucas, will look to become the world's first to focus exclusively on storytelling through images.
Florida governor strips Disney of special tax district status
The row between Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, and The Walt Disney Company has escalated, leading to Orlando's Walt Disney World losing its special tax district status.
First ever IAAPA North America Trade Summit to focus on VR and 'authentic reality'
Attendees to IAAPA’s first-ever North America Trade Summit will hear about how the visitor attractions industry has evolved from a service economy into an experience economy.
From opera to raves, Manchester's £186m Factory International cultural centre is aiming to transform the UK's arts and music scene
A £186m cultural centre, set to transform the arts and music scene globally, is set to open its doors later this year.
Carowinds expands to year-round opening, confirms Aeronautica opening for 2023
Carowinds theme park in North Carolina, US, has launched year-round operations this month (January 2023).
Disney hints at new gate for Walt Disney World as part of Lake Nona campus development
Disney has filed a planning application that kickstarts the group's plans to create a future regional campus and HQ in Florida, US.
London's Natural History Museum works with Thoughtworks and Amazon Web Services on Urban Nature project
Natural History Museum has embarked on a project which will turn the iconic museum's London location into a biologically diverse green space.
+ More news   
 
COMPANY PROFILES
Mather & Co

We lead the world in incredible museum, exhibition, and attraction design. We work across the herita [more...]
Polin Waterparks

Polin was founded in Istanbul in 1976. Polin has since grown into a leading company in the waterpa [more...]
instantprint

We’re a Yorkshire-based online printer, founded in 2009 by Adam Carnell and James Kinsella. [more...]
Holovis

Holovis is a privately owned company established in 2004 by CEO Stuart Hetherington. [more...]
+ More profiles  
VIDEO GALLERY

Red Raion - Keynote | Moby Dick - Friends to the rescue!
It’s extremely important for us to show you the process behind every content we produce. Each of our titles stems from deep research, focused on giving you the kinds of content that best fit your venues and target audience. Find out more...
More videos:
Testimonial Richard Needham - SimEx-Iwerks Entertainment – Red Raion
+ More videos  

CATALOGUE GALLERY
+ More catalogues  
DIRECTORY
+ More directory  
DIARY

 

10-12 May 2023

Asia Pool & Spa Expo

China Import & Export Fair Complex, China
24-27 Oct 2023

Synergy - The Retreat Show

Palmaïa, The House of Aia, Playacar, Playa del Carmen, Mexico
+ More diary  
 


ADVERTISE . CONTACT US

Leisure Media
Tel: +44 (0)1462 431385

©Cybertrek 2023

ABOUT LEISURE MEDIA
LEISURE MEDIA MAGAZINES
LEISURE MEDIA HANDBOOKS
LEISURE MEDIA WEBSITES
LEISURE MEDIA PRODUCT SEARCH
ATTRACTIONS MANAGEMENT NEWS
ATTRACTIONS HANDBOOK
PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS
FREE DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS