Digital Experience with Bones at the National Museum of Natural History

Kristin Reiber Harris
KristinHarrisDesign.com

National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC

With almost 7 million annual visitors, the National Museum of Natural History on the Mall in Washington, DC is the most visited natural history museum in the world. The iconic elephant in the rotunda is a familiar site to people all over the globe and one I have known since childhood.

During July I had the opportunity to spend two days in the museum. My visits focused on the Bone Hall, an historic part of the museum's collection. I was fascinated that key components of the current display date back to the original exhibition on comparative anatomy in 1881. I had invited the developers of the app Skin & Bones for the Bones Hall to speak at a meeting of the Women in Film & Video's Education & Children's Media Roundtable. I wanted to be prepared for the event.

Bone Hall, 1881     Photo Credit: Smithsonian Institution Archives

I downloaded the app Skin & Bones in May and found it an educational, entertaining resource. Almost all of the features are accessible off site. The app opens with a diagram of the Bone Hall, indicating which skeletons have digital components. 

 

An animal is selected and the options vary but the offerings for the bat are common to many of the other animals.

Animal Life consists of video, stills and animation to describe aspects of the creatures characteristics and habitat. Who knew bats share blood meals with other bats or that tapirs can weight 700 lbs? Meet the Scientist is an interview with a scientist who specializes in the study of animals in the group of the featured animal. Many of the scientists share memories of their youth and their introduction to the study of wildlife. This is inspiring to budding biologists. For Mandrills, the Big Idea explores visual communication and the coloration on their faces. The Big Idea for the Eastern Diamond Back Rattlesnake is venom; how many creatures have it, how it is used and why it is important to their survival. The Activity for bats is to try to correctly identify a specific bat sound after hearing the sounds of three different bats. 

I was looking forward to a visit to the Museum to try out the one aspect of this app that does not work off site, the Augmented Reality. AR is real environments that have digital components added to enhance the experience. I did not have a lot of experience as a participant in AR and was very curious. My choice to go on a Friday afternoon in July was a bit of a mistake...very, very crowded. However, that did not dissuade me from getting the most out of my experience. I learned a lot from that first visit.

My longest and most informative visit to the museum was after I heard Diana and Robert's presentation. I want to tell you about their presentation before we go back into the Bone Hall for reflections from that in-depth visit.  

Diana Marques and Robert Costello at WIFV EdCM meeting hosted by Interface Media Group. Photo:Lynn Chen

Let me introduce our speakers and the developers of Skin & Bones.  Diana Marques, a Smithsonian Fellow, is pursuing a doctoral degree in Digital Media with an emphasis on the use of technolgy and its visual narrative potential for museum and science communications. Skin&Bones is her doctoral thesis. Robert Costello is the National Outreach Program Manager of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Robert manages development of new media and social media products for Web, mobile, and onsite museum experiences.  A few recent products include the mobile app MEanderthal for iPhone and Android, the Human Origins website (humanorigins.si.edu), The Secret in the Cellar Webcomic on forensic anthropology (writteninbone.si.edu/comic), and together with conservation biologists, the repository of 206,000 camera trapped images of wildlife, Smithsonian Wild (siwild.si.edu). 
Cordially hosted by Interface Media Group, Diana and Robert spoke about their experiences creating Skin & Bones. The project is collaboration between Diana, a PhD student at the Universidade do Porto in Portugal and Robert at the Smithsonian.  The production basics were a grant-generated budget of $90,000 and 2 years of effort to bring it to fruition. Booz Allen Hamilton is mentioned in the app credits as a supporter.  Many others were involved in the process to provide software development, research, 3D illustration and animation, photography, video and audio. The app was first released in January, 2015 and updated in March, 2015.

The effort put into conceptualizing the app, to enhance the experience in the Bone Hall without altering the current exhibit, was the tip of the iceberg. Hours were spent researching specimens, building models and optical or CT-scanning objects. We saw an image of Diana and Robert dissecting a woodpecker to understand how their tongues work. The dedication and effort to create this app was inspiring.

On the production side, small touches like recording the voice-over in the Hall to replicate the visitors’ ambient experience indicated a great attention to detail. Robert spoke of the challenges of interviewing scientists more comfortable discussing their work than personal experiences. These interviews are one of my favorite parts of this app. They are a powerful educational component to help students understand many scientists’ education begins with their interests as a child.

Diana explains how the AR works for this app. "The way Skin & Bones is designed leads you to select what skeleton you are standing in front of. Once the app has this information, it knows what 3D model/3D animation to pull and register on top of the skeleton. To register it in alignment with the skeleton, the app uses the point cloud information that we created during the production. It was similar to creating a 3D scan, a map of points in space that describe the shapes of the skeletons. So when the camera is on and sees the skeleton, it maps it and ties the 3D model/animation according to the coordinates we determined." In order to replicate the AR off site, Diana brought specially formulated photographs that triggered the AR. We learned that the app itself would soon enable users off site to do the same thing. An actively engaged audience had lots of questions.

We heard a fascinating story about the second director of the museum, Spencer Fullerton Baird (1878 to 1887). Baird was responsible for expanding the collection exponentially. One of the objects that came to the museum during his tenure was a 150 lb catfish. He requested a catfish from an associate in St. Louis, MO who went down to the wharf that same morning he got the request from Baird. He found one and shipped it on ice to the museum. It is in the Bone Hall today. Here it is as it appears in the exhibit.

After their presentation I could not wait to get back to the museum and the Bone Hall. This time I got there earlier in the day and it was not Friday, which I am guessing makes a difference too. This sign appears as you enter the Hall encouraging visitors to download the app. The Hall is the only part of the museum with wifi so it can be downloaded immediately.

 
The first case that greets visitors coming into the Hall from the Rotunda (think elephant) are the primates. We learned in the presentation that originally they were displayed all standing erect but that has been corrected in their current display.

I was able to do screen captures on my iPhone to show how AR changed the view of the skeleton through app/phone screen. Here is what you see of the mandrill skeleton in the case without the app or AR.

Holding my iPhone to frame the skeleton in the prescribed fashion, this is what I saw. This 3D image changes as viewer changes position. Pretty dramatic and exciting. This brings to mind what I learned from the Big Idea about the significance of the facial coloration on these animals.

Here, the AR for the catfish skeleton you saw above.

Other examples of AR include 3D animation of the bat skeleton moving or how the jaws of the rattlesnake work. In total there are 13 skeletons/animals highlighted in the app with 9 having AR features. Without this app I would not have spent as much time in the Bone Hall as I did, nor would I have watched video about tapirs and learned that some of them get to be 700 lbs. Skin & Bones is a very nice example of an educational tool that can enhance a museum visit but also be extremely valuable off site in a school or at home environment as well.

Here are a few more photos from my visit. There is a lot more to see than just the 13 skeletons included in the app. I am a huge fan of turtles. This is a Pacific Hawksbill Sea Turtle. Look at the length of the bones on the front "flipper". 

I was fascinated by these skeletons of rays and skates. I spent time in Baja California and we saw lots of stingrays. I never guessed this was their internal structure.

I never would have imagined that swordfish have what appears to be floating bones around their eyes.

I encourage you to spend time with the app Skin & Bones AND if you get a chance go to the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. The museum offers endless educational opportunities and provides substance for many visits. 

These is additional information about the app on the NMNH website and Diana Marques' website.

Teachers, how have you been able to incorporate this app into your classroom?