The exhibit, The Robot Zoo, mechanizes ordinary animals into huge robotic creatures, revealing Mother Nature’s magic as a master planner. In 5,000 square feet, eight animal robots and 16 hands-on activities illustrate fascinating real-life characteristics, such as how a chameleon changes colors, a giant quid jets around or a fly walks on the ceiling. Visitors also discover how powerful springs launch a robot grasshopper into the air and how a robot bat locates prey in the dark using special echolocation equipment.

Cutaways expose the animals’ insides as a host of easily recognizable machine parts and gadgets, such as shock absorbers and pumps, that demonstrate what makes animals work. By comparing anatomy, environments and size of the actual creatures to the mechanic counterparts, The Robot Zoo provides fantastic new insights and hands-on fun for discovering just how animals work.

INTERACTIVES

1. Robot Body Shop
As an introduction to the exhibit, drum-mounted machine parts allow visitors to manipulate some of the mechanical devices they will see used to construct the robots, such as hinges, pumps, springs and shock absorbers.

2. Chameleon Computer “Paint” Stations
Exhibit-goers can “paint” the 10-foot robot chameleon. Using real-time color image processing on an O2 TM computer workstation, visitors can create digital patterns which appear almost instantaneously on a 7′ x 11′ rear-projection screen behind the robot. Video monitors covering the robot quickly display the same patterns, effectively blending the chameleon with its background.

3. Keep an Eye on You
The robot model of a chameleon’s head shows how the real reptile views the world: through eyes that work independently. As visitors move each of the robot’s eyes with a joystick, they can see on two color monitors the separate images the robot’s eyes “see.”

4. Tongue Gun
Triggering the Tongue Gun demonstrates how a real chameleon shoots out its long, sticky-tipped tongue to reel in a meal. Sharpshooters use a joystick to aim the head of a robot chameleon, then press a button to fire its long tongue at one of several insect targets.

5. Hide and Seek
Children can blend in like a chameleon. Wearing a coat that matches a wall in the background, kids can watch themselves appear and disappear on a video monitor as they move back and forth in front of the wall.

6. Mister Platypus
Children of all ages can build a platypus or their own whimsical creature by adding different animal parts, such as an alligator’s tail or an elephant’s trunk, to the model of a platypus’ body.

7. Hear’s Seeing You!
This activity demonstrates echolocation–a bat’s sonar system for hunting prey at night. When visitors aim a robot bat’s head at insect targets, a digital display reveals the distance to each bug.

8. Hang Time
With a timer children try to see how long they can hang like a bat by their hands from an overhead bar.

9. Jet Propelled
All ages can pump air into a squid model and propel it up a tube to simulate the high-speed swim of a giant squid. The real creature sucks water into its body and squirts the water out a small tube under its head, shooting away backwards at up to 20 miles per hour.

10. Stuck on You
To understand what a giant squid does with its suckers, kids can throw rubber sucker balls at a board and play with other objects that stick, such as bathroom plungers and gloves covered with sucker pads.

11. Eye to Eye
Visitors can stand behind a 5-foot-tall cutout of a house fly and get a fly’s-eye view through two 19-inch compound eyes. A real house fly can’t see fine details unless it’s up close, but its eyes (each with about 4,000 six-sided lenses) can detect even the slightest movement in all directions.

12. Swat the Fly
This activity tests participants’ reaction time (about one-twelfth as fast as a house fly’s). Children use their hands to “swat” the backlit image of each fly as it randomly flashes.

13. Sticky Feet
Kids wearing special hand and knee pads can try to stick like flies to a sloping surface.

14. Tortoise Track
Even the youngest children can try on a tortoise shell and see how it feels to “race” like a turtle around a track. Wearing numbered shells, other kids can join in a race to the finish line.

EXHIBIT DETAILS:

Exhibit Size:
5,000 square feet

Length of Venue:
Approximately three months
Available Spring, Summer, Fall

Target Audience:
4-12 year olds, families, schools

Cost of Venue:
Available upon request

Robots:
Giraffe (head & neck 9′ tall), Rhinoceros (9′ long), Bat (6′ head to tail), Platypus (9′ long), Giant Squid (6′ long, 18′ tentacles), Chameleon (9′ long), Grasshopper (9′ long), House Fly (6′ long, 10′ wingspread)

Educational Materials:
Teacher guide provided

Designer:
Evergreen Exhibitions with assistance from Lexington Scenery & Props, AVG (robotics), Silicon Graphics, Inc. (computer interactives)

Label Writer:
Word Craft, Inc.

Insurance:
Museum must provide Evergreen Exhibitions with a certificate of insurance for $5 million (general liability) and $1 million (property damage insurance).

Shipping Cost:
Museum pays incoming shipping expenses.

Installation/De-installation:
A Evergreen Exhibitions technician will be provided to assist in set-up and take-down. Evergreen Exhibitions requires 4-6 qualified individuals at the venue to assist with set-up and take-down.

Door & Ceiling Size:
Exhibit designed for a 7′ x 8′ opening; 10′-12′ ceiling required.

Environment:
HVAC system required

Manuals:
Complete maintenance manuals provided with exhibit

Electrical Requirements:
Standard electrical supply

Security Level:
Gallery attendant required

For more information contact:
Christi Klingelhefer at 210-599-0045

THE ROBOT ZOO (Scaled Version): INTERACTIVES

1. Keep an Eye on You
The robot model of a chameleon’s head shows how the real reptile views the world: through eyes that work independently. As visitors move each of the robot’s eyes with a joystick, they can see on two color monitors the separate images the robot’s eyes “see.”

2. Tongue Gun
Triggering the Tongue Gun demonstrates how a real chameleon shoots out its long, sticky-tipped tongue to reel in a meal. Sharpshooters use a joystick to aim the head of a robot chameleon, then press a button to fire its long tongue at one of several insect targets.

3. Hide and Seek
Children can blend in or stand out like a chameleon. Wearing a coat that matches a wall in the background, kids can watch themselves appear and disappear on a video monitor as they move back and forth in front of the wall.

4. Mister Platypus
Children of all ages can build a platypus or their own whimsical creature by adding different animal parts, such as an alligator’s tail or an elephant’s trunk, to the model of a platypus’ body.

5. Eye to Eye
Visitors can stand behind a 5-foot-tall cutout of a house fly and get a fly’s-eye view through two 19-inch compound eyes. A real house fly can’t see fine details unless it’s up close, but its eyes (each with about 4,000 six-sided lenses) can detect even the slightest movement in all directions.

6. Swat the Fly
This activity tests participants’ reaction time (about one-twelfth as fast as a house fly’s). Children use their hands to “swat” the backlit image of each fly as it randomly flashes.

7. Sticky Feet
Visitors experience how it feels to climb a wall like a fly, using Velcro hand paddles on a vertical panel of carpet.

EXHIBIT DETAILS:

Exhibit Size:
2,500 square feet

Length of Venue:
Approximately 3 months
Available Spring, Summer, Fall

Target Audience:
4-12 year-olds, families, schools

Cost of Venue:
Christi Klingelhefer at 210-599-0045

Robot Animals:
Platypus, Chameleon, House Fly

Educational Materials:
Teacher guide provided

Insurance:
Museum must provide Evergreen Exhibitions with a certificate of insurance for $1 million (general liability) and $200,000 (property damage insurance).

Shipping Cost:
Museum pays incoming shipping expenses.

Installation/De-installation:
Venue shall have full responsibility for installation and de-installation in accordance with instructions provided by Evergreen Exhibitions.

Door & Ceiling Size:
Exhibit designed for 7′ x 8′ opening, 10′ x 12′ ceiling required.

Environment:
HVAC system required

Manuals:
Complete maintenance manuals provided with exhibit

Electrical Requirements:
Standard electrical supply

Security Level:
Gallery attendant required

For more information contact:
Christi Klingelhefer at 210-599-0045