The goal of the exhibit was to show the visitor the mechanical advantage of the lever as a simple machine. The visitor would be able to lift a life size car from two different points on the lever to see how the length of the lever arm affected the force needed to lift the car.
The difficulty of this exhibit lay in the space available. We needed to find a car that would fit the space and our budget. After not being able to find a suitable car, we opted to build one using kitcar components and a custom built chassis.
The Summit Tower is a 12 story, 70' tall climbing structure with over 2200 sqft of play and learning space.
Each level explores a different subject matter: simple machines, air pressure, flight, magnets, visual perception, light, sound, earth, electricity, energy, and space science. Kids can climb, slide AND learn.
The tower is designed to be modular where most of the exhibits are panelized and can easily be swapped out and replaced as the museum sees fit or chooses to change the focus or subject matter of a given level.
As the primary designer on the project, I was heavily involved in the overall development and planning of the tower itself, as well as each exhibit that went into it. While some of the exhibits were existing products we sourced from around the world, many of them had to be custom designed for their purpose and fitment into the space.
Aside from the exhibits I designed and fabricated myself, I also worked with our vendors to finalize others.
