AMNH Senses

A Spectrum Of Sound

A Spectrum of Sound is an interactive exhbit that educates about the full range of audible/inaudible sound and the animals that communicate outside of where humans can hear. It was built as part of the temporary special exhibit Senses (2017-2018) at the American Museum of Natural History.

This project was built using the open source audio manipulation software Pure Data in combination with Python scripts running on a Raspberry Pi. When an animal is selected by a button press, the audio clip will play at the animal's normal communication frequency, a sound either too high or low for us to hear. The knob in the center of the interface is used to increase or decrease the frequency of the sound in order to bring it into human-audible levels.

The physical interaction and technology was conceptualized and developed by Jessie Contour, the interface and exhibit design were created by the AMNH Exhibitions graphic design team.

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See Like A Snake

See Like a Snake is an interactive exhibit that educates about the infrared color spectrum and animals that use it to hunt. It was built as part of the temporary special exhibit Senses (2017-2018) at the American Museum of Natural History.

This project was built using a heat-sensing camera and an application that displays the camera reading. Work was also done with the exhibit preparators in order to create heat-emitting animal models for the museum visitors to see out with the camera. These models were built using mini cartridge heaters and cast in bronze.

The physical interaction and technology was conceptualized and developed by Jessie Contour, the interface and exhibit design were created by the AMNH Exhibitions graphic design team.