Museum Explorer, Inc

06/26/2024

Just in CASE you were wondering, we are very excited about how design work is progressing for the exhibit cases in the Jordan Hall of Science at the University of Notre Dame. Who doesn't love a 3D layout?

Image: A 3D drawing of the Nanoscience case with deep purple and gray signs fixed three dimensionally over a black and magenta speckled background.

06/22/2024

👇These words of wisdom inspire our work. Share your favorite inspirational quote in the comments!

Image: A clear, circular sign hanging at the Chicago History Museum that reads: "Form ever follows function." Louis Henri Sullivan, 1896.

05/14/2024

We're out exploring again, and love this tactile map of Everglades National Park at the new Guy Bradley Visitor Center in Flamingo. We've enjoyed working with our clients to make tactile maps too. Inclusive designs benefit everyone!

05/06/2024

We want to both acknowledge and congratulate Dave Becker, a close friend and colleague of our founder Rich Faron, on his retirement from Brookfield Zoo!

From Rich: I have been working in the 'museum' business for 43 years and I have never in my travels met someone who cares so much for people (visitors). While he possesses an incredibly creative mind it is his 'Heart' that makes all the difference. Facilitating creative dialogue is Dave's superpower whether it be in the exhibits and programs he creates or in his personal one on one exchanges with his friends and colleagues. Dave has a knack for finding the right question to ask and then to not be satisfied with that and too then search for the next questions to ask, keeping the conversation going until something useful emerges. I am a sincere admirer of Dave's body of work and contribution to our business, and I know for a fact that he has made experiences better for everyone who has come in contact with what he has created throughout his career. All the best Dave, God Bless and CHEERS on your next adventure!

05/01/2024

04/09/2024

Need more space after the solar eclipse? Check out the 'Optics Table' The Adler Planetarium. Hold up magnifying glasses, manipulate spoons, and engage with lenses to investigate the tools and processes of astronomy. Designed and built by Museum Explorer in collaboration with Adler staff, this station helps you discover how telescopes transformed our understanding of the universe.

Image: Circular lenses of different sizes are elevated over a collage of images that include the Chicago skyline, Cloud Gate, a vast prairie, and flowers in bloom. Copy on the collage reads “Mirrors Reflect,” “Light Bends,” and “How does the shape of a lens affect what you see? Feel the curve of the lenses” in both English and Spanish.

03/20/2024

It is officially Spring, a time to celebrate growth. And we can’t think of a better way to do so than with a visit to your local garden. We have worked on many projects with Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park over the years, but the Curiosity Courtyard is a highlight! Designed and developed by Museum Explorer, this immersive space gives the garden’s youngest visitors - and their adults - a place to play. Inspired by the classic novel The Secret Garden, it features 10 activity areas where you can plant, prune, or just take a quick break to read!

Image: A carpet printed with dark green hedges and a red brick path evokes an English garden and leads visitors through activity areas, including a brown stone courtyard and white gazebo. Two faux gray stone fountains, one with a sculpture of a heron and the other with a sculpture of a toad, mark the entrance to these areas.

03/05/2024

“Holy graphite, Batman!” The world’s first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile 1, was a mound of unassuming graphite bricks. Each brick contained small holes for either radioactive uranium or control rods made of cadmium, a metal that can regulate a nuclear reaction. While blockbuster movies share the many stories and truths of atomic energy with us in compelling ways, during a public tour of Argonne National Laboratory you can feel one of these graphite bricks yourself. And get in touch, literally, with an experiment that changed the world forever.

Image: A Museum Explorer staff member reaches through a hole in a plexiglass case to touch an approximately three inch by three inch piece of dark gray graphite from the world’s first nuclear reactor.

02/21/2024

If you can dream it, you can do it! The Dream Theater at the Children's Museum in Oak Lawn is a place where everyone can get in on the action and develop skills in communication and cooperation. Here, players use puppets, costumes, or just their imaginations to put on a show.

Museum Explorer recently enhanced this special space by adding new stage lighting that you can manipulate. We also installed a railing with different backdrops, so you can change the scenes of your performances. Now every star has the opportunity to learn about other jobs involved in the storytelling that happens on a stage.

Image: The bright purple entrance to the Dream Theatre in at the Children's Museum in Oak Lawn is capped with a yellow cornice and pink stars. Inside are wood vanities with different hats and wigs. Fabric backdrops for performances hang from a custom metal railing on a light blue wall.

02/07/2024

We might make the program materials, but the dedicated volunteers and staff that facilitate cart activities keep them organized! Museum Explorer makes sure there is always enough storage space for all your stuff built into every cart!

Image: Program cards sorted by color on the Community Matters cart at the Chicago History Museum.

01/22/2024

Five years ago this week the staff at Lincoln Park Zoo delivered the Migration Match cart to partners in Serengeti National Park. Developing this cart took creativity, collaboration, and cooperation across continents! There were times we wondered if we could make the mechanics work, and build it small enough to ship on a commercial flight, but we work hard to make our client’s dreams a reality, and we did!

At this interactive mobile exhibit, visitors match cards representing the jobs of park staff, then place those cards on a map of the park. When all the jobs are on the map, they unlock a wheel of wildebeest and zebra that move around the park – demonstrating the critical role park staff play in keeping the great migration of these animals moving around the Serengeti Plains.

Image: Two park staff standing in front of a wooden map of Serengeti National Park.

01/20/2024

Museum Explorer is particularly excited for work to accelerate on our project with University of Notre Dame.

We are collaborating with their talented team of researchers and communicators in the College of Science to create new concepts for exhibits that showcase groundbreaking work in dozens of fields, from nuclear astrophysics to ecology!

During a site visit earlier this month, the Museum Explorer team got to tour the Nuclear Science Laboratory and see the FN Tandem Van de Graaff accelerator in person, which has been the primary accelerator for the laboratory since it was installed in 1968!



Image: Museum Explorer staff stand in front of the large, bright blue FN Tandem Van De Graaff particle accelerator at Notre Dame University, which is twice as tall as we are.

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