Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Feeling the Stars at the Great Lakes Planetarium Association Conference 2013

I went to my first professional Planetarium conference last week to present my paper that led to the creation of our Feeling the Stars program for The Little Star That Could.   It was a fantastic three-and-a-half days of learning entirely about best practices in the Planetarium and museum field.  We got to discuss what we do for our visitors and we talked a bit about how Universal Design is the best route as helps not just its intended audience.  

 Little Star also got to make a couple early debuts and meet some colleagues outside the Planetarium world.  The conference paired at times with the Illinois Association of Museums (IAM) as well, so he met many professionals from museums, zoos and NASA as well. 
Little Star sits on a silver metal fence railing in a very brightly lit room. The walls are an off white and there is a tall silver metal garage door in the background. Little Star is yellow and about the size of a baseball. He has big eyes, brown eyebrows, a small nose and plump cheeks, with a tuft of blond hair and spiked rays coming out from him. One ray is flopped over on top of his head and it gives him the appearance of having a raised eyebrow. Coming towards him is a very tall male giraffe. Only part of the giraffe's neck and head can be seen. The giraffe has a long slender face and incredibly long neck of probably at least 5 feet. He stands probably a good 20 feet tall and has beautiful medium brown spots all over that look a bit like stones with white dividers between them. He has small ears and two small straight horns on the top of his head. He also has a short black mane.
Is that giraffe going to eat me?!  Seriously, he's walking over here!
A blonde woman of about 5' 4" in a purple tshirt and black skirt stands smiling holding Little Star with a man of about 6' 2", graying hair, a gray mustache and who is wearing a blue astronaut flightsuit. Little Star is yellow and about the size of a baseball. He has big eyes, brown eyebrows, a small nose and plump cheeks, with a tuft of blond hair and spiked rays coming out from him.
Little Star meets Astronaut Scott Altman, commander of the last servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope
Many of my colleagues told me as well over the first couple days before I presented my paper that they have shown or currently show Little Star in their own Planetariums and that they were curious about my paper.

 I was very grateful for their encouragement in the days leading up to my presentation because I was pretty nervous.  I've always loved public speaking/theater/teaching, and speech giving has always come naturally to me.  This was the first time, however, that I presented an academic paper or spoken in front of my colleagues in my chosen field.  So maybe nervous is an understatement - terrified probably sums it up better.

 Fortunately, my father had a lot of practice presenting academic papers over the years and helped me prepare for the best and the worst, so at least I had that in my back pocket.  I also had a lot of friendly faces in my audience (which normally scares me more to have people I know listening, but this time it was also nice).  

 When the time came, I presented my paper (which I know was recorded and if I find a copy I will try to post here).  I covered all the details I could in my ten minutes; making sure to discuss why reaching out to visitors who are blind/have low vision is important, how it fits in with elementary school science standards, how the program works and the results of the first couple of runs of the program.  
A blonde woman in a light purple shirt stands behind a tall podium made of light colored wood (the podium is only about a foot shorter than she is). She holds a model of the Zeiss Universarium Mark IX in her right hand as she speaks into a microphone. Behind her on the wall are two photos. The one on the left is of the Zeiss projector in the entire exhibit which is a The black box casework sits at about 34" by 34" by 34". On the front wrapping around the corner to the right side of the casework is the curved single sheet hyperboloid shape of the Planetarium in white. On the top of the casework is the black dome with all the stars of white rivets sits upon the purple wall and grey carpet. In the middle is the Zeiss model. The teal oval StarBall on stilts sits on the two smaller black wedges and the teal eight planet projector vertical boxes sit on the long black wedge. Next to it on the carpet sits a small white exhibit text panel of about three inches by one-and-a-half inches. It has Braille and large print marking the StarBall as exhibit one and the Planet Projectors as exhibit two to correspond to the other exhibit text. To the right of the model is the exhibit text. There are three visible rectangles of large print and Braille text framed by black. The image on the right is an up close picture of the model: The black dome with all the stars of white rivets sits upon the purple wall and grey carpet. In the middle is the Zeiss model. The teal oval StarBall on stilts sits on the two smaller black wedges and the teal eight planet projector vertical boxes sit on the long black wedge. Next to it on the carpet sits a small white exhibit text panel of about three inches by one-and-a-half inches. It has Braille and large print marking the StarBall as exhibit one and the Planet Projectors as exhibit two to correspond to the other exhibit text.
Talking about the 1:40 Scale Model of the Zeiss Universarium Mark IX and Orthwein StarBay of the McDonnell Planetarium

A blonde woman in a light purple shirt stands behind a tall podium made of light colored wood (the podium is only about a foot shorter than she is). She holds the tactile star character of Mr. Angry Blue-White Star in her right hand as she speaks into a microphone. Behind her on the wall is a picture of all the star characters: On a piece of wood sits a set of the star characters, complete and ready for their first program. They sit in a row ranging from coldest star to hottest star going left to right: Big Daddy the red star is made of satin, has a large nose, small eyes, sunglasses and a black goatee and is the size of a softball; Mr. Old-Timer Orange Star is the size of a cantaloupe and has old, half closed eyes, a hooked nose, a couple moles (one on his nose and one on his large chin), and big fluffy white eyebrows and a big white mustache; Little Star the average yellow star is the size of a baseball and is made of a quilted yellow cotton with ample cheeks, a smile, brown eyebrows, a small nose and big eyes and a tuft of yellow hair at the top of his head; Pearl the white star is the size of a basketball, is made of white velvet, has a large pointy nose, white hair in a bob fashion, oval feminine eyes with eyelashes and dainty brown eyebrows and a weary smile; Mr. Angry Blue-White Star is made of light blue denim and is a bit bigger than Mr. Old-Timer Orange Star, with glaring eyes, a very large nose, a grimace for his mouth and furrowed white eyebrows.
Presenting all the tactile and microwavable star characters

A blonde woman in a light purple shirt stands behind a tall podium made of light colored wood (the podium is only about a foot shorter than she is). She is speaking into a microphone. Behind her on the wall is a picture of some of the pages of the Tactile Follow-Along Twin Vision Book: The book is open to a page later in the tactile book. On the right page is the image of the character of the planet, Mars. He is a circle of about 3 inches with raised eyebrows, relaxed eyes, a large nose and a wide open smile. Below him are images of Mars' moons, phobos and demos as well as Valles Marineris, the canyon on Mars. Each image is labeled in large print and at the top of the page in large print is the caption, "Little Star meets Mars." At the bottom of the page on the left is "Page 43." The page on the right contains the same images raised up from the Braillon page. Each is labeled in contracted Braille as is the caption at the top of the page. Page 44 is in Braille on the bottom right side of the page.
Talking about the tactile follow-along book in twin vision
When I was done there was some time for questions and I braced myself not knowing what to expect.  I had three questions posed to me:

 Q) "Is this program available to other Planetariums?"

A) My goal was to have the program available to other planetaria world wide once I got it going at my own.  The time for it to start making its way into the world is quite soon now, I think!



Q) "Who makes the tactiles and would it be possible to get a set of the star characters and/or a book?"

 A) I currently am the only one making all the components of the program.  I would be happy to make some for you but in all honesty it might take me a while.
Q) "Could you explain Lighthouse for the Blind - Saint Louis' role a little more?"

 A)  LHB was absolutely wonderful in providing insight into the program and giving advice on what would and would not work.  The support they provided, both financially and otherwise had been incredible.  They are the reason that the program was able to take off and start reaching its target audience.  Without LHB, this program would still be a dream that I turned in as a paper my first semester in grad school.
And then my time was up.  It went far better than I expected!  I received nothing but kind words and excitement that matched my own about my program.  Several of my colleagues have now expressed interest in having the program at their own Planetariums and I hope that very soon we can make that happen!  It was absolutely amazing to have the program recognized so highly by my colleagues!

 The other really cool thing was that I got to meet representatives from Audio-Visual Imagineering (AVI) - the company that re-produced The Little Star That Could in 2005 to update the changes to Pluto and make the show full-dome.  They were incredibly kind and it was a lot of fun to show them what I'd made.  Later in the day after my presentation, they also offered to help me with Feeling the Stars!  Hopefully this really does mean that soon there will be more Planetaria with my program, reaching out to their own visitors in need of the adaptive elements!  I was so excited and moved by everyone's generosity, excitement and kindness!

I know I end a lot of my posts with thank yous, but I could not have gotten the program to where it is without the people I thank...

 I have to thank Seiler Instruments for your generosity in helping me get to GLPA, for believing in me and my program and most importantly, for believing in my Planetarium.  I also want to thank my mentor, John, as well as Brian for your continual encouragement and support of me and my program and Bill and Eric for your support and for covering for me in my absence.  Thank you to Ann and Wilfried from Carl Zeiss too for taking time out of your busy schedule to listen to my paper!  Thank you to my parents for your continued support - especially my dad for helping me prepare for my presentation.  And finally, to all my colleagues from GLPA who have given me so much encouragement to continue with my work - I thank you from the bottom of my heart!
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