Interactive Computer Exhibits For Ages 3-8? 122
Johnny Mnemonic writes "My company has the opportunity to contribute to a children's museum in our area. We are a technology company, so I'd like the exhibit to be computer/networking related, and to raise the awareness and understanding of how the Internet, networking, and computers work. However, children's museums cater to a pretty young age group, 3-8 years old, so the the exhibit needs to be highly interactive, durable, tactile, and yet instructive of the concepts. Google fails to turn up any turn-key options, and, although the concepts are computer related, a computer-based exhibit tends to be too fragile and susceptible to withstand the rigors of 250 preschoolers/day. How would you design a display that meets these requirements and is still fun and educational?"
Packet Data (Score:5, Insightful)
Create an inter-connected maze that has no single entrence and exit, but a bunch of ways in and out. Each point is marked as a different city across the world. Let's say a kid enters in "Japan" and a computer screen tells him he needs to get to "New York". He then walks through the maze, where there are a series of hubs where he has to ask another terminal what direction he has to go in next.
It would be highly physical and an easy way to introduce kids to the simplest building blocks of the internet... you could even build it as a "series of tubes"
I really hope you see this one to the end- please submit the end results to slashdot. Good luck!
Re:Packet Data (Score:1, Insightful)
The key is not to force them to learn if they don't want to. Rather, just make it easy for them to do the learning stuff if they want to.
If they just want to wander aimlessly through the "internet," that's fine. But if they want to play the game and learn about packet routing, make that easy. The wanderers can be "traffic congestion."
Age 3 to 8? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry but ... at age 3 you can show pretty much any shining things and they will laugh ...
At age 8 you can tell them a concept and they'll want to learn more ...
What kind of age-range is that?