Sensing Volcanoes: Part 1 – “Have we gone too far this time?”
Back in June 2022, inspired by post-conference conversations and a desire to be “even more extra” than we usually are, a band of researchers from the UK and Caribbean had an idea…
What if we could make an interactive floor of lights that looked just like a volcanic island?
What if we could use it to simulate eruptions and transform it into a slice through the sub-surface of an “Imagined” volcanic system?
…and so, “The Imaginarium” was born*
*at least it was in our minds…
The idea was to use this multi-media floor installation to not only challenge people to imagine about how they would respond to volcanic hazards in the light of uncertainty and risk, but also to illustrate how scientists and communities make connections between felt signals / activity at the surface and processes occurring deep beneath our feet in the Earth’s crust.
The team applied for funding for The Imaginarium through the Royal Society public engagement call in August 2022 and was thankfully successful!
Cue us trying to explain just exactly what an Imaginarium actually is to our friends, family and colleagues over the next 8 weeks…
Not content to just create The Imaginarium on its own (yes that’s a word now), the team put in a bid to participate in the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in July 2023 with Sensing Volcanoes in which The Imaginarium would play a starring role.
Because we were on a roll…we also decided to put in a last-minute pitch to have The Imaginarium feature at the Norwich Science Festival in February half-term!
With this application also successful attention rapidly turned to making our Imagined-arium a reality after the Christmas break…
With this application also successful attention rapidly turned to making our Imagined-arium a reality after the Christmas break…
Luckily, our long-term collaborators Output Arts were on the case, and over coffee in early January were able to hash out a rough sketch of what the exhibit could look like for the Royal Society.
Within two weeks they had assembled all the components they needed and begun the big build.
With construction safely in the hands of the experts, our attention turned to designing “Game Mode” trying to find a way to represent pyroclastic density currents, ash fall, earthquakes and volcanic gas in a 9×9 square grid was no mean feat!
With multiple levels of hazard intensity and varying penalties for players on affected squares, we started to ask ourselves…
“Have we gone too far this time?”
The only way to know would be to test it out on some real life “non-volcanologist” humans at the Norwich Science Festival…
Would our game be too complicated for the public? Would the “Imaginarium” even be constructed in time?
Find out the answers to those questions and more in Part 2 of our sensing volcanoes series: “Testing…Testing” at the Norwich Science Festival ….
