I was curious that if you shake it more sand goes through. If the sand goes ... bring up questions when asked if they we
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Voronoi Sandbox – Version 2 Geometry Playground Formative Evaluation Toni Dancu and Nina Hido 2007
formative, mathematics, geometry, spatial reasoning, Geometry Playground
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Table of Contents Background ................................................................ 3 Goals ......................................................................... 4 Methods ..................................................................... 4 Findings ..................................................................... 4 Overview .......................................................................... 4 General Observations ....................................................... 4 Exhibit Features ............................................................... 5 Platforms ................................................................................................... 5 Visitor Descriptions of the Exhibit.......................................................... 5 Visitor Questions ............................................................. 6 Questions about how to use it ................................................................ 6 Questions about the phenomenon ......................................................... 6
Recommendations ...................................................... 6 To Consider ...................................................................... 6
Next Steps ................................................................. 7 Post-evaluation Decisions ................................................ 7
Acknowledgements .................................................... 7
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Voronoi Sandbox – Version 2 Dancu and Hido 2007
Draft Label
Background Voronoi Sandbox is an exhibit prototype for the Geometry Playground exhibition. Visitors explore the patterns created by the sand. The exhibit is exploring the mathematical voronoi rule. Changes have been made to the exhibit and in order to continue to improve the visitor experience, the exhibit was evaluated again.
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Goals The goal of this evaluation is to: • • • •
Observe how visitors use the exhibit prototype. Explore different ways of setting up the exhibit – different labels, different panels. Listen and record visitor questions about the exhibit to inform label development. Look for promising next steps for the exhibit.
Methods Informal conversation with visitors in the prototype area on the museum floor on Tuesday August 7, 2007 from 11-2pm.
Findings Overview For the first hour and a half, all the panels were out, without labels on any of them. No visitor made a real distinction between the geometric patterns and the natural phenomena, though a few visitors did notice one looked like a honeycomb (and one saw that the sunflower one was similar to the picture of the sunflower). Also, most people looked under the panel for a while before realizing that the more interesting design was happening on top. We took the geometric panels away and put labels on the nature panels (sunflower, soap bubbles, corn, honeycomb). We still didn’t have a label for the rule panel. We also added the words “on top” to the end of the “watch what happens” sentence in Step 3. This did seem to focus people to the top of the panels more quickly than before. Also, by labeling the phenomena, it seemed to encourage people to use multiple panels: “Oh let’s see the corn cob”, “I want to try the sunflower”, etc. Two levels of user experience were observed: 1) Looking at the patterns for aesthetic value, 2) Looking at the patterns and trying to understand the scientific principle behind it.
General Observations •
Most visitors looked below the panel first, it took a few tries to realize that the top was where the design was most prominent [This seemed to improve after adding the words “on top”.]
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About a third of the groups used more than one panel. Groups seemed to be more inclined to try more than one once they each had a name on them. Most visitors seemed more interested in the aesthetic experience, than the scientific explanation. Got a lot of, “Cool!” “Pretty!” comments. Most visitors read the label and followed the directions. The height seemed to work pretty well. I did bring a stool over that some kids chose to kneel on. Parents occasionally were holding children over the exhibit, but those seemed to be under three years old.
Exhibit Features Platforms • • • •
The three different platforms seemed to mainly serve as space for more visitors to use the exhibit at once. Visitors would walk up and squeeze in the side. There was a little bit of confusion as to what the different platforms were for when visitors first walk up, but then they just seemed to use what was available. Nobody used the side panels as places to hold one panel’s design to compare it to another design. I didn’t see anyone compare 2 designs to each other. One visitor did (as we were talking) notice that placing a panel in the middle and raising it seemed to work better than using the side platforms and having the sand just fall (because some of the holes are blocked on the side platforms).
Visitor Descriptions of the Exhibit • • • • •
When the holes are farther apart the sand hills are higher, where they're closer, the walls are lower. The sand going through holes made ridges, watching where sand went down in between the holes. I saw sand going through the holes, forming shapes both above and below. Shapes are uniform like a beehive or honeycomb. It makes different designs when sand goes through the holes. There are different patterns, more holes in some. Seems to be an exhibit on how neat phenomena like the honeycomb, sunflower… how it shows up in the world.
***No visitor used vocabulary like “rule”, “splitting the difference”, but they seemed to get the idea of patterns, and some made the connection to patterns in nature.
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Visitor Questions Questions about how to use it •
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The directions say, "Place on the platform," which was a bit confusing because there seem to be 3 places to put the panel, so I wasn't sure which one we were supposed to put it on. When you lift it up, what are you meant to see? How to do it. What's the difference between the brown panels and the white panels? Do one set go on top of the other set? What was happening underneath vs. what was on top?
Questions about the phenomenon • • • • • •
Is that actually the same thing that makes the sunflower pattern in nature? How they (exhibit developer) figured out holes in a board makes a shape like that? I'd be interested to see a visual demonstration of how the creation of these patterns takes place in the natural world. I was curious that if you shake it more sand goes through. If the sand goes through bigger holes, it goes faster, and smaller holes goes slower. I wanted to see what design it would make. And why some of the holes were placed the way they were [Did you get the idea of how the walls are formed?] Yeah, although I think we didn't try the middle one, we only used the raised things on the side. It looks like the middle would have worked better.
***Many visitors said no when asked, “Did any questions come up for you?”, but did bring up questions when asked if they were confused or curious about the exhibit.
Recommendations To Consider • • • • • •
Most visitors enjoyed the aesthetics. A lot of kids that I observed informally, played with the sand and watched it fall through the holes. No visitor really had much of a dialog about the principle, other than parents explaining the label to their kids. A raised label is recommended, since often the sand got pushed onto the label and partially covered the nature pictures at the bottom. A few visitors requested more than one sand scooper. To deepen the visitor experience, we might consider:
-7For the visitors who were thinking about Voronoi’s principle, there seemed to be a disconnect between understanding that this is how natural shapes are uniform, and how the sand falling through the holes actually demonstrates that. The one woman’s comment said it well: “I'd be interested to see a visual demonstration of how the creation of these patterns takes place in the natural world.” How do bees get the honeycomb in that pattern, how is the pattern manifested in corn or soap bubbles, etc. One idea to consider to get visitors thinking more about the science behind it, a thought-provoking question could be placed on the panels themselves. For example: “Did you know that bees…. to form honeycombs the same way the sand is falling through the holes?” on the honeycomb panel.
Next Steps Post-evaluation Decisions (Based on discussions with Sebastian, Hugh and Toni)
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In the current label, add the words, “on top” to the line, “Watch what happens”. Remove nature photos and dialogue from label. Try a side label (“dangler”) on the nature connection. Label nature-related panels (e.g., sunflower). Number panels so that visitors know that each one is different. Attempt to keep to one visitor using the exhibit at a time.
Acknowledgements This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant number NSF/DRL 0610436. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
