Museum development

On 26 June 2014 the Museum closed the doors of Kspace, an interactive 3-D experience that was one of the Museum’s most popular activities for children. During 2014–15 the Museum continued work on a replacement interactive experience for children and families.

The new Kspace is an interactive adventure game for children principally aged between 6 and 12. Children are able to design a time-travelling robot and enter a ‘time pod’ that blasts them back to a mystery location in Australia’s past. There are eight locations in which they could find themselves, ranging from the Victorian goldfields in 1854 to the 1930 construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Implementation of Kspace’s revised spatial design, offering a bright and welcoming space for visitors, was completed in December 2014. The focus between January and June 2015 has been on software development for the project, with continued development and testing of the robot Design Station software, the eight games in the time pods, and the interactives in the cool-down area.

The Museum has continued to engage with audiences for feedback and input during the development process, with families and school groups taking part in audience review sessions for each major software release.

The new Kspace will be open from 20 July 2015 for a three-month trial period to allow for staff training, detecting any remaining problems with software and hardware, and testing how to best run the new facility.

The Museum strives to develop contemporary technology solutions to enhance visitor experience. Three new audio systems were installed in the Museum Cafe and the Main Hall. The systems play a key role in the Museum’s public programs and events, and are used extensively to support the visual imagery displayed on the large video screen in the Main Hall.

In 2014–15, the Museum expanded its use of mobile technology with the development of mobile device-based visitor tours and interpretive content, and with operating and management systems to improve digital capability.

Information, communication and audiovisual technologies continue to underpin the Museum’s programs and exhibitions. This year the Museum’s technical staff delivered technology to support projects such as Kspace, the Spirited: Australia’s Horse Story exhibition, the Governor Lachlan Macquarie exhibition, which is on display at the Macquarie Group Limited building, Sydney, and Freewheeling: Cycling in Australia, which travelled to the Queensland Museum, Brisbane.