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USA engineered and fabricated these fabulous math-based exhibits, “Pedal on the Petals” and “Three Ring Circleous” for the traveling exhibit, The Math Midway, produced by the Museum of Mathematics, formerly Math Factory.
To learn more about the development of the “Pedal on the Petals”, click here to go to our exhibit development story.
Our staff was on site at Port Discovery performing some routine maintenance on some exhibits when we first meet Andrew as he crawled out of an exhibit he was servicing.
In 2007 not long after this encounter, Andrew joined our team as a Design Assistant. We thought his experience with exhibit maintenance was perfect training for participation in our collaborative design process. Andrew was a quick study for AutoCAD based on his prior experience with Cobalt, the Mac-based CAD program which he learned as an Industrial Design major at University of the Arts. As Design Assistant at USA, Andrew was also called upon to assist with shop fabrication as a part of his training as an exhibit designer.
Andrew’s easy laugh and calm demeanor are also assets in his current role as Design Coordinator. Guiding our team-based design process begins with early consultations with the construction team to get their opinions on materials and methods right away. You need patience and humility to face our tough crowd of seasoned exhibit fabricators! Continuous in-process reviews with the team ensure that the design vision stays on track in terms of budget and technical feasibility. This process has been crucial in our recent work with the Central Pennsylvania Convention and Visitors Bureau; Andrew participated in the initial site survey and assisted with the demolition plan for the existing structures and efficient installation of the new design.
Andrew was married this past spring in a ceremony held in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ Historic Landmark Building. He and Eliza honeymooned in Hawaii where they went everywhere and tried everything, including: snorkeling, scuba diving, hiking, kayaking, a zipline tour, a slack-key guitar concert, a luau, a catamaran tour, a boat race, and a trip to a day spa with mud wraps! He is also working on renovating his new home; like a thoughtful builder and designer, Andrew is first planning and supplying his personal woodshop where he will build his own custom cabinetry.
Here is a testimonial from a recently completed project, new interactive exhibits for the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center:
To view the original letter, please click here.
January 12, 2010This letter is to provide a reference for Universal Services Associates, Inc. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I have had the pleasure of working with Michael Myers and his team for the past two years on a major renovation project at our facility. During the design development phase, USA, Inc. provided invaluable feedback that helped make the interactive exhibits work better, while still keeping within our budget. During exhibit fabrication, this company kept us informed by emailing photos, and posting videos of test runs on YouTube, a service that allowed large amounts of data to be shared with virtually no impact to our mail servers.
Progress meetings at their offices were organized and efficient. (I might add that they found the best sandwiches in town for the lunch portion of the meetings; making the trip to Philly worthwhile on that point alone.) Their shop is well equipped and staffed with skilled craftsmen capable of working with most materials used in exhibit construction. Phone conferences were similarly organized and ran smoothly. All parties knew what their next assignments were at the end of each meeting.
Part of their exhibit installation involved working in areas open to our public. USA, Inc. staff maintained a courteous and professional appearance while solving the inevitable problems that arise during this phase. They made sure I was aware of their progress and walked me through the punch list phase until we were satisfied with the product. They also follow up after the exhibit opens and provide support for any repairs or modifications needed.
In summary, I found USA, Inc. to be an efficient, professional, and creative company. I will not hesitate to approach them again for our next exhibit project.
Sincerely,
Maylon White
Director of Exhibits & Animal Husbandry
Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center
USA has nearly completed the design and prototyping process for three new exhibits for Discovery Place.
Discovery Place (DPI) awarded this project to USA because of our demonstrated skill in turnkey exhibit design and fabrication. While USA had worked with Discovery Place previously, they took particular notice of our work on the Flying Machine at the Please Touch Museum. This exhibit represented the sort of “free play” and innovation that Discovery Place is striving to achieve with “Think It Up.”
USA’s prototyping process is an opportunity for play as well. We foster a process of listening and brainstorming with the client prior to drawing or even prototyping. USA acts to advise according to our past experience and challenge and test what is possible in “exhibit physics.” We also provide recommendations on construction techniques and materials to address safety and maintenance issues.
Prototype of the Air Sculpture exhibit
Reviewing the performance of the Air Tower
The “Think It Up” gallery will include two launcher stations modified to suit DPI’s space and with a third arm to support it as a moveable tripod structure. This is the third version of this launcher USA has built. The first was for the Columbia Memorial Space Science Learning Center. Lifting from our past work is one way we bring value to our customers, by repeating successes we ensure a well-designed exhibit and manage budgets at the same time.
The other two exhibits, Air Sculptures and Air Tower, are where we really had some fun. The main components of each are: an air delivery system and a play material.
Our prototyping objective for “Air Sculptures” is to design an air delivery system for a tabletop work station where visitors can inflate and deflate free-form vertical soft sculptures. The air system, comprised of multiple muffin fans and a blower, designed by USA may eventually be used by Discovery Place to develop a “Build Your Own” Air Sculpture programmatic activity.
The air sculptures are crafted from ripstop nylon. The central sculpture is permanently placed while an adjacent bin is full of smaller sculptures which visitors can move and place on positioning rings on top of the muffin fans.
The Air Tower is a clear tube with an opening at the table base for visitors to “launch” paper shapes. USA uses whatever we have hanging around to get started – years of exhibit work means we have scrap material to play with for rapid prototyping. We tested with different sizes of acrylic and Sonatube to see what diameter and length maximized the floating or flying of the objects. DPI wanted to design to reuse existing materials for a new purpose; this led to the testing of phone book pages as the building material for visitor’s flying objects.
Discovery Place’s focus on fun in the development process is not unstudied; their understanding of their visitors and learning feeds every decision they make.
This permanent exhibit opens to the public April 17th.
Please check back with USANews for more information on our other in-process design-build projects, a traveling exhibit about bivalves for the Museum of the Earth and the Central Pennsylvania Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Please visit USA in Booth #500 at the annual Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) conference. This year’s conference will be held in Fort Worth, Texas at the Fort Worth Convention Center from October 26 through November 3. Exhibit Hall days are October 31st and November 1st .
In our booth, USA will be featuring a project produced for Math Factory and Ralph Appelbaum Associates called the “Three Ring Circleous.” This exhibit is comprised of three rotating platforms. Each platform bears a rigid wire shape whose appearance is very different when rotating at high speed. When a visitor approaches the exhibit, the shapes appear to be a curvy cylinder called a circular hyperboloid; a complex shape composed of two cones and a hyperboloid; and a cylinder. However, at the push of a button the rotation stops and the actual shapes are revealed to be a straight line placed at an angle, a cube, and three ellipses. This exhibit illustrates the mathematical principle that the “solid of revolution” swept out by a spinning shape can be surprisingly different from the original shape itself.
Find our more about all of USA’s interactive exhibit services, including model design and fabrication; exhibit design and fabrication; prototyping; and our exhibit maintenance and service contracts, at Booth #500. We look forward to seeing you there.
Eastern State Penitentiary, located in the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia, is one of the most unusual National Historic Landmarks you’ll ever visit.
Based upon the Quaker principles of penitence and silence and designed by the architect John Haviland, Eastern State Penitentiary (ESP) admitted its first inmate in 1829. After 140 years of use, Eastern State closed permanently in 1971. The building sat vacant until 1980 when the City purchased the prison from the State. The former prison is now kept in a state of “stabilized ruin” for visitors to experience the stark beauty of its frozen neglected state. Art exhibits populate some of the former cells and selective restoration is being used to tell the story of prison life at Eastern State.
USA was part of an interesting recent restoration and interpretation project at ESP. Several exercise yards along Cellblock Seven formerly functioned as a synagogue at Eastern State. The Alfred W. Fleisher Memorial Synagogue was first constructed in 1924 and is thought to be one of the first prison synagogues in the country. As with the rest of the prison, these areas have fallen into severe disrepair.
In the spring of 2009, ESP set about the painstaking restoration of the Synagogue. To enhance visitors’ appreciation of the synagogue’s unique history, ESP also planned to convert some adjoining rooms that had been used by the Jewish inmates into the William Portner Memorial Exhibit on Jewish Life. The exhibit includes graphic panels, artifact cases and a mitzvah wall. The wall invites visitors to consider the mitzvahs (loosely translated as “good deeds” in Jewish culture) done by the synagogue volunteers over the decades and to leave a testament to good deeds they themselves have done or which have been done for them by others.
USA worked closely with Sean Kelley, Program Director at ESP, and Erica Green, Collections Assistant at ESP, to design exhibits for the space that complimented the original architecture of the adjoining synagogue. Conservation specialist Andrew Fearon of Milner + Carr Conservation also helped to guide our fabrication choices for the casework. The original woodwork would have been constructed simply with available materials such as plywood. Given the purpose of the room, every effort would have been made to imbue the space with the respect it deserved even though the materials were necessarily modest. USA constructed our cabinetry of plywood as well and used hand-mixed true shellac in a three-step process to achieve a close match to the warm reddish brown of the original stain. The most elaborate detail of the woodwork is the custom-turned legs made to match those that supported the benches in the synagogue. Archival fabrics were used inside of the artifact display cases and vinyl graphics of biblical quotations with themes of redemption and imprisonment are applied to the skylights.
USA was pleased to be a part of Eastern State Penitentiary’s most recent mission to reverently restore this unique landmark.
Restoration completed at Eastern State synagogue
Eastern State Penitentiary’s Secret
William Portner Memorial Exhibit 360 Panorama by Will Brown
USA is honored to count amongst our board members, David St. J. (pronounced Sinjin) Hodder. Dr. Hodder has been associated with USA, as a customer and consultant, for over 30 years.
David Hodder was born in the UK and grew up there during World War II. He was inspired by the sights and sounds of aircraft and missiles during the war; in particular, he witnessed a Havilland Mosquito twin-engine fighter-bomber chase down and destroy a V-1 ‘Flying Bomb’. These experiences led him to design and fly model aircraft and rockets at school. He then went on to serve at a 5-year apprenticeship with de Havilland Aircraft Company while studying for an aerospace engineering degree. He relates: “We engineers at the University and later, my Team working in the world’s first V/STOL Wind Tunnel (which was my first technical-managerial position, as Crew Chief), carried the fascinating technologies into after-work recreational activities, building innovative model aircraft for a variety of internal ‘competitions’, which were held on the conveniently located adjacent airfield. My contributions covered many experimental configurations, from propeller-powered paragliders and flying wings to somewhat lethal high speed models which used rockets and even intermittent ram-jets.”
David Hodder has been actively employed in aerospace research testing for 50 years with de Havilland and Hawker-Siddeley in the UK and with Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas in the USA. He has degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Business Administration/Engineering Management. His job assignments have included: Wind Tunnel Operations Chief, Wind Tunnel Test Project Engineer, Test Program Manager and R&D Prototyping Department Manager. David has concentrated mainly on modeling and simulation via wind tunnel and test stand research and the development testing of rotorcraft (vectored thrust, helicopters, tilt wings and tilt rotors). He has participated in and led many teams that developed the original technologies which have made it possible to test V/STOL aircraft and rotorcraft at sub-scale sizes, and UAVs at full scale. His wind tunnel model design planning and testing expertise has benefited the programs for the P1127 and Harrier vectored thrust fighters in the UK and virtually all Boeing rotorcraft projects from 1966 to 1993, including several models of Boeing’s CH-47 Chinook and XCH-62 Heavy Lift helicopters, V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor, RAH-66 Comanche, and many proprietary projects. “All of it has been team processes”, says David. “I was just lucky to have been part of it.”
David Hodder retired in 1999 to expand his technical and managerial consulting business. His passion and expertise in both fields assure that he is continually sought-after worldwide as a consultant and advisor in contemporary wind tunnel and test equipment design, V/STOL test technology and also innovative Engineering Management. He has to date completed 46 projects in these areas for companies, government agencies and universities in the US and several foreign countries.
Many of Dr. Hodder’s projects have required test equipment for rotor and other testing, which USA, Inc. has detail designed and manufactured. USA also looks to him to consult on our most complex exhibit engineering projects. This unique relationship is fostered by Dr. Hodder’s easy nature and inquisitive mind. We always enjoy a visit from David as he regales us with stories of engineering challenges he has met and his travels around the world. David notes that: “association with USA’s management, and their creative and highly competent professional staff, has been a major contribution to attaining consistently successful performance for many demanding projects”.
David also enjoys an active family life with his wife Dyane Alessi, children and grandchildren – organizing and participating in many neighborhood activities at their home in Valley Forge, creating exotic woodwork (as he puts it “making useful things, besides firewood, out of dead trees” ), enjoying the open road and off-road in a 1995 AM General Hummer H1, traveling, entertaining, home improvement and gardening.
This past spring USA co-sponsored the annual American Helicopter Society dinner with Dr. Hodder. This year’s dinner was held at the American Helicopter Museum & Education Center in West Chester, PA, where we took this picture of Dr. Hodder in front of a V-22.
As a part of the continued press received for the Cellophane House project, USA’s shop and staff will appear in an upcoming segment of the Sundance Channel’s award-winning eco-series “Big Ideas for a Small Planet.” USA’s shop was filmed to document the process of assembling the SmartWrapTM panels for KieranTimberlake’s Cellophane House which was exhibited at MoMA last fall.
Tuesday, September 1, 8pm EST
Episode 5: Architecture. Traditional design and construction often have a negative impact on the the environment. can we imagine architecture built on sustainability? Ideas include reclaiming contaminated waterfronts, design for disassembly and kit homes. Featuring Michael Manfredi and Marion Weiss of Weiss/Manfredi Architects, Reed Kroloff from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, James Timberlake and Steven Kieran of KieranTimberlake Architects, and architect Rocio Romero.
Mike and his daughter attended the World Science Festival Street Fair which featured a large piece built by USA. “Wheel Deal” is an exhibit where visitors ride square-wheeled tricycles over inverted catenary curves; the ride is still smooth because the square wheels allow the center of the wheel to always remain level. The exhibit was a hit with the crowd providing amusement for participants and bystanders.
USA constructed the wall and bin system for the Tessellation Wall.
It was just a typical day in the city of 8 million!
New York Daily Photo Blog: Math Midway
The Math Midway Takes Shape. Go Figure.
As a part of their annual Sustainable Design Awards, the Boston Society of Architects has awarded KieranTimberlake Associates and their project team a “Citation for Reusability of Materials and Components” for the Cellophane House project seen at the Museum of Modern Art in Fall 2008.
We thank the Boston Society of Architects for this honor and KieranTimberlake for involving us in this important project.