Tallinn Trip – Proto Museum and More Virtual Reality
This museum isn’t one that we would have likely considered paying for, but as it was included in the Tallinn Card it seemed worthwhile popping in. Located in a former submarine factory, it’s something of a blend of history and hands-on technology with a fair chunk of virtual reality. Now, we were already experts on this given the previous day’s experiences, so we were full of confidence. The reviews of the venue were also very positive, although it’s fair to say that we were really not sure what to expect at all.
Ross and Steve having a go at virtual reality teamwork. There were plenty of staff around to offer assistance in times of need, which was handy as I am often in times of need at places such as this.
Susanna having a lovely time in a balloon. There were something like twelve different concepts to try, some were more complex than others. This particular one was making a few people just a little dizzy and Steve and I couldn’t work out the carriage one at all. And if Steve, a car expert, can’t work it out then I had no hope. I took remarkably few photos here, although there are a couple of videos that I have when I finally wrap up these series of posts about Tallinn. And yes, to my two loyal blog readers, I know that this feels as though it is going on forever and I’m now about eight trips behind, but I’ll get there eventually.
As an experience, it was really quite exciting and showed what is possible with virtual reality in a museum type environment. Actually, there’s not much museum here really, but there’s a lot of potential in the whole educational element. I rather enjoyed the immersive experience of the whole arrangement and we tried several of the different activities, my favourites were the joint shooting of something underwater and the car one. Excuse my lack of precision here in terms of the details, I wasn’t quite sure if there was some educational logic behind them, but I was just trying to work out what I was doing. The first part of the experience, where you put on headsets and try and construct things with your hands, was a complete non-starter for me and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I suspect my friend Liam, a civil engineer, would have been able to understand the whole thing.
I’m all for expanding horizons and all that, so this was a fun experience and one that I will remember (not least as I can read it back on this riveting blog). Bev and Susanna, who threw themselves into the various bits of kit, were unharmed but exhausted at times, whereas Steve, Ross and I were more sedate. There was a bit of childlike wonder here and the beginning of perhaps not a revolution in museums, but certainly it’s going to be a new way of telling historic stories. We had to work our way around the children who were very much enjoying themselves and this is something that the museum will potentially have to work at, as I initially had the impression that it was aimed at children and it actually wasn’t at all, it had aspirations to appeal to all.
