Let's Connect! Exploring Communication Technology

Let’s Connect! Exploring Communication Technology tells the incredible story of how people connect with innovative communication devices. This dynamic exhibition explores the efforts of human beings to move an ever-growing quantity of information faster and farther than ever before. It is presented in five sections and includes:

  • More than 20 interactives 
  • Five sections exploring key eras of communications development 
  • Profiles of innovators from around the world 
  • A fascinating collection of historical objects 
  • More than 40 contemporary broadcasts from miSci’s Archives 
  • A wide assortment of historical and contemporary images

 

SECTION ONE
Finding Our Voice
This section highlights humankind’s efforts to communicate before the availability of electricity through voice, writing, signaling, and more. Highlights include:

  • Interactive visualization that allows visitors to see a signature of their voice in real-time 
  • Mechanical oscilloscope that makes the imperceptibly fast vibration of sound visible 
  • Vivid examples of writing from different cultures around the world 

 

SECTION TWO
Getting Wired
This section explores how innovators put electricity to work, and how control over electricity allowed information to move at nearly the speed of light, to wherever wires could be run. Highlights include:

  • Objects from the 19th century development of the telegraph, including an original Edison stock ticker 
  • Interactive stations that allow visitors to use telegraph keys, classic telephones, and try their hand at Morse Code 

 

SECTION THREE
The Age of Broadcast
This section explores how broadcast radio upended human communications in the 1900s by using electronics to reach thousands at once without wires at all. Highlights include:

  • Four listening stations featuring recordings from the golden age of broadcasting 
  • An interactive station for visitors to make their own sound effects 

 

SECTION FOUR
Communication at Work
This section explores the jobs that use radio every day, from the amateurs that continue to experiment and push our limits, to the massive infrastructure that reaches out even into the void of space.Highlights include: 

  • An interactive map that tracks thousands of communication satellites currently orbiting the Earth  
  • A complete visualization of all the uses of radio, from scientific research to air traffic control

 

SECTION FIVE
Computers and Communication
This section looks at the rapid growth in computing power that makes our modern work possible and reveals how ancient innovations still have an impact on the way we use our devices today. Highlights include:

  • Interactive that invites visitors to use modern Emoji as 21st century hieroglyphs 
  • A collection of mobile phones ranging from modern smartphones to vintage car-based radiophones 

 

 

 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES 

Communications and human society have gone hand in hand for thousands of years. Each new development changed how humans and information interact and fueled the demand for faster and farther forms of communication.Visitors to Let’s Connect! will learn about: 

  • Information Technologies and Instrumentation 
  • Waves: Light and Sound 
  • Defining Engineering Problems 
  • Systems and System Models 

 

Click here to inquire about booking this exhibition. We look forward to speaking with you.