Cycle City was a temporary exhibit focusing on bikes and bike transit at the Portland Children's Museum which ran Jan- March 2013. I was a member of the design and building team for this exhibit which was conceived and created entirely in house. I helped create the overall look and feel of the design as well as creating all props and loose parts, and most of the artistic elements in the space.
The exhibit included a PVC bike building station, bike drawing, splatter painting station made from bike parts, a bike driven giant etch a sketch, a build your own circuit activity powered by peddling, a felt bike velcro wall, bike and transit themed story nook, an interactive shadow wall and light table, and a virtual ride along bike trip through Portland.
Above is an image of the bike drawing activity, and the bike velcro wall activity. I designed both activities to break down a bike into its component shape so that kids could use those shapes to imagine new objects and play with color and form. The velcro wall bikes are sewn from ultra plush fleece.
A prototype of the fleece bike parts
Smaller corner of bike building activity. This station let you build a face ourt of gears and loose parts on a bike seat covered in velcro.
The circuit building activity featured individual blocks with LEDs, buzzers, motors, switches, resistors, and push buttons. Kids could connect these using gator clips in order to create working circuits. Some activity tables had direct power and some had bike generated power. small motors converted peddling to DC current and were wired into the tables. This allowed the kids to generate electricity for each other, get exercise and take turns working together to learn about electricity. I made the circuit blocks simply using industrial hot glue to attach components and nails for the in and out.
We used bike parts throughout the space to add whimsical and thematic design touches. Here i made an apron hook using gears.
A close up of the plush bikes. As well as the wall treatments throughout the space which I designed and hand painted on all the walls.
The bike building station. Various lengths of 3/4" PVC were provided, along with assorted connectors. Custom made wheels and seats were also provided to fit.
