In the industrial neighborhood south of Ajo Way, just down the
street from Tucson Electric Park, imagination and science are coming
together inside the walls of a plain-looking steel structure.
This is Joe O’Connell’s Creative Machines, where designers,
precision machinists and carpenters work on projects destined for
children’s museums and science centers far, far away from Tucson.
On one end of the machine shop are several ball machines, which look
like super-large bird cages with tunnels and contraptions for balls to
whiz through. Workers are putting on the final coats of paint before
they get shipped to the East Coast.
O’Connell says that’s how Creative Machines works: Whimsical works
get dreamed up and made, and are then quickly shipped off.
Occasionally, he’s been able to do local projects—like the Bike
Church in Barrio Anita, a conga-style interactive drum at Ochoa Park,
and the red gryphon public sculpture on Scott Avenue—but most of
the time, he sends works to places like Germany or Hawaii.
“It would be nice for more of this to stay in Tucson,” O’Connell
says, looking at project prototypes. “I don’t really get a chance to
see people interact with our exhibits.”
That could change soon, depending on a collaboration between
O’Connell and Joe Ruggiero, a past associate director of the UA
Flandrau Science Center, as well as the Physics Factory, a Tucson-based
science-education organization.
They want to create a local science center, and from their
perspective, the time is just right. With the closure of Flandrau last
spring, Tucson is without a science center for the first time in 30
years. A city the size of Tucson, according to Ruggiero, should have a science center.
UA administrators announced in the spring that Flandrau would
indefinitely be closed due to the economy; plans to develop a new
science center on the west side of downtown were also put on hold. A
reduced staff at the Flandrau remained to work on grants and future
science center planning. (See “Got Stars?” July 30.)
Employment contracts for Flandrau staff members were reportedly set
to expire at the end of 2009, but according to Leslie P. Tolbert, UA’s
vice president for research, graduate studies and economic development,
“The Science Center effort continues at the rate it has been at all
year, and we have no plans to change that level of effort.”
We contacted Flandrau executive director Alexis Faust for comment
regarding the UA Science Center’s status, but Tolbert responded. The
Flandrau reports to Tolbert’s office.
As Flandrau’s future began to look bleak last spring, Ruggiero says
he began to have conversations with friends like O’Connell, as well as
Kip Perkins, a science teacher and Physics Factory board member.
Like O’Connell, Ruggiero is an independent exhibit designer. As
owner of the Exhibit Guys, Ruggiero and his team in Tucson put together
exhibits for museums and science centers all over the world.
Ruggiero got his start at the New York Hall of Science. Since
starting his exhibit development business, like O’Connell, Ruggiero has
seen his work go far from home. He estimates 10 to 15 percent of his
work goes outside of the country.
For inspiration, Ruggiero and Perkins say they look to the
Exploratorium, the San Francisco science center that has been housed in
a former air plane hangar at the Palace of Fine Arts since 1969 and is
filled with interactive exhibits made right on the premises.
Ruggiero says he thinks that by using this model, the proposed
Tucson science center would cost less to start, because they would be
using local talent and materials, and could easily attract
volunteers.
“It doesn’t have to be this big palace,” Ruggiero says.
Right now, the proposed center has no formal name or an address,
although Ruggiero says they’ve recently met with downtown property
owners to find a suitable first space.
Michael Oppenheimer, who worked with Ruggiero at the New York Hall
of Science, says if anyone can pull off a science center in Tucson,
it’s Ruggiero—but it won’t be easy.
Oppenheimer should know. His father started the Exploratorium.
“That’s where I cut my teeth, learning what it took to make rich and
interesting exhibits,” says Oppenheimer, who now lives in Bellingham,
Wash. “(The Exploratorium) was an extension of my father’s mind, so
there was a lot of messing around and trial and error. … A lot of
people don’t realize that building a really good exhibit for public
use, for informal learning, is incredibly difficult.”
Another key to the success of the Exploratorium was risk.
Oppenheimer says O’Connell, Ruggiero and Perkins will have to be ready
to take a lot of risk and not feel compelled to control every element
of the exhibits.
“You have to allow the exhibit to go where it wants to go, and not
where you think it should go. My father said to me once after a few
years, ‘I would have never dreamed that this is where we were going
with this.'”
When asked whether cities like Tucson need science centers,
Oppenheimer says that communities need questions presented to them that
are worth asking and worth answering. Science centers provide this form
of informal learning—which is an important part of creating a
curious society.
Ruggiero says getting numerous people involved in planning and
development will make a big difference.
“Right now, we have a lot of energetic people who want to get
involved. That’s what it’s going to take to make this happen. We hope
we continue to attract more people who want to see an independent
science center start in Tucson,” Ruggiero says.
The science guys hope they have a space identified by January or
February, and say the center could be open in the spring.
“But it’s important to note that we don’t have all the answers,”
Ruggiero says. “That’s a fundamental part of this project. We’re not
going to be finished when we open. It’s just the beginning.”
For more information, call the Physics Factory at
481-4960.
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2009.
If there are individuals out there who would like to be engaged in the conversation about this idea of a ‘community science center,’ Please feel free to contact me at Joe@TheExhibitGuys.com. I would be interested in your input.
I am the former Director of Flandrau and changed the name from Flanrau Planetarium to Flandrau Science Center. We had plans to create an off campus site and partnered with several business people, actually forming a non profit organization and was pushing towards the downtown location. I won’t name others, but our prime leader was owner of a large Tucson company and when Rio Nuevo started getting real life we offered to help or become a part, we even had some commitment from the Smithsonian to participate. We felt at that time that the UA, with all its wonderful research, should be involved in some way, but not as the owner or manager. In any event, the City told us we need not be involved, and the University and City took over the Science Center concept, which now over ten years later seems to be dead.
I take pride in saying I hired Joe Ruggiero when I was Flandrau Director. Joe and I had plenty of arguments over time, but I took his advice far more than my own position, and for my money he is absolutely the best. He is a design genius, but more importanlty, he knows what truns kids on. He will pull this off.
I might add that when I first took Flandrau as an assignment I visited almost every science center in the country. I was amazed and awed by some of the well known large ones, Exploratorium, OMSI, COSI, and many more. But what amazed me was place like Acton, where two old houses next to each other were purchased with one turned into a science center and the one next to it into a children’s museum. To my amazement they had many of the same exciting hands-on exhibits as the big ones at both places, and at each visit there I found it packed with kids. All of them getting turned on to science.
In Tucson we did have Flandrau Science Center, but in our wisdom, when hit with budget woes, the first thing to go is education, so down the tubes went Flandrau and lots of other great UA outreach programs.
Joe, I’m 100% behind you, I do think if anyone in town can pull this off it is you. As a retired UA Professor and former Flandrau Director, I have limited financial resources. If I happen to win the lottery, your science center will get a huge chunk of it!
Jack D Johnson
UA Prof Emeritus
President, SciEnTeK-12 Foundation
Director Emeritus, Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair
Congratulations on a wonderful concept; good luck on successfully launching the plan. Shall keep an eye out for extra support, supporters, inspiration and creative machinery – after all, it’s our/the earth’s only future! (Helen H Bayly, Tucson AZ).
As a co-founder and VP of the Physics Factory, I should explain what we mean by “links to the UA and the city.” We do want to form links, and we want to form them with as many people and organizations as possible. But we don’t want the center to be beholden to anyone but the people of Tucson, who deserve not only a science center, but participation in its development.
The non-profit Physics Factory is a team of scientists and educators who, for five years, have run a science outreach program out of a school bus powered by Eegee’s’ waste vegetable oil. Now, presented with no “gathering place” for science in Tucson, we’re committed to creating a welcoming, participatory, community-based hearth for imagination, investigation, discovery, tinkering, and invention; and a place to drink coffee and tell and learn of new ideas.
When I bought my little house across from an elementary school three years ago, I thought of Don Verger, the serendipitous founder of the Acton Discovery Museum lauded in the comment below by Dr. Johnson. His museum began as a “Curious Society,” with his children and guests delighting in the eclectic, unexplained, mechanical marvels that covered every surface in his house and invited play and wonder. It evolved into one of the best museums in the country. My quixotic hope was that I could do the same in my home, but I was stymied by parking logistics. We need a suitable building in an accessible location, and would be grateful for any support the city, UA, and neighborhood groups could offer.
To the UA, Pima, Eegee’s, and the many other links we have formed over time: thank you. When we get the “missing link” of a physical home for science in Tucson, we’ll be ready to coordinate a science center that is awesome, in the true sense of the word.
John Perkins
The Physics Factory
This town needs a great place for kids (and adults) to explore–to be able to tinker and learn. I worked at the Exploratorium under Frank Oppenheimer when I got started in the museum world, and he and the fun interactive exhibits, made me understand and enjoy physics, and realize that I interact with science in many parts of my life. I want that for my son. At present, there is nowhere in Tucson he can experience this. A science center such as Joe & company is proposing doesn’t have to be so fancy–the Exploratorium wasn’t fancy, just engaging and exciting! With so many furniture stores closing on Ft. Lowell, perhaps one of those buildings could be converted! Good luck and may Tucson emerge with a hands-on science center soon! Lisa Falk, Director of Education, Arizona State Museum, Tucson
As a long time supporter of “The Physics Factory” I would like to extend my enthusiasm and support of a science museum in Tucson.
The Physics Factory has a great travelling educational science presentation, but they need a home to build, create and develop and amazing destination science museum for all the children in southern Arizona!
Good luck guys! Let me know if I can assist in anyway!
Elizabeth Sparks, Program Coodinator, Pima County Cooperative Extension
“I won’t name others, but our prime leader was owner of a large Tucson company and when Rio Nuevo started getting real life we offered to help or become a part”
What went wrong? The nameless person needed something that was not offered, did they NOT become part of the project?. It is s Tucson to hear and read, ” We offered to help” then nothing from them again.
There is a great space at 10th Street Alley and North 6th, a 100 year old Hotel with wonderful skylights, sitting pretty empty right now.