We travelled all the way from Huntsville Alabama to the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) trade show in 2025, only to meet the Manager of Visitor Engagement from the EarlyWorks Children’s Museum back in Huntsville. We were showing our simple desktop x-ray exhibit, and she asked if we could make a bigger design. What you see below is our new child sized design for a standalone x-ray exhibit — installed in EarlyWork’s new veterinary clinic.
Children can pick up stuffed animals from nearby cages and carry them to the x-ray machine. Inside each animal is embedded a small RFID chip that identifies the animal. When the child places it on the x-ray table, a sensor reads the chip and pulls up information about the animal. Pressing the big red button shows an x-ray of the animal. Pressing again shows a different x-ray. The machine sounds a nice hum when the “x-ray” is active, and a light in the arm shines down on the table and lights up the lightening symbol above.
The screen is a rugged EloTouch unit perfect for museum environments, and the entire cabinet is clad with easy to clean HDPE. The cladding is bolted in place so it is easy to replace if ever truly damaged, but this also gives the exhibit a nice anesceptic hospital look. A locking cabinet in the base provides easy access to the electronics and extra storage space that every member of your floor staff will crave.
Our software has a simple docent screen that allows staff to add or remove animals from the list, and to program new RFID tags. The software does not care if the images are x-rays or not. Staff can add any images they want and associate them with a given animal. In fact we used AI to generate some nice cartoons of each animal that are shown while waiting for the x-ray button to be pressed.