Creating Better Lobby Exhibits with Free and Open-Source Software

Presentation theme: educational advancements in planetariums

Planetarium domes are exciting, modern places for immersive science education. The lobby should be, too! Unfortunately, custom exhibits can be difficult or expensive to create, manage, and maintain. Constellation is a new free and open-source software system that enables planetariums of all sizes to create their own digital content for use in lobbies and galleries. 

It provides powerful yet simple tools for creating multilingual touchscreen interactives, such as timelapse viewers, media browsers, word clouds, digital labels, audience surveys, and more. You can also change digital signage, manage internet-connected projectors, control DMX lighting, and more. Best of all, constellation runs on hardware you already own, including Windows and Linux PCs, iPads, Android tablets, and more. 

This talk will introduce the mission and goals of constellation, as well as demonstrate how constellation is being used at Adventure Science Center. This is a community-created, community-supported project, so we would love for others to pitch in! To learn more or download for free, visit https://cosmicchatter.org/constellation/constellation.html.

Image © Arena Berlin