Dotdotdot – Works – Maxi Ooh! - The sensory forest
MUSE – Science Museum of Trento
2024
Maxi Ooh! - The sensory forest
An interactive, multisensory experience for kids aged 0 to 5 exploring the woods undergrowth

Dotdotdot has renewed the visitor experience of the Maxi Ooh! - the children’s space at the Science Museum in Trento MUSE - with an interactive and an immersive installation.

Both spaces, conceived for the two multimedia spheres of the Maxi Ooh!, were designed to primarily engage children aged 0 to 5, offering them a playful and captivating exploration of the forest undergrowth and its inhabitants, while also promoting an engaging, qualitative interaction with the accompanying adult.

The content of the installations - developed through interactive motion graphics and a 360-degree video - was created based on input provided by the curators of the MUSE, who ensured its scientific accuracy and relevance for a kids + adult audience.

Interactive Sphere: The forest undergrowth

The first sphere immerses children in an environment reminiscent of an illustrated book. Animated projections featured on a 180° wall and the floor turn the space into a continuous landscape that replicates the atmosphere of an alpine forest, enriched with scenic elements - a bridge, a small cave, and foam logs, all made of soft fabrics.

As they move around the space and touch certain points in the central area, children and adults interact with different ecological niches. From the underground to the tree tops, they see plants and animals come to life and thus experience the natural evolution of the landscape firsthand.

Some interactions are triggered automatically by proximity.

By interacting with the cushion-logs, visitors discover how their actions affect the surrounding environment: lifting the logs animates the soil beneath them, causing insects to scurry away while the grass gradually regrows. Moving the logs in the river allows them to observe the water flow being interrupted and then restored once everything is put back in place.

The content displayed on the side walls also activates through proximity.

When approaching a mole, children can watch it burrow into its den and reappear elsewhere. Along the walls, a tree demonstrates the cycle of the seasons: from spring buds to summer leaves, which fall in autumn to form piles at the base of the tree. As visitors approach, the leaves on the ground begin to flutter, while new ones form on the branches in a continuous cycle that simulates life in the forest.

The second type of interaction occurs through touch. On the central wall, brushing against a plant causes butterflies to come to life and flutter about. Mushrooms, when touched, release a cloud of spores, while a woodpecker interacts with visitors: they can point to a spot on a log, and the bird will peck at it, uncovering insects to eat.

Immersive Sphere: The forest and its seasons

The second sphere was designed as a decompression space, where visitors experience an immersive journey through the seasonal cycle of the forest.

An 8-minute video, projected 360° on the walls, tells the story of the evolution of a natural landscape (actually located in Trentino, Lac dal Vedes in Val di Cembra) through Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.

To create the background, Dotdotdot captured ultra-high-definition photographs, which were then stitched together to form a 360° panoramic view. Using artificial intelligence, the landscape was animated according to the scientific guidelines provided by the curatorial team: the changing seasons influence flora and fauna, with phenomena such as rain, snow, blooming, and day-night cycles altering the colors, movements, positions, and sounds of leaves, plants, flowers, and the sky.

Local animals—such as toads, woodpeckers, wolves, squirrels, bears, hares, chamois, foxes, and a capercaillie—move realistically and interact with the environment. Enlarged as if viewed through a magnifying lens, they display their behaviors through detailed animations that appear in separate frames within the landscape.

The effects generated by artificial intelligence were manually refined with the curators' support to ensure that every detail, from the changes in the leaves to the behavior of insects, adhered to scientific accuracy.

A soundscape, composed of forest sounds and animal calls, guides visitors along the path, further enriching the immersive experience.

Credits
Interactive installations and
Immersive installation by
Dotdotdot
Team
Laura Dellamotta
Giovanna Gardi
Alessandro Masserdotti
Fabrizio Pignoloni
Nicola Buccioli
Nicola Ariutti
Antonio Cioppa
Giuseppe Cirillo
Francesco Garavaglia
Federica Mandelli
Martina Merigo
Pietro Forino
Donato Renzulli
Mirco Sturlese
Andrea Ascani
Tiziano Berti
Photography
Archivio MUSE - Museo delle Scienze di Trento,
photo by Matteo De Stefano and Michele Purin