Concept 'Roaring Ring'  Project Plan

2)
Ruth asked: Can we for example go with 3 modules rather than 6 - so
that they don't make a whole tent roof but more some covered areas?

I think we all would share Ruth's concern if that was in fact the
design, but Michael has shown us that actually, at head height and
above, there is much more open space than covered space. Even at the
bottom, there is a lot of space between the sections, and the fabric
structures basically taper as they go up (the possible second structure
that forms a roof above the first structure will be much smaller than
the lower structure). So the feel will not be oppressive.
 

3)
Ruth asked for a mail walking us through how one will traverse through
the exhibit and tell a story.
Here's my take on that (assuming last year's content for straw man
purposes).

From a distance, the exhibit is attractive because it is unique. None
of us have seen anything like this at any trade show. The tensile
fabric shapes are very unusual, they have a strange glow and flashes of
light from the video projections (meant to be more readable from within,
but noticeable from without), and there is the event sculpture above
that intermittently erupts in light.

As we approach, we see the outer artwork panels (these are large, but
still of a size that we can print in house with our wide poster printers
- hence easy reuse). These are just general art, perhaps images of
detectors, or of accelerators, or stylized event displays. Light
(spilling backwards from the rear projection) is playing on the part of
the fabric panels behind these artwork panels.

Between each pair of fabric panels is a space about five feet wide
through which we can pass without feeling like we are entering a room.
The feeling is rather like walking between two sculptures spaced
comfortably far apart. The structure of the fabric panels is, by the
way, welded to a wide metal plate concealed under the carpet, making the
structure easily able to withstand someone bumping into it. It might
flex a bit, but it would not fall down.

We are attracted to walk through that opening because there is light and
activity inside, and because we do not feel in any way trapped. At head
height, the space is more open than closed. I saw a sculpture show once
by Jonathan Borofsky, who makes these 15 foot high stylized men (out of
steel plate) with moving jaws from which babble emerges. Some of these
men were arranged in a circle of the proportions Michael has proposed
here, and I remember that it felt very engaging to step into that circle
and be surrounded by them (but with plenty of ready ways out).

Once inside that circle we look around. At the center of the circle,
there is the six sided kiosk with many screens, with tabletops and
keyboards and explainers and stools. But we probably don't want to
interact with those people at first, we'd rather look around for
ourselves. So we focus on the inside of the fabric panels. Each panel
has two smaller flat panels in front of it. These have a mix of printed
material and flat screens (note that these smaller flat panels are small
enough that the printed material can be printed in house using our
standard poster printers - hence easy reuse). We see that this basic
design is repeated all around the six parts of the circle. From our
position inside the circle, we can now properly see what the moving
light on the panels is about. We see the particles moving around, and
the occasional collision where the particles hit each other, light
flashes, and, we might also notice, the event sculpture above the center
kiosk lights up.

Still shy of actually engaging the explainers, we study the material on
the small flat panels, and we move around the circle studying various
ones of these small panels.

One panel carries the "questions questions unanswered questions about
the universe" message that we had last year (Deep and Fundamental
Mysteries).

Another panel gives the slide show of famous results (Nobel prizes and
such).

Another panel holds the general slide show about how people make it all
happen (as we had on the big plasma display last year)

Another panel explains what an accelerator is, talking about how we have
to build giant machines to solve the riddles of the small.

Another panel shows a detector being built.

Another panel shows something about a different detector.

Another panel has the "computing holds the keys" message.

Another panel on the physics of Quantum Field Theory

Another panel on computing for Lattice QCD Computing

Another panel on Accelerator Simulation

Another panel on Detector Simulation

Another panel on alternate uses of Geant4 (such as medical)

And so on, such that these small flat panels take us from the general
introduction to HEP, through the big engineering (accelerators and
detectors), then the Computing Holds the Keys message, and then the
first few specific topics in computing (which include many live screens,
but not requiring keyboard interaction - though a touch panel could be
used for some input if really needed).

We can now either flee the area or (and this is most likely, since it
has all been so interesting up to now) move to the central kiosk.

The central kiosk may have up to three rows of two screens on each of
its six faces, but that is just the upper limit. A face might instead
have fewer screens and more printed content. Printed content will be
small enough that it can be printed with our in house poster printers.

The top row of screens, if present, will be so high up that it will be
used only for large imagery (some of it might give a sense of data
flowing down from the event sculpture, timed such that the data flow is
bigger just after then event occurs).

The rest of the kiosk is where we find the topics that involve hands-on
demonstrations. (note: this list is just a quick first guess. The main
point is that we put the more hands-on content on the central kiosk.
Some of the items I've already listed above might indeed do better on
the central kiosk, depending on the amount of hands-on content).

Data Acquisition, Online

Data storage

Grid Infrastructure and Mentoring

Physics on the Grid Now

Future Computing Demos

Interactive Analysis, Interactive Event Displays

We are done. Time to retire to the conversation area and receive our
beam tree thingy.

Having now done the exercise of writing out this walk through, I am more
confident than ever that we can fit our content into this design.

 

4)
Ruth points out: The 50% reduction in cost is now expected to come as a
result of reuse rather than of reduced cost this time round. Why and how
is this acceptable? Given static content are we sure we can reuse?

The basic structure of the central kiosk would be stored for next year.
The flat panel screens would be resold internally. Next year, we would
print new artwork (in house poster printing), and again do the flat
panel screen deal with Dell or some other screen vendor.

The fabric structures could be used (with the small flat panels on the
inside, with or without the outer artwork panels). Different imagery
could be programmed on the video projection (the fabric itself is plain
white). Different content could be placed on the small flat panels
(again, printed content is of a size that is easily done in-house, and
the monitors can of course show whatever we want). They could be used
throughout the year in various contexts and then brought back for SC use
the following year (and maybe the year after that if we think the idea
is not too stale). At SLAC at least, we have a strong request from our
PR division to provide something that can be taken to schools, community
day events, etc. The fabric structures are specifically designed to be
easily transported in a standard sized vehicle and set up by just one or
two people.