TechnoRhino visits RAMM
On Friday 26 August, an extraordinary high-tech 3D infographic rhino will be visiting the Indian botanical drawings in the Flower Power exhibition at Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM).
From 10am to 5pm visitors will be able to see and interact with the rhino, find out how it was created and learn more about the plight of the world’s rhinos, one of the most endangered large mammals in the world.
Dubbed TechnoRhino, the dazzling artwork uses a medium-size rhino figure, data on wild population numbers and some very clever computing. One side of the fibre glass rhino has been studded with over 1,000 LED lights which can change colour and act like pixels to show images and words. TechnoRhino has been programmed with a number of pre-set animations that can be activated by Twitter or by using an accompanying iPad controller, which also lets you control the LED colour using sliders.
Techno Rhino was developed by specialists from Paignton Zoo Environmental Park, the Met Office Informatics Lab, the University of Exeter, Kaleider, Bigwave Media and ESW Solutions, with extra ideas, inspiration and knowledge from freelance software developers and students.
Ross Middleham, Design Lead at the Met Office, explained: “If you Tweet @GreatBigRhinos #TechoRhino and then the pattern hashtag – for example, #rainbow, #rainfall, #disco or #rhinonumbers – you can change what’s on the rhino. There’s even an Olympic link - and a number of hidden hashtag animations waiting to be found!
“We’ve brought together lots of different people and stepped into the unknown, using the latest technology. We’ve been sharing ideas, technical skills and data to produce something quite new and special for the wider public. Collaboration has been the key!”
Ross: “The aim of TechnoRhino is to take a different approach to The Great Big Rhino Project – to mix art and tech, to share and learn across disciplines, to challenge ourselves with a project with an unknown outcome. It also supports our STEM work – a large portion of the work has been carried out by work experience and summer placement students.”
And there’s a joke here that unites computer geeks and rhino conservationists - 95% of the computing has been done in the Java-script programming language. The Javan rhino is one of the species that will benefit from The Great Big Rhino Project.
There are two other rhinos are at based at RAMM, one life-sized and one model, all part of Paignton Zoo’s Great Big Rhino Project. Pippa Craddock, from Paignton Zoo, said: “One thing we want The Great Big Rhino Project to do is showcase the wealth of creativity in our area – and this is an incredible result!” The Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus) could be down to a population of about 60 individuals, all on the Indonesian island of Java. It is the least researched and least understood of the rhino species.
There are 40 life-size painted rhino figures on The Great Big Rhino Trail, which leads around the streets, parks and open spaces of Exeter and the English Riviera. Free trail maps help people to find the beautiful beasts. Money raised when the rhinos are auctioned in November will be channelled through Save the Rhino International to help Javan and Sumatran rhinos.
Twitter @Greatbigrhinos, hashtag #greatbigrhinos, #technorhino
See Stephen Hodge’s video on Twitter: https://twitter.com/StephenHodgeX/status/766617921057595393
