Talking Shadows

Exhibit Summary

Talking Shadows is a Interactive interactive exhibit in the Optics category, designed for science centers, children’s museums, discovery centers, STEM learning centers and family entertainment centers. Built as a hands-on, mechanical & electromechanical display, it turns an abstract scientific concept into direct, interactive visitor exploration, and is engineered for durable, low-maintenance, high-traffic gallery use.

Scientific Principle

Educational purpose: The exhibition uses electromechanical interaction to allow guests to grasp the principles of shadow production and the phenomenon of visual persistence. Display content: In life, shadows can be seen everywhere. Whether under the sun during the day or under the moonlight or lights at night, we can view the shadows of trees, people, cars and other objects. Light propagates along straight lines in the same homogeneous medium. When it encounters an opaque object, the object blocks the propagation of light and cannot pass via the opaque object. The darker area formed is what we often call shadow. It is an optical phenomenon. The shadow always appears on the backlit side of the object, and its shape and size will move with the light source.

Operation