Meow Wolf AR Starfield Telescopes

I worked on the infrastructure design and interactivity for the three AR Starfield Telescopes in the Numia Forest for Meow Wolf Denver. These telescopes, each with their own aesthetic and interactive personality, are designed to look like oversized alien carnivorous plants. An embedded camera and LCD screen allow visitors to gaze around the forest and star-filled ceiling. As the telescope passes over the stars, the lighting pattern of the stars changes (accomplished using sACN, OSC, and TouchDesigner for lighting design). For specific stars, an AR overlay will pop up that shares a short video about the history of the star and its flora and fauna. The scopes use two rotary encoders connected to an Arduino in the axis and azimuth of the scope to deduce XY coordinates. This information is then sent over serial to a TouchDesigner patch containing a database of coordinates or star log. When there is a “hit” for any of the stars within view of the scope, the lighting pattern of the stars in view will switch or if it is a special star the video and sound will play. https://credits.meowwolf.com/convergence-station/numina/starfield-telescopes