Genuinely Engaging And Immersive Projection Exhibit Lets Kids Draw, Color Fish For Virtual Aquarium

October 26, 2023 by Dave Haynes

Love this … an interactive exhibit that allows kids to draw and color fish or other marine life, have it scanned, and then appear on a big set of projection-mapped screens.

Terms like immersive and engaging are wildly over-used, and quite often terribly applicable, but this is very immersive and very engaging for the target audience.

It is a project that’s been around for 10 years or so from the international digital art collective teamLAB, whose work inspired a lot of the big immersive projection mapping exhibits that have popped up around the world.

The Sketch Aquarium was first done, it seems, in 2013.

Children can observe the power of their creative imagination through Sketch Aquarium. Each participant is invited to color a drawing of a sea creature of his or her preference. Once completed, the paper is scanned and the image is projected onto a giant virtual aquarium. Children will be able to see their creation come to life and swim with all of the other sea creatures. Children may also touch the fish to see them swim away, or touch the virtual food bag to feed the fish.

It’s a bit hard to sort out because teamAB does temporary and permanent exhibits, but there is definitely a permanent teamLAB “Future Park” educational attraction for kids in Shenzhen, China. In that one, kids make 2-D drawings of cars, buildings, UFOs, and spaceships. have them scanned, and then interact with them.