[Music]
My name's Hero and I am a Gallery Assistant and I'm
currently a
Mission to Mars astronaut.
[Music]
So with the current COVID pandemic
obviously Questacon is a very high touch environment.
So as soon as we shut, our whole
workforce
had to sort of be redeployed inside the centre.
So from talking to you know
five-year-olds about science suddenly we
were at home
trying to work out how to bring science
to the general public.
So for example, I got to work on a really
fun Questacon at home
experiment where we created a scavenger
hunt for the periodic
table of elements.
[Music]
So usually Questacon is a very high
touch experience where visitors get to
wander the centre at their own pace,
but instead we've actually created a
whole new experience
and it's a 90 minute Mission to Mars.
So we've written all new content so that we
can change our existing galleries
so they fit within this Mars, and it's
all centred around our really cool
seven meter Mars globe which is the only
one
in the southern hemisphere.
[Music]
So it took us a while, it took us about
eight weeks and that was a combination
of people working from home, people from
my team,
people from all over Questacon working
together to create this brand new
experience.
[Music]
So the Mission to Mars experience is a
pre-booked 90-minute guided tour.
So visitors are brought into the tour
even from their home when they get sent
a mission control email briefing them on
their journey.
They then come into the centre blast off
in an immersive rocket launch
and journey all the way to Mars, as they
rotate around Mars they get to visit our
decks, they get to have an experience in
the Mars quake lab,
they get to get involved with really
immersive experiments
and very cool demonstrations. Finally
they get to spend some time
underneath Mars thinking about their
journey today
and the possible journeys to Mars in the future.
[Music]
