Hardware
Photo courtesy of Red Dot Digital Media/Phenix Design Group
April 22, 2025
Red Dot Digital Media and the Phenix Design Group have teamed up to deliver an interactive space exploration experience at the Orlando Science Center in Florida.
Red Dot Digital Media is a specialty integrator in the digital signage space and a BrightSign Top 10 Global Preferred Partner.
For the past two decades, Phenix has provided the science center with interactive video kiosks and simulators for the museum’s annual Otronicon/SPARK STEM Fest events.
A standout experience is the Space Explorer featuring immersive kiosk comprising three vertically oriented screens that enable the user to explore key parts of the solar system using Google Earth, according to a case study.
When Phenix set out to update the design for use as a permanent exhibit, they enlisted Red Dot Digital Media to engineer an integrated hardware and software solution to power the interactive kiosk.
«We very much enjoyed the collaboration with Darryl Kuder and his team,» Steve Handy, co-owner of the Phenix Design Group, said in the release. «Red Dot was thorough and patient with us as we worked to get this project built and deployed on time.»
Phenix engaged Red Dot to design an interactive experience to power the third-generation Space Explorer kiosk. Red Dot custom-built a Linux PC designed specifically to deliver the speed and graphics capabilities sought by OSC, with the reliability and durability required for daily use in a museum setting. The PC manages all custom application interaction between the touchscreen, LED buttons and video outputs.
«Phenix’s request for this type of build was an opportunity we simply couldn’t pass up. It allowed us to flex our custom programming expertise while designing a creative hardware solution to deliver the high-quality results they envisioned,» Darryl Kuder, president of Red Dot Digital Media, said in the release.
User input is captured via a 15.6-inch Bluefin V-Series frameless touchscreen, a trio of Nexmosphere colored LED buttons and a manual joystick. The LED buttons enable users to choose whether they want to explore the Moon, Mars or Earth. The touchscreen displays a soft keyboard to provide search functionality and programmable soft keys to play back user-programmed tours.
The Bluefin touchscreen enclosure was designed and fabricated by Mega Media Factory. Red Dot created a password-protected maintenance interface for OSC technical personnel to use in conjunction with a keyboard and mouse physically secured within the kiosk’s enclosure.