Dr. Seuss: Unshlumping in a City Near You
07/05/04Newsweek
By Elise Soukup
An electrical engineer, two industrial designers and a sculptor recently huddled around an odd-looking machine. A lot was riding on the success of this never-before-seen invention. The mood was tense as they pressed a series of buttons and the contraption sputtered to life. Each held his breath: Have we done it? they wondered. Have we unshlumped the shlumping Borfin?
This isn't a scene from a movie--it was a real-life test at the Children's Museum of Manhattan. On July 2 the museum will premiere a touring exhibit, "Oh Seuss! Off to Great Places." The exhibit's showstoppers are two machines brought to life from Dr. Seuss's "Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?" There's the Throm-dim-bu-lator, which the book says has been taken apart and needs to be put back together, and the shlumping Borfin, a lethargic contraption that has to be unshlumped. The idea was simple--the museum would build models and kids could come and "fix" them--but making the illustrations 3-D was complex. "There were some moments where my heart sank," says Karen Snider, deputy director for exhibitions. "I thought maybe we'd bitten off more than we could chew."
To accomplish the feat, the museum enlisted more than 40 experts, including Richard Fontana, who has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and two masters from MIT; James Tu, an NYU electrical-engineering professor, and Dan Oakly, an architect and toy inventor. The challenge was to stay true to Seuss--they were being monitored by Dr. Seuss Enterprises--while keeping the machines portable and kid-friendly. There were obstacles from the start. Seuss's Throm-dim-bu-lator, for example, defies gravity with a large unsupported overhang. The designers solved the problem with wood beams and foam up top, counterbalanced with weights on bottom.
And then there was the Borfin: Seuss never explained how it unshlumps. "We asked questions like, 'Is a Borfin something you can fix or you can heal?' " says Rich Miller, manager of exhibitions and technical design. "And what the hell is a shlump?" So the museum created a backstory ("The Borfin is a tired and troubled machine. It is part machine, part animal") and concocted an unshlumping formula: it works when kids press a series of buttons and stamp their feet. After three failed prototypes, they developed a working model: a massive mechanical puppet moved by linear activators and triggered by microsensors that are hooked up to a computer that counts the kids' button presses and foot pumps. Almost as innovative as the good doctor himself.
