Bag End Brings Storms to Life at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry

The new 26,00-sq.-ft., two-story Science Storms exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry lets visitors experience a 40' tornado, high-voltage lightning and even create a tsunami in a 30' wave tank as they try more than 50 hands-on experiments. Helping make the experiences more lifelike are Bag End D10E-I subwoofers mounted under grills in the floor in numerous listening areas and in the ceiling above the enormous rear-projection glass screens that carry the visual images.

"The main audio for the large screen includes Bag End D10E-I's mounted below a grill at each of the listening stations," explains Maris Ensing, president of AV designer Mad Systems, which designed both the AV system and the safety controls for the exhibits. "Two other exhibits feature rear-projection screens with D10E-Is mounted in the ceiling above them."

There were two challenges for the audio system, Ensing points out. With 50 exhibits within the space, many active simultaneously, it was important that there be no audio spill from one to another. And, although the sound of the natural events was powerful, the intelligibility of the accompanying narration was paramount. Both these challenges were met through a creative use of acoustic paneling to achieve audio separation between the exhibits and the use of high-quality audio equipment such as the Bag End subwoofers. The permanent exhibit opened in May, 2010 and has been one of the museum's most popular exhibits ever since.