Meeting Abstract
Most people enjoy watching colorful fish swim, and they may have even wondered about all the different varieties of fishes, but few people get to participate in the biomechanical research that is helping us understand the diversity of fishes. The goal of this project was to make this process more accessible by engaging museum goers in the research itself. We have developed a prototype for a “Design a Fish” activity, an exhibit that will allow science museum visitors to create their own flexible model of a fish from an assortment of tail and body parts of varying shapes and flexibilities. The fish can then race down a long tank against those of other museum goers, with sensors in the tank recording the speed, kinematics, and body properties of each fish. Preliminary tests show that body shape and flexibility both play a part in a model’s speed, although the two factors interact in a complex way. By allowing the public to contribute to the creation and testing of the model fish, we make the complicated processes behind fish locomotion tangible, while simultaneously developing a source of crowdsourced data to quantify the effect of shape and flexibility on swimming performance in fish. To accompany the exhibit, we designed videos that illustrate particle image velocimetry (PIV), a laboratory technique used to quantify fluid flow patterns around swimming fish. We combined animation, clever writing, and science to explain PIV and how we use it to study fish swimming. We hope museum visitors gain a deeper understanding the techniques and scientific process used to study swimming in fish and animal movement in general.
