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U.S.S. Cobia
Below the Surface Exhibit

Education | Entertainment | Museum

The Wisconsin Maritime Museum (WMM) started an initiative to create unique, content-rich programming, starting with the U.S.S. Cobia exhibit. The new exhibit, focusing on the museum’s iconic WWII submarine, combines traditional museum exhibit concepts and modern technology, with the goal of creating an educational, dynamic, and thought-provoking exhibition.

The overall goal of the exhibit is edu-tainment... to create an entertaining and information story/experience with an exhibit flow-thru that piques the interest and excitement of the visitor by providing an interactive versus spectator experience and bringing the stories of the men who serves on the U.S.S. Cobia to life.

Working with WMM to develop the story arc that is the thread through the exhibition, our staff strongly embraced the art of storytelling, creativity and end-user experiences.

Ideation & Branding

As the first part of the exhibit development, Balance worked collaboratively with WMM on the ideation of the exhibit concept, branding, and overall look and feel.

Balance developed and designed the comprehensive exhibit brand, including the logo design and brand standards that established the foundation of the exhibit design, text panels, and kiosk development.

Banner Design

While the existing Simulator and Interpretive Center were closed for renovations, Balance Studios and WMM wanted to make sure visitors were enticed to find out more about the upcoming exhibit redesign. Balance designed a custom banner displaying the exhibit branding to promote the exhibits opening in July 2015.

Full Exhibit Layout, Design & Fabrication

After the exhibit branding and logo design was completed, the full exhibit layout and design began. Balance created 3D renderings of the exhibit layout and components. The Below the Surface exhibition contains updates to the current Cobia Simulator and Interpretive Center, as well as a new visitor experience, allowing patrons to join the crew of the Cobia.

By focusing on the men, their stories, the brotherhood between crew members, as well as the typical life on a submarine, each attraction of the exhibit provides a different perspective of life at sea aboard the U.S.S. Cobia. The overarching theme of 90% sheer boredom, 10% sheer terror helps connect the three areas with the already existing guided tours of the U.S.S. Cobia.

To maintain brand consistency throughout the exhibition, Balance designed, coordinated and facilitated all areas of the exhibition, including, but not limited to text panel printing, exhibit construction, faux painting and all of the multi-media components.

U.S.S. Cobia Below the Surface Simulator Experience

Balance was commissioned to concept, design and tell the story of the men who served on U.S.S. Cobia through this simulator experience. Once the door to the simulator closes, visitors begin a four minute multi-sensory experience. Visitors can hear and feel the crew talking and strategizing from the various locations in the control room and Conning Tower, featuring professional voice over actors, watch as the red combat lights switch on during battle, and feel the tension and excitement as the whole room lights up during a depth charge assault. During the battle, the Cobia ends up sinking a vessel carrying a battalion of 28 tanks headed for Iwo Jima, which made a significant impact in WWII. At the end of the experience, visitors learn the Cobia is unharmed and is returning to patrol the Pacific for enemy ships.

Balance combined interactives, professional voice overs, animated videos on radar screens, a custom periscope application, and a DMX controlled lighting system to complete the fully immersive story. The DMX controlled, software panel also directly controlled the orientation of dials, gauges, and meters found within the simulator. During the simulator experience, accurate readings of the submarines various gauge and meter readouts changed depending on the point of the story. Making changes to this spectacular light show is made possible through this master control panel.

Every inch of the simulator is meant to bring the visitor closer to being in the actual Cobia, from the faux metal painted walls, making to them appear as the inside of a submarine would look, to the additional pipes, fixtures, and gauges that Balance added to complete the experience. The team worked hand in hand with the WMM to make the significant modifications to the existing physical elements inside the simulator experience to make it as authentic as possible and carry out the storyline.

U.S.S. Cobia Interpretive Center: Post War Kiosk

Touch Screen Application

The U.S.S. Cobia Interpretive Center showcases never before seen artifacts from the Cobia, specifically from the only crew member who did not return during WWII, Ralph Huston. This area continues to tell the story of the men who served on the Cobia and their unique stories, such as the dollar bill that turned blue due to sweat from the terrifying experience of being attached while on the submarine.

Of the more than 160 men who served on the Cobia during WWII, the WMM chose 40 to feature in the new Below the Surface exhibit. Visitors are invited to learn more about a specific sailor by selecting a draft card with information about each man. Balance designed and facilitated the printing of the cards, which included nickname, rank/rate, patrols, date of birth, age, hometown, job on the Cobia, additional trivia, and post war information accessed through a QR code.

At the end of the exhibition, visitors are encouraged to see what happened to their sailor after the war at the Post War Touch-Screen Kiosk. Located right outside the interpretive center, the Post War Kiosk shares details of the crew members lives after the war. Visitors are invited to scan their code or select a soldier. By opting to scan their code, visitors use the build-in camera to scan the QR code on their crew member's draft card. From there, they are able to learn more about the specific sailor's post war life.

U.S.S. Cobia Interpretive Center: Text Panels

WMM provided the content for the 13 text panels. In turn, Balance designed them to match the overall exhibit branding. Each panel told part of the exhibition story and helped give context to the new artifacts found within the space.

U.S.S. Cobia Interpretive Center: Image Gallery Touchscreen Kiosk

Featuring images, documents, letters, and more, the Image Gallery Kiosk shares the crew member's personal stories. Visitors are able to read letters home to family, the never seen before private collection of letters and telegrams from the Ralph C. Huston Collection, poems and documents from the Richard Benson Collection, as well as fun photos from the Cobia's baseball team the Cobia Cannonballs and recipes that were used onboard the Cobia. The touch-screen was another way to create a personal connection to the crewmembers and show some of the fun they had aboard.

U.S.S. Cobia Interpretive Center: Video Monitors

Two video monitors help provide an additional connection to the crewmen by providing quotes directly from the crew themselves to support the exhibit area. When visitors enter the exhibit, they see the Why Joined Video Monitor. Crew members explain their motivation to choose the dangerous path of a submarine sailor.

The second video monitor, located in the section of the exhibition talking about Depth Charges, plays a video of quotes from the crew explaining their feelings while the Cobia was being depth charged.

U.S.S. Cobia Interpretive Center: Depth Charge Projection Video

The WMM needed to find a way to teach museum patrons and class tours about what depth charges were and why they were terrifying. Balance combined a traditional museum artifact, a vintage model of the U.S.S. Cobia with projection mapping to help achieve this educational goal.

When patrons come up to the custom acrylic case, they see the Cobia immersed in water. The experience begins showing depth charges coming down from the waterline and showing what type of impact they made on a submarine. To the right of the projection video area, the Depth Charge video monitor allowed patrons to read crew quotes about their experience during depth charge episodes.

The Idea

Engage visitors in high-impact, multi-sensory experiences.

Services

You never know what amazing story is just below the surface. Balance storytellers have no qualms about diving deep to find the most engaging way to share the history of this incredible submarine and the men who lived and worked on it.

The Result

Weaving the story of the crewmen through this fascinating multi-faceted visitor experience, Balance Studios’ established history in creating immersive, engaging, edu-taining, and branded interactive visitor experiences is a key component to the successful design, development, and launch this comprehensive exhibit.

U.S.S. CobiaBelow the Surface Exhibit