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MEET: New UK Electrical and Electronic Museum
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Lucien Nunes:
I'm delighted to announce that some time in the next few days / weeks, BBC Breakfast will be airing a short piece about MEET (The Museum of Electrical and Electronic Technology.) I'm expecting it to include an interview in which I explain our original plan and the impact of my declining health on being able to achieve it, plus a couple of demonstrations of how the MEET concept generates exciting STEM learning potential from some of our vintage exhibits. If they give me advance warning of the TX date and time, I'll post it in this thread.

In the meantime, and in direct contrast to the very positive step of gaining national publicity, my physical abilities are diminishing to the point of finding it increasingly difficult to walk. As I put it in the interview, we are 'some weeks away' from having to pull the plug on MEET, as we have not found anyone to lead the project as a whole once I am gone. Sam Battle of the Not Obsolete Museum is very much in the loop and there is still scope for extensive collaboration with him and others, but as with all these options time is against us to devise a holistic solution.

Disbanding would be a huge blow that negates most of the last 15 years of my life but I have to accept that if it gets left too long I won't have the strength left to oversee dispersing, rehoming and scrapping the collection. The latter sounds dramatic, but in reality there are many objects in the collection that are not 'collectables' in the normal sense, and equally unattractive for other museums to take on if they are not in a position to use them as educational resources in the way that we would within MEET.

As I have said elsewhere, above and beyond the collection I am keen to preserve and promote the MEET concept. Dispersing telephones to a telephone museum, radios to a radio museum, computers to a computer museum etc. works contrary to MEET's principle of making all these things accessible and inviting to non-specialist and non-technical audiences, therefore that kind of 'Plan B' is very much a last resort.

Anyhow, in the present moment we are alive and kicking and could yet win through, so please do add to this thread with any ideas you might have for fun stuff to see and do at MEET! There is still scope for it to happen. Make mine a 2465B :)
RJSV:
   A very interesting development.  Are you folks
 hiring ?
   Does a newer project like this, especially with site locating and heavy moving, does the initial project have a logistics division (or specialist)?
RJSV:
My contribution could end up as a popular PIN BALL related mechanical computer installation.  Could be taken over / modified by a technical artist, if so desired, to make attractive and rapid calculating ball movements.  Lanes define the numbers.

   Might take a modest funding, initially, $50 to $100 K.
Just for the usual display cases, etc. for creating a working system, not just a couple of logic gates.
Transparent plastic panels, and the like.

Please see, for reference:
   US 20030172205-A1

(I believe you could generally use most of that abandoned patent application, now old...Rick B.)
Lucien Nunes:


Update: MEET interview will be broadcast on BBC Breakfast next Tuesday May 2nd. We don't know what time, probably between 06:00 and 09:15. Stay tuned!



--- Quote ---Are you folks hiring ?
--- End quote ---
At the moment it has all been driven by volunteer effort. We had a fundraiser last year to keep us going, when I became ill and was no longer able to sponsor the rent for the warehouses etc, but it might enable us also to hire a professional fundraiser and project manager if we are ultimately able to go ahead. As with many technical museums, it will be a long time before we get enough income to be able to afford paid staff.


--- Quote ---does the initial project have a logistics division (or specialist)?
--- End quote ---
Yes, his name is Edward and he is an excellent man for the job. Whatever needs moving, once Edward is on the case it just floats along effortlessly, usually while I am making the coffee so I miss the action.

We like electromechanical computers and do actually have a pinball exhibit in the collection. It's a last-generation fully EM Williams Aztec game, with certain components remoted so that you can see them working. Additional indicators connected to the logic and camswitches etc show how the progress of the gameplay is controlled by the switchgear. I want to have the playfield completely sanded down and re-painted with a new electrically-themed game but have not gotten around to that yet.
richard.cs:
@Lucien is this essentially a new name for the planned electrokinetica museum, or is the proposal here significantly different? I'm very sorry to hear about your health.
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