XNA continues to grow, from the number of passengers to the direct flights, even the ways to spend time in Northwest Arkansas National Airport's terminal. Jack Travis has more on a new mini museum called the Wonder Wing.
Kids and their parents have a new place to explore while waiting for their planes at Northwest Arkansas National Airport. Wednesday, the Scott Family Amazeum welcomed passengers to a new spot in the XNA terminal. Dubbed the Wonder Wing, this mini museum sits where the airport's moving sidewalk used to be, about halfway between security and the gates. Amazeum Executive Director Sam Dean explains that they wanted to let kids slow down during what can be a stressful experience.
“Because, you know, when you're going to an airport, you're either on your way to somewhere or on your way back from somewhere. And what we decided to do, the Scott Family Museum with XNA, was create a lounge environment that is part of a spot to rest and relax, either coming or going, but turn that relaxation place into an exhibition that allows you to explore the wonders of being in an airport and ready to go on a journey wherever you're headed. What does it mean? What happens in airports? You move around. It's full of codes and systems and towers and language. It's full of stories.”
The exhibits and features are all airport-themed, from a replica seat to practice buckling in, to a real-time flight map that displays almost every moving plane across the country. There's even a kid-sized control tower to simulate what it's like for air traffic controllers.
“What we wanted to do is take a look at the environment around you at the Northwest Arkansas National Airport, and how would we translate that into an exploratory kind of exhibition? So the visual icon you're going to see behind us is we're calling Tower Three. In fact, the airport just added a second tower, a taller tower, to be able to accommodate its own increase in traffic and types of aircraft that come in. This tower is one that allows kids to go up and have their own experience. It's kind of like if you built it in your backyard, and you've got a red phone, you can call out to the rest of the lounge to be able to talk to someone out there. You've got a flight control tracker. You've got a microphone to be able to chat with other folks as well. So you could roleplay and imagine as if you're in an air control tower, and you can actually see live traffic as it's flying in.”
The Wonder Wing is in an airport terminal, though, a space that's not really known for play. Amazeum Senior Manager of Exhibitions Simon Mused says that it was a sticking point, but staff at the museum know how to think outside of the box.
“How do we actually introduce spaces where it feels like there's enough room to run and play, but also not so long that you build up enough momentum that you start getting in other travelers' way? We had to very carefully curate and arrange the space in order to maximize how much things that we can have, give each space the space that it needs for kids to feel comfortable playing with it, but also enough room for travelers to bring in their luggage, bring in any strollers with them. It's a challenge that we face at the Amazeum, but we have years of experience in managing that. So we wanted to make sure that there was just enough room for play and excitement and also movement.”
He says they had to think creatively and sometimes hide their exhibits in unexpected places.
“So my personal favorite, and this is actually a little bit of giving away a secret — there's a table that is thermochromic here in the space, that you won't discover it's thermochromic until you set an object on it that is hot or cold. You will find out where it is. I'm not going to give it away, but it's one of my favorite little exhibits. It's one of those moments of just quiet discovery. We have a giant live tracking radar of all the airplanes across the sky. We've lost tons of man-hours in our fabrication shop to that. When we had it all set up, we brought in kids to play with it, we've had adults play with it, but really, we've got a lot of team to get really excited about travel by playing with that tracking radar, which we thought was so neat that we had to put it in here twice.”
The Wonder Wing serves a dual purpose, according to XNA Business Development and Public Affairs Manager Olivia Tyler. She says the airport is the first and last thing many people see when they visit Northwest Arkansas. And on the front end, it's a first impression.
“For folks that have never been to Northwest Arkansas before, or they've only been for a couple of days. It's kind of hard to understand what makes Northwest Arkansas such a gem, such a treasure. And so to be able to weave in these kind of iconic pieces of Northwest Arkansas, whether that's Crystal Bridges, the Amazeum, the Onyx Coffee robot — any chance we can do something like that, so folks who have never been to Northwest Arkansas before know how special it is, we're willing to do that.”
Plus, the airport recently completed renovations, so it might look or feel different to longtime residents. Sam Dean says that with the Wonder Wing, they get to create a memorable place in a spot that was created for transition.
“Travel can be challenging. You're in a moment where you're going to be in motion, but you got to wait, but you got to move. And so creating a space that allows you to settle in as a family, I think, is really important — kind of maybe some Zen moments. In fact, we have a sand table that allows you to really kind of relax. But we also know a lot of young kids need to have space to move.
“So we want to be able to have active motion happening. But we also think that, for a lot of us, we're ready to go on this adventure, this journey that we're going on. And in some ways, being able to sit and talk and prepare for that in a space that kind of honors learning, and environments that's comfortable for us, really prepares you for what you're going to do: jump on a plane and be able to travel somewhere around the world, and then welcome people back to Northwest Arkansas. It's an introduction. In fact, our graphics are built around images of places people travel and around Northwest Arkansas, to get you situated on what journey you're going to go on if you're a first-time traveler to our neck of the woods.”
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