june 2017 | by leia reedijk

Serene blue water, warm sun, and white sand beaches—a welcome respite from the wind and rain back home. In this setting it’s easy to forget we are on a business trip. We are in the U.S. Virgin Islands developing wayside exhibits for the Virgin Islands National Park on St. John—over 25,000 acres of protected habitat on land and underwater. For four nights we "roughed it" at an eco-resort perched on a hillside overlooking the ocean. In the mornings, we took lukewarm showers and watched the sun rise over of the water; in the evenings, the stars lit up the black sky and the creatures of the forest came alive. We listened to their trilling as we drifted off to sleep. It was the perfect way to experience the island.

Though St. John feels like paradise and most people come to relax and recreate, the park is an important part of a fragile ecosystem and there are many layers of natural and cultural history that most visitors aren’t aware of. For example, there were once over 100 sugar plantations on the 7-mile-long island all built by enslaved people and, when the sugar industry collapsed, the cattle industry boomed and there were more cows than people!

The most important message though was one of conservation and preservation—this was nearest to the hearts of those who live and work on St. John. They are more aware than anyone of the impact we are having on the ecosystem, of the warming waters, the quickly disappearing corals, and the many other species that will diminish along with them. With nearly 500,000 visitors every year the question of the moment is: how do we mitigate our impact? How do we make people change their behavior? How do we make them care about the future of this precious habitat?

may 2017 | by alex ogle

We recently finished installing interactive exhibits at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon. Among the interactive exhibits is: a large mechanical jaw which squeezes a small fish until its eyes pop out; a set of "guess the predator’s prey item" spinning wheels; and a larger interactive featuring a robotic remote-operated vehicle (ROV) and custom circuitry for playing audio messages and illuminating lights on deep-sea fish sculptures.

The ROV interactive is among some of Sea Reach’s newer projects that feature elements of audio, light, and electromechanical motion. We use extremely small self-contained computers to mediate the interaction between visitor and the simulated deep-sea environment. We’re able to quickly prototype and customize the interaction, adding lights and sounds where we see fit. The ROV interactive uses several separate microcontrollers distributing the tasks of the interaction: one microcontroller to manage the audio, one to manage lighting the fish, one to manage the electromechanical system of the ROV, and one to listen for input from the buttons and control all the others. When a visitor pushes a button on the console, the master device wakes up the other devices and tells them which button was pushed, and suddenly the deep-sea environment comes to life.

april 2017 | by jacob cordova-krahn

Having the chance to get out of the office with Ira (our shop foreman) on a site visit was fun as well as productive! We met up with our clients, Ann and Ivan, to stake locations for the interpretive panels. I loved seeing where each design would be displayed along the trail. With some assistance from Ira, I created my first installation package, which started with taking photos of each exhibit location and marking them on a map—we did a lot of walking that day!

Having the opportunity to see this project finally come to fruition has been a real reward. Being the first larger project I’ve had the opportunity to manage from start to finish, I grew a lot as a designer, and as a project manager. These unique exhibits truly capture the spirit of Hazelia Agri-cultural Trail in Lake Oswego, Oregon. I also got to design and produce a walking brochure to accompany the exhibits.

december 2016 | by jason piper

I have recently joined the team here at Sea Reach and it has been an exciting adventure already! There are many different creative projects happening on a daily basis and it’s awesome to work with such a talented group.

Shortly after I was hired, Sea Reach purchased a CnC router to expand capabilities and have tighter control of the manufacturing process. Thankfully, I have a lot of experience operating this particular piece of equipment—I ran it for the past 5 years at my old job.

We set up the 5’ x 10’ CnC router table in our new space just down the street from our main office (which now also houses a full wood shop). We installed all the appropriate electrical outlets and muscled the hefty machine into place. I got everything connected and the computer communicating with the CnC control box and router again.

I had the CnC dialed in just in time to start production on a big project: a visitor center for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. I have worked on this CnC a lot, but I’ve mostly cut different types of wood, so this project was particularly interesting and fun because I cut different types of acrylic.

In the end, I cut out 36 sheets of material:
3 sheets of brown cast acrylic to make 38 wood ants
8 sheets of OSB for foliage and canopies that we then sanded, sprayed, and faux painted
25 sheets of clear cast acrylic that had tree canopy graphics laminated in our print studio.

It was a fantastic first run with the CnC in the new shop and I am looking forward to learning more about how to use the machine to cut all the unique signs that we design here at Sea Reach and also see what other creative outlets are possible. Stoked to be a part of the Sea Reach team!

december 2016 | by jacob cordova-krahn

One thing that I enjoy about working at Sea Reach is getting the opportunity to explore a multitude of illustration styles. Tight and controlled, you ask? Sure thing. Or perhaps we want to see a more loose and expressive representation? I’m on it. Whatever it may be, I enjoy the challenge of adapting to new styles, which keeps things fresh around here!

An example of this can be seen in a recent project that I worked on. For the River Ridge trail in Tualatin, Oregon I thought it would be interesting to showcase two different styles... in the same panel! I got to experiment with digital watercolor layered over a pencil sketch, which offered an almost painted look. This was juxtaposed with a cleaner and refined style in the sidebar, offering a peak into another world. I enjoyed mixing the styles and hope to do some more experimentation in the future.

december 2016 | by alex ogle

Peter and I recently trekked out to the Abraham Lincoln National Park in Hodgenville, Kentucky to check-in on one of our recent projects. This installation is particularly exciting because it engages the visual, auditory, and tactile senses. That’s because this exhibit is intended for the seeing-impaired. More importantly, this project is intended to set a new standard for how the National Park Service offers experiences that are as accessible as possible.

With a 3D printed braille panel from Stratasys, visitors are able to gather information about the trails without needing to see. In addition, the exhibit has buttons that activate an audio message about the conditions of the trail. The best part is that the audio unit recharges via a solar panel installed on the back.

Besides making a few final changes to the exhibit, we were able to enjoy something Kentucky is well known for: juices from fermented grain mash! We traveled to a nearby distillery and learned how whiskey gets made in Kentucky. But what good is knowing how something is made unless you can apply that knowledge? No worries folks, we made sure to apply that knowledge by doing some sampling!

november 2016 | by kathy hocker

You are hungry. The scent of fresh salmon saturates the air, pulls you down the riverbank. There are many humans standing in the river, lined up and waving thin sticks in the air—but you’ve learned not to fear them; you just walk on by.

The salmon here are fast and strong—hard to catch. But just downstream, three fat fish lie dead, gleaming in the shallows. The nearest human is far away, across the river—so you take a chance. The human shouts as you move in and pick up a fish. To your surprise, the other two fish come along as well—they’re tied together! Dragging your prize into the bushes, you ignore the shouting humans; you’ve learned not to fear them. In fact, you’ve now learned that humans provide food: you just need to watch for them to leave their fish and walk away.

Later this summer, you will startle a human into dropping a backpack, and inside it you will find delicious things. Next summer, you will teach your cub to take fish and food from humans.

The summer after that, you will be shot.

Each summer, tens of thousands of people descend on a tiny stretch of Alaska’s Russian River to fish for red (sockeye) salmon. The anglers create fish waste (filleted carcasses), which attracts bears.

The US Forest Service, which manages the site, has issued special orders to help reduce fish waste and protect people and bears. But it can be hard to get those rules across to anglers. Eager to get to the river NOW, they tend to rush past the regulation posting boards. The messages are lost, and the dangerous cycle of "feeding" the bears continues.

Sea Reach’s task at the Russian River is to help create interpretation that "fish blinders" can’t filter out—to deliver those critical messages so all visitors arrive at the river prepared. It’s challenge! But it’s a task that will help keep people—and bears—safer.

november 2016 | by linda repplinger

Eugene, Oregon recently replaced an outgrown middle school with a brand new facility. The old Roosevelt Middle school—a rambling single-level building, originating in the 1950s—was adapted over several decades as population and needs expanded. Sea Reach was challenged to create commemorative exhibits of the old school to be placed in the new school.

As part of these exhibits, we retrofitted the old school’s lockers as snapshots in time: 1950s, 1970s, 1990s, 2010s. We started off with cleaning out our attics and closets, which produced a lot of items from the 90s and a few from the 70s: walkmans, cassette tapes, floppy disks, and a troll doll. One of our teammates brought in a stack of funny illustrated short stories and old school papers. Homework assignments were downloaded from the internet and passed around the office to be completed (stuff we learned and possibly forgot a long time ago!). The rest of the items were hunted down on eBay. We focused on subjects that could be compared to each other, such as a slide rule, calculator, graphic calculator, and an iPad.

After everything was collected, it needed to be artistically crammed into the 5" deep retrofitted lockers behind a piece of acrylic. It required a two-person team and a bit of flexibility to tuck in papers, trapper keepers, and a skateboard (which had already taken a quick run down the new school hallway), and other memorabilia. It was all placed behind a clear sheet of acrylic.

With the locker doors closed and primed with surprises, the exhibits stood ready for students to discover as they explore their new school and remember the old one.

october 2016 | by leia reedijk

We knew some of the sites along the Rock Creek Trail in Hillsboro, Oregon could pose challenging for our installation of wayfinding signage. The area floods regularly and the trail is completely under water for parts of the year. Because of that, I was anxious to get all our 51 signs in before Oregon’s notorious rain started and the sites became inaccessible.

I woke up the morning of our install to find that the forecast predicted a 99% chance of rain. Oh boy... We went out into the field, hoping the meteorologists were very wrong.

There are always challenges on an install. Maybe you discover there is a sewer main exactly where the client wanted a sign, or your adhesive suddenly won’t adhere. After a few installs, you quickly learn there is a solution to every problem. For this installation, there were plenty of challenges.

First, it started to rain. Then, the truck started having problems. Then, we realized we didn’t have a tool we needed. And then, it started really raining hard. That’s when it started to feel like the universe was plotting against us—and the install was never going to be finished! It is at these critical moments when the team has to persevere and rely on each other (because, of course, the install has to get finished).

That’s what we did. We moved methodically and took one site at a time. The rain pelted down, but we focused on the hole we were digging, the sign we were leveling, the batch of concrete we were mixing. Our clothes were soaked through, but every team member knew their task so we could work as efficiently as possible. By the end of the third day, our boots were full of water. We were all happy to be done—and we finished in half the time I had expected.

Three days later, I returned to the first site to take some photos. It had all turned out well. The signs looked great and I knew the client would be happy. The sunlight was streaming through the trees and the sky was clear. I wished we had postponed our install. Just as the thought ran through my head, I rounded a bend in the trail to find a small lake where the path should be. Three of our signs were already partly submerged. It seems we installed just in time.

october 2016 | by melissa boettcher

In the past few months we have been working on concepts for a visitor center in Texas. One of the concepts was to show leaf cutter ants climbing up the wall to a tree canopy and collecting leaves. The kick is: the ants increase in size from actual to giant.

We will now explore taking a concept into reality. In this case we will take a picture of a leaf cutter ant and turn it into a 3d object of an ant.

A few things need to be considered when taking an idea into reality:
How realistic do we want the ants to look?
How easy it is to put multiple copies together in multiple sizes? Will it be sent out or are we building these ants in-house?
What kind of materials should we use?

After some research we decided to move forward with our own version of a balsa wood ant. Looking at several photographs of a leaf cutter ant at various angles (top, side, underneath, front facing) we broke down the single planes of one ant. Using the "balsa wood dinosaur" concept we rebuilt the ant using the crossing planes, forming a new 3d ant. Prototypes were built to discover areas of issue in connection of the planes and to see the overall look in comparison with the real ant. After we completed the final design, we were ready to fabricate.

The ants were built in house, in four different sizes, from small to large. We used the design to cut the pieces out of acrylic using a CNC router table. Every piece, 25 pieces per ant, had to be assembled and glued together. We ended up with 38 ants in total. How many pieces was that in total? You do the math!