Children's Museum Tucson
Story Spinners: Poetry Garden
Tall Ship Productions designed, fabricated, and installed the Story Spinners — a set of five interactive spinning-cube poles built for the Children's Museum Tucson's outdoor Poetry Garden courtyard.
The Challenge
The museum needed a durable, tactile exhibit for young children (ages 3–8) that could live outdoors year-round in Tucson's climate, survive daily handling, and be removed nightly for irrigation cycles — all while sparking creative engagement with Sonoran Desert imagery and language.
The Process
- Step 1Designed five removable pole assemblies with recessed ground receptacles set in concrete, allowing nightly removal and secure reinstallation without tools.
- Step 23D modeled and printed spinning cube faces using ASA filament for UV and heat resistance, featuring local Sonoran Desert subjects — saguaro, coyote, tarantula, roadrunner, and more. Each design was hand drawn by a commissioned artist and then converted into 3D models with background and drawing colors selected by the client.
- Step 3Engineered a ball-bearing spin mechanism calibrated for a controlled, satisfying spin accessible to small hands, with rounded edges and child-safe clearances throughout.
The Result
Each of the five poles holds four spinning cubes, each cube displaying four image faces — 80 image plates in all. Children mix and match desert plants, animals, and environments to build their own poems, turning the courtyard into a hands-on creative space rooted in the Sonoran landscape.