Salgótarján 100 interactive wall

For the Dornyay Béla Museum, we developed an interactive wall that showcases the city's history, allowing both children and adults to learn about Salgótarján's past in an entertaining way. The playful interactive wall, named 'Discover the City,' was conceived by the museum's staff.

We created a 4.5-meter interactive wall with two scenes that transition seamlessly. The wall depicts the surrounding natural beauty of the city, including the Salgó and Somoskő castles, the mining industry that laid the foundation for the city's development, and the famous buildings of Salgótarján. Within each scene, the changes that have occurred over the past century can be followed.

A special device allows us to turn the projected image into a touch screen, making the interactive wall a platform for active play and learning. Visitors can even shape the story, experiencing it as a personal adventure, which helps them remember the information more effectively.

In the first scene, we see the miners arriving at the mine to work. While they are mining, touching the wall reveals hidden treasures under the rocks, which can be diamonds or useless bones and fragments of ancient pottery. A counter keeps track of how many diamonds the visitor has found, adding an element of fun for the youngest participants. Visitors can also interact with running mice and rats in the image and even turn off the lights in the mine. At the end of the game, the diamonds collected are displayed, and the miners exit the mine after a job well done.

Then there's a scene change, showing the surface where the buildings that define Salgótarján's appearance are constructed in chronological order, eventually reaching their current appearance in 2022. By touching the buildings, visitors can access information about them in Hungarian, English, and German. The wall features iconic buildings like the Karancs Hotel and the Glass Factory.

Meanwhile, a train pulls the cart filled with diamonds into the city. Touching the locomotive releases steam, and touching the passengers makes them wave. Alongside the buildings, local wildlife appears, including bears and wild boars, which jump and move when touched. Birds can be 'caught' or landed on the ground by touch, and even the planes move when flicked.

An exciting addition to the attraction is that visitors can interact with their own drawings in both the surface and mine scenes. After on-site scanning, the drawings created by visitors are incorporated into the interactive scene, and they can move them on the interactive surface. Upon departure, visitors can take these personalized scenes with them as postcards.

According to Gabriella Shah, director of the Dornyay Béla Museum, the wall will be a permanent exhibit in the museum.