Tech Formula – Discovering Technology Treasures

Last week we went to Tech Formula exhibition in my local Art and Cutlural Park at Taichung in Taiwan. The tagline was “Discovering Technology Treasures” and it was an interactive exhibition that consist of 7 main areas. Let me take you inside the exhibition.

REGISTRATION

First of all you pick up one of these leaflets at the entrance. Each of them has a unique QR code on the back.

At the futuristic registration area you scan you QR code at one of the 16 machines, you will see how this is used later on. Before you can enter the main exhibtion hall, you have to watch a video about the event. To be honest, this was a promotion material about the exhibitors so I didn’t pay much attention to it.

SMART ENVIRONMENT

The first area in the exhibition hall is the Smart Environment. This shows you what our future public space could look like through the implementation of sustatinable energy and resource management, smart traffic and smart environment technology etc. I found there were some mixed messages here. On the one hand there were quite a lot of information on issues such as sustainable and renewable energy, but then on the other hand they also exhibited information on traditional heavy weight vehicles.

PRODUCTION MANUFACTURING

There were 16 exhibits in total, and at each one you can scan your unique QR code to register the details of the exhibit onto your profile. Here’s me scanning mine at this particular exhibit in the Production Manufacturing area. Initially I thought you had to scan your QR to acitvate each exhibit and presentation, but that wasn’t the case, so this was the only one I scanned.

This area exhibits an entire manufacturing process from raw material to final production. Funny enough, there were some heavy industrial machines on display, which I thought was a bit too much for a laymen exhibition, particularly as it was supposed to be a family friendly event.

However I was quite interested in this exhibit which I think is some sort of virtual 3D scanner and has scanned a model of Taipei 101, something that I just wrote about the other day.

HEALTHCARE

Moving onto the Healthcare Area. Taiwan’s healthcare system is very comprehensive and advance, and in most cases quite affordable. Here they exhibited some latest developments in the operating theater and labs. There was also a bank of medication. Again, I found the exhibits a bit too complicated for a family event.

This is an X-ray scanner and this is my hubby taking a selfie of himself. You can sort of see his arms stretched outwards holding his mobile phone. Although I’m no medical profession, I doubt this is a real X-ray as I don’t think you can just X-ray of a person like this. I guess its more like an X-ray image which they’ve configured to move with the person standing in front of it.

CREATIVE LIVING

The Creative Living is probably the most interesting and easy to understand as it applies to our day to day life. I thought these models made from 3D printing were really cute. However, 3D printing has been around for some years already. Although they haven’t penetrated into the mass market yet, if you’re quite tech savvy, you probably wouldn’t be too excited here.

Now, LED embedded yarn is something that I would call innovative and excites me. Fabric made from the yarn is progammable to change colours, and I can see a whole range of great applications for this such as fashion accessories, wedding or evening gowns, stage production etc. I imagine there’s no reason why you can embed some sort of heat or odour sensor in it to detect changes in people’s body temperature. This would be useful for people who may have a sudden diabetic attack or other sudden illeness. Who knows? This might just save people’s lives!

GENE FORMULA

The final exhibition area is the Gene Formula. The center hexagon table is an interactive game that you play with your friends to solve problems, but most people didn’t know what to do. The children were having more fun walking around stepping on the words projected on the floor. They changed in size as people stepped on it.

TECH FORMULA

And finally to the Tech Formula which is the last stage of the exhibition. Here you scan you QR for the last time like I’m doing here (actually this is my husband’s QR code), then it takes your photo and asks you for your signature.

Remember I said earlier on you can scan your QR code at each of the 16 exhibits? If you do, you’re actually starting to build your own city and you are the city mayor hence the photo and signature. All this information is processed and hey presto, you get your personalised postcard of your own city. This is my hubby’s. Since he only scanned his QR code at one exhibit, he’s only got this platform in his city. You can see the printing technology isn’t that great as I didn’t even have to blur his photo like I normally do. His scribbled signature is on the top left, and the print date and time on the bottom right.

VERDICT

I thoughout this was an ok attempt to pull together an exhbition of different technologies and they’ve done their best to give it a core theme. For a family event, they’ve come a bit heavy handed in some of the areas which were no more than the exhibitors displaying their industrial product and have little meaning to the general public. The Gene Formula interactive game looked fun but apparently you had to download an app to play. So for people like us who attended on impulse or those who hadn’t read the details before visiting (who does?), that wasn’t much use. Overall, we spent half an hour here. The exhibition has ended now, so don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. Just reading my post will be ok!