Shining Lights - The Story of Scotland's Lighthouses

An interactive museum exhibition for National Museums Scotland to mark the bicentenary of the lighting of the world's oldest rock lighthouse, the Bell Rock.

In collaboration with National Museums Scotland, FifeX developed, built and installed the interactive exhibits for the exhibition.

Towers of Strength

A hands-on exhibit allowing users to investigate the importance of interlocking blocks in the construction of a lighthouse by building each lighthouse and observing how it behaves when they simulate the force of waves and wind.

Illuminating Scotland

An interactive map of Scotland's lighthouses. Users operate a slider across a scaled timeline - and the LEDs marking the lighthouses on the map will light accordingly. Different coloured LEDs distinguish lighthouses built by the Stevensons and lighthouses built by others.

Bright Enough

A hands-on exhibit giving users the opportunity to understand how lighthouse beams can be seen so far out to sea. Users learn about refraction and reflection and how lighthouses used the Fresnel lens or parabolic mirror to generate a strong beam.

Global Positioning

An interactive detailing how modern technologies are used to aid navigation. With a live feed from AIS (a short-range coastal tracking system), users can see and monitor the number and variety of shipping vessels around the coast of Britain at that time.

More on how we achieved these can be found in Case Studies.