If you think you were born too late to be a pilot in World War I, a visit to MacOdrum Library might be in order.
The library is hosting an interactive travelling exhibit from the Canada Aviation and Space Museum that puts the user at the digital wheel of a plane from the museum’s World War I collection.
Ace Academy, named after a title given to star pilots, can be found in front of the reserves room at the library until the end of October.
To begin the interactive experience, students stand in the centre of the boxed-in exhibit, and raise or tilt their arms to steer the plane and shoot at enemy aircraft. The game lasts for a minute, following a short trial run, providing a tally of aircraft successfully shot down at the end.
The library signed on to the exhibit because “it was fun,” Monica Ferguson, the library’s archives project and Ottawa Room coordinator said.
Ace Academy makes sense for the university to host, Ferguson added.
“Carleton has so many programs that relate to what Ace Academy is offering,” including computer science, aerospace engineering, history, and digital humanities, she said.
The exhibit is based on a free app of the same name, also created by the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. When creating it, the museum used 3D rendering to ensure historical accuracy and likeness to the planes used in World War I, according to Erin Gregory, the museum’s assistant curator.
These digital projects are part of the museum’s efforts to produce more engaging content and get away from delivering information in a single way, Gregory said.
“It’s a way to access people that will likely never come to the museum,” Gregory added. “Part of the motivation for having it at a university is that this is typically an audience that doesn’t necessarily come to museums very often.”
The university-museum connection isn’t lost on the other end.
“We’re really happy that science and technology is so keen to work with an academic institution,” Ferguson said, and added that the library is interested in exploring exhibits from Ottawa’s other museums, such as the Bytown Museum and the Canadian Museum of History.
With the exhibit is at its first stop, the museum has already released the sequel to the app. Ace Academy’s sequel is called Black Flight, and focuses more on Canadian airmen’s experience during the war, Gregory said.
Ace Academy is unique in more ways than just its digital and travelling format. The exhibit covers an aspect of World War I history not usually taught in schools—airmen, Gregory said.
“Most of the time when you learn about World War I, you’re really only learning about the war in the trenches on the western front, but there’s so many other elements,” Gregory said.
