How A Berlin Museum Makes Science Touchable

A museum can hold 30 million objects and still feel inaccessible if the experience depends on sight alone. We sit down with Tina Schneider from the Natural History Museum in Berlin to hear how her team is pushing beyond digitisation and into real world inclusion by turning digital specimens into tactile, responsive learning tools.

Tina shares the moment that changed her priorities: a visitor tells her how her blind daughter arrived thrilled to see the dinosaurs, then felt bored and left early because there was so little she could touch. From there, we unpack the practical constraints museums face, including fragile historic specimens and preservation chemicals like arsenic that make handling unsafe. The solution is not “touch the collection” but build safe, accurate stand ins: digital twins that become tactile models designed for hands.

We walk through two builds. First, an interactive crocodile prototype with sensors and headphones that plays audio when visitors touch specific areas. Then the big leap forward: the 3D interactive beetle. With input from a focus group of blind and visually impaired participants, the team abandons hidden touchpoints and creates a touch anywhere sensor system. Even the tricky transitions between head, wings, and legs get solved with a clever cue: audio volume shifts as your hands move, helping you orient yourself naturally. Along the way, we talk interdisciplinary teamwork, museum education, inclusive design, and why dung beetles are an essential part of ecosystem health.

If you care about museum accessibility, tactile exhibits, audio description, or how 3D technology can widen access to science, you will get practical ideas here. Subscribe, share this with someone building public experiences, and leave a review with one object you wish every museum made touchable.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Debra Ruh 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome to Access Chat. Today it is Antonio and I, and Neil had to play hooky, so he's doing something else less important than us, but no, just teasing. But we're really excited to have Tina Schneider on today. And Tina was so kind, told me how to say this in English. She works with the Natural History of Berlin. And she actually was introduced to me by Tomas, who is a brilliant, brilliant technologist. And you are working on the 3D Beetle, the 3D interactive beetle. And I am so excited to learn more about what you're doing with this museum. And it you said it's a natural museum, but we're really excited about what you're doing. And of course, it's a work in progress, like it always is, everybody. So they're working hard to start making even more accessible, but I think it's very exciting what they're doing at this museum. So, Tina, welcome to the program. If you don't mind introducing yourself and telling us more about your work, that'd be great.

Digitising A 30 Million Object Collection

A Blind Child Sparks The Idea

Tina Schneider 0:59

Thank you so much, Deborah and Antonio. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here and to have this great opportunity to speak about our museum and about the work I'm doing at the moment. So, like Deborah said, my name is Tina Schneider. I work at the Natural History Museum in Berlin. And well, maybe to start with, I talk a little bit about our museum. So we have a huge collection of around 30 million objects. And what we have in our museum, well, there's everything from dinosaur bones to meteorites, preserved animals. We have a huge wet collection that is animals and glasses preserved. And what's happening or has been happening in the last couple of years is that this collection is systematically getting conserved and digitized. And so we are trying to digitize as much as we can. And my work starts with the digital collection. So I am responsible for using this digital collection and bringing it out there and making it accessible to all those who are interested in it. So I focus with this rather on the not necessarily on our scientific community, but I work more with the education sector, with the creative industry, or with the industry in general. And I try and find people who are interested in our collection, in the digital collection, and who already have ideas of projects they might want to start with it. And in order to do the projects, I work with in-house partners and with external partners. And in-house, the basis for me to work is it's called Media Sphere for Nature. That's our lab for digital media. And originally I was only supposed to work with digital objects that we have, but I sneakily found a way to get back into the analog world by taking digital objects and transform them into tactile models. So there we go, back in the analog world. So yeah, next to working with hackathon projects and multimedia projects, I really started developing an interest in the topic of accessibility. So it's not actually not part of my position, but we had a cooperation partner who came in and she works for a design company, and we were supposed to talk about something else, but then she mentioned that she was there with her partner and they have a blind daughter, and they visited our museum, and they said the daughter was very excited about going to the museum. We have gigantic dinosaurs there, and and after a couple of minutes, the daughter was really sad and bored and wanted to leave because yeah, there was not that much to touch for her, and I I heard that and it really hit me. And I thought, oh, that's not okay. And we were trying to think about a project, we had some funding left, and an event was coming up within just a couple of weeks, and then we decided to do a tactile model. Not of a beetle, but we thought about something that would be very exciting also for children. So we had a look at the collection, what would be suitable in terms of the surface and everything, and we found a fantastic crocodile. Wonderful specimen that had its mouth wide open, and we used this and transformed it into, yeah, well, a tactile object. And that's how it started.

Antonio Vieira Santos 4:29

So you are somehow you are creating a digital twin.

Tina Schneider 4:33

Exactly. That's what it is.

Building A Responsive Crocodile Model

Antonio Vieira Santos 4:36

So you are creating a digital twin of animals, of objects in the museum. Can you can you talk with us about the process of making those objects a reality? And also interesting, you know, because in the end, you want to create a fantastic experience for the people who need to access it.

Tina Schneider 4:54

Maybe what's interesting to say at the beginning is that we get very often the question, well, why can we not touch the specimen you have? And in our case, there is many different reasons for it. Not only that some of the objects are very old and very, very precious, but also that a lot of them are covered in arsenic and and other poisons for preservation purposes. Nowadays, those poisons are not being used anymore, but especially our historic specimen, they have these poisons on them. And arsenic, for example, it just doesn't leave. It just sits on the object and doesn't evaporate or anything. So you cannot have people touch it. And in case of the crocodile, the teeth are so spiky, they're really razor sharp, and you could not let people touch the original. So when we transformed this crocodile into a model, we changed the teeth a little bit. All the teeth are still there, but they're not so spiky. So that you can really touch it and nothing happens. But you were asking about the process. So with the crocodile, it was a very different process because the model had to be ready for an event. And we only had a couple of weeks' time. So I'd say we didn't do it the proper way. We didn't have, to be honest, we didn't really know what we were doing. We just were working on getting this demonstrator done and see if this idea we have works. And the idea is not only to have a tactile model, but an intelligent tactile model, a responsive tactile model. So we created what you said, the digital twin of the crocodile, and this digital twin is hollow inside. It's hollow and it is equipped with sensory points on different areas. And this model is also equipped with a headphone. And once you touch these sensory points on the surface, you touch, for example, the eyes, and then you get information about the senses of the crocodile. When you touch the mouth area, you get information about the teeth or bite force. And we tried this out and it worked really well. And we had an accessibility expert on board, sadly, no focus group because there was no time for that. But we had an accessibility expert, and we were writing the texts with our in-house experts from the herpetology department. Those are the ones who are responsible for the crocodiles as well. And yeah, and we tested it. We went to we had in-house events, we went to museum fairs with it, and we we got really good feedback and thought, oh, okay, there is some potential here. Why not take this idea and go one step further and make it better and create something that is even more accessible and work with the focus group on it. And that's how the idea of the Beetle was born. And that was a completely different process and took a lot longer. Yeah.

Why The Next Model Is Smaller

Debra Ruh 7:52

So tell us about the interactive beetle, because that sounds so cool. And also I'm so glad you're doing this because it benefits everybody. You know, not only does it benefit the little girl that was blind, but I think we all benefit from this using our different senses like that. So I think this is really cool stuff.

Tina Schneider 8:11

Well, I'm benefiting from it. I've had so much fun and I've learned so much. I've learned so much during this project, during the whole process. It's it's really exciting. And uh I think everybody should have a go at something like this. No, really, there's so much to learn to find out. And what you said about using different senses, this is true. In German, we have this expression, the two senses principle. It is when you translate it. And it means that the more senses you use in order to explore something, the better you remember it and the more it sinks in. So we created this Beetle, and for those who see, they of course they have the visual component, but for all the others, you can also, there is the tactile component and an audio part to it. And all those elements they come together. And so, but let's get back to the start. So, how did we develop this beetle? Yeah. How did we get the idea to use a beetle to start with? So we've done a crocodile and and we've learned, of course, from our mistakes on this project. One of the things we learned is that the crocodile was too big. So we decided to build the model one by one, so it is exactly the same size than the crocodile. It was a juvenile animal, so not fully grown, uh, but already one one meter 30 long, the model. And it looks really impressive, but after we built it, and I was talking with our education department about it, uh, they said, oh Tina, it's too big. And they really know because our education department, they have a lot of expertise in doing tours for blind and visually impaired people. Our museum has been offering this for a couple of years. They call them touch tours. And they told me, well, if it is so long, then a child, for example, will not be able to touch the beginning and the end with both hands. And then it gets really difficult for them to estimate how big this object actually is. So it would be better if you scale something up or scale it down, have it in a size so that some that everyone can grasp it with both hands.

Debra Ruh 10:26

I wouldn't I wouldn't have known that because right, I'm not the education. Right. But it makes so much sense when you say it. It's like, oh yeah, good point.

Choosing The Beetle And Partners

Designing Touch Anywhere Sensors

Tina Schneider 10:34

I didn't know either. And and I asked them before we started with the Beatle project what object they would be interested in. And they said, well, they have a big fundus of objects available. Lots originals that have been confiscated at German customs. So snakeskin and things like that. And those can be touched because there's no poison on it, of course. So they have a big fundus, and I asked them what object would complement that tour nicely, and they said a large-scale insect would be great. Because it's really insects are half of the 30 million objects we have are insects. So we have 30 million objects and 15 million are insects. So this animal group needs to be represented, right? It's a very important animal group on our planet, and we wanted to make an a beetle or an insect the star of our next project. And we knew, okay, it should be an insect. We knew from the beginning we wanted to take a domestic animal so it is easier for our audience to connect with it. And we wanted an animal that has an important function in nature that is likable. And after many twists and turns, we ended up with the door beetle. And this the and the scan of the beetle, that was even better, it was already available. We didn't have to scan it. Yeah. So my colleague Christine from the micro CT lab, she had already created a scan of it, and and we could use that and scale it up and create the model we wanted. So I had in-house a lot of people on board. I had our entomologists, that's the Beatle experts. I had the digitization team, I had the education department on board. But in order to build the model, I needed external expertise. And here I worked with a model building company that is based in Berlin. They're called Werk 5. And they are not only model builders, but they also have they really love the topic of accessibility. For many years, they have been, yeah, they have been transforming paintings into touch paintings, and they had a lot of experience. So they were a really good partner that we found here. And they were super thrilled to do this project. And yeah, once we had them on board, they were responsible for the technological side of things. But before we really got into it and built the final Beatle model, we were getting together a focus group, a small but very dedicated and great focus group of blind and visually impaired people. And they helped us with so much. I mean, I cannot put myself into the position of a blind person, right? So we really needed their help in order to get this done. And they gave us feedback on the audio content, if it was too scientific, if it was interesting on the model itself, if they liked the haptics of it, if they liked the size of it, if the technology works for them. Because for this Beatle, we came up with a completely new system. With the crocodile, we had sensory points, like I mentioned. And that was nice, but at the same time, it was also frustrating for some because they used it and they did not find these points. They were so they were exploring the whole crocodile with their hands, and they're like, oh, I cannot find point number four. This is so frustrating. So we decided to build a new model that is completely covered with sensors inside. So no matter where you touch, you always get feedback. And for this, we divided the beetle body into areas. And so there is a head area, there's a wing area, there's a leg area, and no matter where you touch, you always get feedback. And the tricky part was the transitions, the transition areas. I mean, when you look at it and you can see everything, then you see there is a clear partition between head and the next part. You know where the leg starts and where it ends. But we really wanted our blind and visually impaired people to be able to really grasp that. And how did we do that? So we have an audio system and we work with volume. So when you touch the so you activate the head area with a double tap, then the audio starts running, and then your hands they explore this area, but when your hands move away from the area you activated, the audio becomes quieter. And that's a very intuitive way to tell the user, okay, now you are touching another area, not the one you activated, not the one you're listening to right now on the headphones. And then when your hands move back to the area you activated, the audio becomes louder again. So we we tried that out and it works. We were really fascinated ourselves, and it works quite well. Yeah.

Antonio Vieira Santos 15:29

So I would like you to talk with us about what everyone learned from the process and also the importance of multidisciplinary teams, because I'm sure that was the case of this team, right? You have people from different backgrounds, different experiences, and then having the the chance to have to work with that external group. I think everyone had a really a big lesson, right?

What Interdisciplinary Work Really Teaches

Tina Schneider 15:53

Everyone had their big lesson, and and I was in the middle of it. I was like the octopus with like arms everywhere trying to connect everyone. So I've worked on a lot of interdisciplinary projects before, and sometimes it can be quite difficult because people they say the same word, but they mean something different, right? So we all speak the same language here in Berlin, but depending on what you talk about, you might not know what the other one wants to tell you. And with this project, it worked surprisingly well, even though we had people from the fields of mechatronics meeting taxidermists, meeting designers, meeting entomologists, and I'm a media scholar myself, so yeah, so media communication was a bit on my side in getting all the things together, but it worked really well. And what we learned is that it's it's really important to listen to everyone because so many people on this project they had great ideas, and you just have to, you know, take into consideration can you make it possible or not? I mean, some ideas we could not make possible. For example, someone wanted that the beetle is, you know, getting up and running away whilst talking. We didn't have to budget for that, I'm sure it would be possible as well. But yeah, so you always have to see and find a balance between all those voices. But uh getting many different ideas together in a pot is always a good idea.

Debra Ruh 17:20

Tina, I'm gonna ask you a question that I can I just I would think some people would think work like this is just sort of uh oh, isn't that cute? Nice to have. I believe this is so much more important than maybe people realize. And so why? Why why do we even care about beetles or I mean I and of course I already told you I love beetles, even though they're attacking my oak trees right now. But their little tanks, they're so cool. Uh we see them a lot in Virginia. I imagine they're everywhere, but they're certainly here in Virginia and different colors and their little horns. I would think as a kid, I loved beetles. And generally, I don't know if this is true, but I was never bit by a beetle, so we can handle them and they don't hurt you. But I don't even know if that's true all over the world. Okay, thank you. See, I didn't know that. So don't go picking up the beetles all over the world. But so why? Why why do we care? Why why is this important? I of course believe it's really important, but it's super important.

Why Dung Beetles Matter To Humans

Tina Schneider 18:21

I mean, beetles are part of our ecosystem, and then everyone has its place in nature. Like I already mentioned, we wanted to focus on an animal that has an important function in nature, and so does the door beetle. So the door beetle we were working with is it's not only in Europe, you can find it in so many parts of the world. I mean, not this specific beetle, but dung-eating beetles. And without them, basically, there would be no way to well get rid of all the poo on our planet. And and if you would not have them, you you really run into serious problems. And historically seen, this happened, for example, in Australia and New Zealand, where when the white settlers came, they introduced cattle, sheep, cows into the landscape, and over there there were no beetles or or insects who knew how to deal with all the remains of the of the cows and sheep and so on, especially with cows. It was a huge problem in Australia. And then there was a scientist, an entomologist, George Bonimitha. I hope I pronounced that correctly, and he had the the he had the idea to introduce beetles into Australia because there were flies everywhere, and this movement, so swiping the hand back and forth in front of your hand, was called the Australian hello. And yeah, and terrible. So they needed the help of beetles in order to get rid of that problem. And you know, flies they spread everywhere, they also spread diseases, and uh so they needed to address that problem. And during a long process, they chose a couple of door-eating beetles, and they were introduced into Australia, and now they are doing their job.

Debra Ruh 20:10

Well, and I think that's such a point because we're just talking about beetles. It's just a little bee. But what you just said, it's huge, it's like a little bee or a little. And so why do you think it's so important for us to understand nature and to understand, you know, that it's so much more than just a little beevil, beetle walking, you know?

Tina Schneider 20:33

Well, we are animals, we are part of this planet, so we have to learn how to live with our co-inhabitants, right? And it it's not only all the animals that we already know what their function or function they do on our planet, but there's so many animals where we don't know uh what their role is in our ecosystem, and they are dying out right now, and we do not even know what they did and how they are part of ecosystems, what their role in this ecosystem is. So it's it's really important to know more about it and to find out how everything works, how our systems work, and it's really very, very important to look into this, into the connections.

Debra Ruh 21:17

Right. Sorry, right, yeah, and how it all combines, and and then I just I love nature. And aren't they earthlings? You know, they're all earthlings. Let's see them.

Tina Schneider 21:28

Of course they are, and that's why we we decided to to scale up the beetle. What I should mention is that we we did not only create a tactile model of a beetle, but it was ended up being an entire station. So there is there is the beetle, and underneath is a small station with bry and embossed letters that give you the inst like just tiny instructions what it is and how you get the start button going. But what is also on the station is a beetle in the original size. It's just a little bit less than two centimeters long and and it's really important. So you have the size comparison between the big model and the small beetle. What we really wanted to avoid is having, you know, maybe some kids coming in, taking part of the touch tour, and then maybe not really paying attention at the beginning of the audio text, and then thinking that there is beetles that size in our forests, and then end up screaming, going home and never wanting to go into a forest again. So yeah. Antonio?

Antonio Vieira Santos 22:32

So you mentioned that you are do you're doing this project and you have to stick to a budget in order to make it happen. So what's next in terms of your projects? And when you are looking for support for these projects, where do you usually go for it? For that, you know, you go to companies, you ask funds from government, you go for European funds. Where are usually the places you look for for to make sure that's that's a really good question, and I have different answers to that.

Funding Routes And Product Plans

Tina Schneider 23:01

So for inter uh like with the crocodile, we had I was working on a third-party funded project. It was European Union funding that we had available, and I could finish the crocodile with help of this money from the European Union. With the second project, we had in-house funding for the Beatle project as part of our future plan. We had the option to do it, and on top of that, the model building company, after a couple of months, they they realized that the feedback to the Beatle model is really, really positive. So when we started presenting the model, it was not finished yet, so the audio and some of the functionalities were not finished, but we started going out and showing the Beatle to others, and the feedback was overwhelming, and then they decided to put more money in it from their side as well, and they ended up putting in as much money as we did. And they really saw a business model, something that they want to really pursue, and that leads me to the next step. So we have a new touch model coming up, and for this, our industry partner, the one we did the Beetle with, received funding from the German government so we can pursue another project. And yes, I was so very happy. So, what we are going to do now is turn the Beetle into a business model, into a product that can be purchased or rent by other companies who are interested in it. And that has already happened, it has already been sold, it has already been rent by another institution. So that's one part, and the other part is to build a new object. And and this time I can already say this much. It will not be a single object, it will be a station for several objects. And and I'm working with a team of paleontologists at the moment. So there might be dinosaurs involved.

How To Connect And Help

Debra Ruh 25:01

I hope there's dinosaurs involved. That's another one I love. What a good- I was gonna ask you that. I was I was gonna ask you if other museums would benefit from it. You just explained it. But I know that we're out of time. I want to say, first of all, thanks to you, but I'm gonna give them you the microphone. But I also want to say thank you to Amazon for keeping us on air and supporting us. It's such a blessing to us and the guests, amazing guests like Tina. So thank you to Amazon. But also tell us, you know, you already told us a little bit what's next, but I just think this is so powerful and so important. And museums do share with each other. You just gave an example like that. But I think our community needs to really get behind what you're doing as well, because you are actually changing the way we all get to experience nature. So I think you should come back on and tell us more as you get more really cool creatures. Also, I'm gonna volunteer me and Antonio. We want to be part, we want to help. We love come along. We're gonna be in focus groups, and I'm sure audience members would as well. So now back to you. How do people contact you? How do they learn more about the museum? How do they help? How do they fund what you're doing?

Tina Schneider 26:12

Well, they can contact me directly at the Media Sphere for Nature. And I'm open to new projects, accessibility projects, especially, everything that revolves around touch objects. I'm thrilled to hear about. I already have a small group that I met at the conference last year, and we always share ideas. Tom Babinski from Even Grounds is one of them. He has been a guest at your show, so yes. Yeah.

Debra Ruh 26:35

Love Tomas, he's amazing. He is amazing. Thank you, Tina. And so how would people contact you? Do they find you on LinkedIn?

Tina Schneider 26:43

They can find me on LinkedIn. I have a channel. It's called Media Sphere for Nature.

Debra Ruh 26:48

Okay.

Tina Schneider 26:49

And uh they can contact me via this channel, and I'm there and I'm ready to hear about their ideas.

Debra Ruh 26:55

Well, we're exciting. And Antonio and I want to come and play with the Beatle for sure. So please do. Tina, thank you. Thank you for your work and for caring about it. It's very exciting.

Tina Schneider 27:06

So thank you. Thank you so much for having me and giving me this opportunity to be here.

Debra Ruh 27:11

Yeah, thank you, Tina. And we'll say goodbye to everybody. Bye bye. See you next time.