The EYE Planetarium brings together ICAT and the Science Museum of Western Virginia

We are in the Science Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke, and we're standing right outside our newest exhibit, which is The EYE Planetarium. We started our ideation and fund raising process back in 2018. The museum had had a planetarium before, but we wanted to kind of re imagine, you know, what are the advancements in technology since then. We really worked with Ben Knapp at ICAT and Tanner and they really helped us kind of work through that process. And show us, here's some things that you're capable of building today with projection systems and all of the amazing work that they're doing at The Cube. And so we decided, all right, how do we mirror The Cube on a dome that is going to be open to the public all the time? I just see this as like a blank canvas. As you come in, there's a giant round, half dome, blank canvas. It's an invitation to anyone from creative to researchers, educators. It opens up to more than just a planetarium. You know, it can be a canvas for an artist that can be a screen for a storyteller. When I was at tech, we had The Cube, the Cyclorama. I got a chance to display on The Cube a couple times and that was just like a light bulb moment to me as like man, like my vision, my ideas, my passion can be as immersive, as big as something is within The Cube. So I want other artists and other creators and researchers, and educators to be able to display their work and have that moment as well.