Interactive Living Computers pop-up at Xfinity Bellevue

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Comcast sharing about their newest collaboration with Interactive Living Computers pop-up at Xfinity Bellevue. All opinions are ours alone.

Have you heard of Living Computers: Museum + Labs before? As part of our fourth grade curriculum, our school visits Living Computers every year and each time they always come away with their minds blown. Not only do they get a hands-on immersive experience that introduces them to and shows the inner-workings of all kinds of tech, it also shows technology through the decades. It’s hard to explain to kids how different technology is now from when we were little, but Living Computers does a good job of showing them, and making them feel very grateful for the tech they have at their literal fingertips at all times. 

Interactive Living Computers pop-up at Xfinity Bellevue

When I heard that Comcast would be previewing a new interactive exhibit from Living Computers at the Xfinity Retail store at Bellevue Square, I knew we had to go. We have fun at the Xfinity store even without an event or exhibit, but when you add the tech already in store together with exciting events, it’s always a good time. This Living Computers exhibit is especially aimed at families and invites you to experience the newest technology for yourself. You will find yourself experimenting with hands-free tweeting and a light up display that responds to your voice, as well as learning about IoT through a fun and easy to understand way that resonates with children.

The Living Computers: Museum + Labs exhibit is free and open to the public as of today, and features two unique, highly visual and interactive installations: Garden of Light Flowers & Twitter Bench. These exhibits are visible from the nightly Snowflake Lane parade that runs right past the Xfinity store each night throughout the holidays. Visitors to the parade are welcomed in to the store to try the exhibits for themselves both before and after the nightly performances. Xfinity is even providing free hot drinks during the weekend events so you can warm up after standing in the cold!

Garden of Light Flowers

This playful installation presents a magical ‘flower’ garden made up of 6-8’ tall light flowers. Each flower is made up light panels that respond to ambient sound and directed sound like music or clapping nearby. The exhibit is accompanied by a free-standing fixture to explain its capabilities to customers and encourage them to play and experiment with the piece.

We had so much fun singing at the flowers, clapping, stomping, and even {quietly} yelling at them encouraging messages. Seeing the flowers light up was not only fun, it was also really entertaining watching other store patrons notice us and wonder why on earth we were talking to what looked like an art piece.

Twitter Bench

This interactive installation visualizes the surprisingly circuitous journey of a tweet. When someone sits on the Twitter Bench, it generates an automatic Tweet {and cute birdie noise}. An accompanying graphic simulates the progress of the tweet through the back channels of the Internet.

The day we were there, one of the screens in the Xfinity store was displaying the tweets sent out from @IoTBench, but you can always pull them up on the Twitter app from anywhere. 

Comcast Xfinity and Living Computers: Museum + Labs partnership

The interactive Living Computers pop-up at Xfinity Bellevue isn’t just a quick event. It runs from Dec. 7, 2019 – Jan. 31, 2020 and is part of a broader partnership between Comcast Xfinity and Living Computers: Museum + Labs. In addition to the Comcast Xfinity Store Bellevue Square store exhibits, there will also be an Internet of Things Workshop (IoTW) powered by Xfinity in a featured exhibit on the Mezzanine level of the actual Living Computers building.

The collaboration of the two was formed as part of a common passion to use technology to inspire, surprise and delight. The partnership aims to visualize the power of Internet connectivity in a fun and interactive way for kids, families and people of all ages, both in the Bellevue store as well as at the main Seattle location. 

This collaboration is such an exciting one for me because the two work so well together. Living Computers operates on the belief that in order to understand computing technology you need to experience that technology firsthand. Introducing guests at the Bellevue store to the idea of exploring the relationship between tech and internet connectivity in a hands-on exhibit is the perfect way to extend Living Computer’s mission even further.