Lower Mississippi River Museum facts for kids

Lower Mississippi River Museum

The Lower Mississippi River Museum is a museum in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

The Water Resources Development Act of 1992 authorized the Lower Mississippi River Museum and Riverfront Interpretive Site. Consultation was directed with the Smithsonian Institution in the planning and design of the museum and site and with the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service in the planning, design, and implementation of interpretive programs. The museum is the first of its kind in the United States as it will be the first and only museum to maintain and house a fully restored, dry docked riverboat.

M/V Mississippi IV

M/V Mississippi IV

Motor Vessel Mississippi is the fourth United States Army Corps of Engineers' vessel to carry that name. It is a diesel-powered vessel with an all-steel superstructure. Powered by two 8-cylinder engines, each of 1860 horsepower, for extra maneuverability it used controllable pitch propellers which allowed it to generate a reverse thrust of over 70% in the forward direction. The four levels on the superstructure are the main deckhouse, second deckhouse, Texas deckhouse, and the pilothouse. It served as a towboat and inspection vessel until decommissioned in 1993. On September 26, 2007 it was moved to its permanent location on land at the museum.

Kiosk installation & website build

The United States Army Corps of Engineers and Southeastern Archaeological Research, Inc. (SEARCH), located in Jonesville, Florida, needed a strong and modern online presence for the project. Fusioncorp Design™ Creative Solutions, a brand marketing and website design firm in Lexington, Kentucky, was commissioned in August 2011 specifically for that purpose. Their team immediately began focusing on touchscreen technology and the design of websites for the museum and the M/V Mississippi IV.

Fusioncorp wanted the project to be the digital gateway to the museum. The SEARCH team contracted Fusioncorp to develop public websites for the main museum, the M/V Mississippi IV, and a specialized microsite only accessible to users who physically visit the museum. Upon thorough review, they decided the project needed an additional team to acquire the hardware and provide installation for the project. Rely Technology Group, based in Lexington, Kentucky, was subcontracted by Fusioncorp Design to transport and install the interactive hardware and software for both the museum and the riverboat.

LMRM.org, the main Lower Mississippi River Museum website, was designed by Daniel Boone, the principal of Fusioncorp. It holds interactive photo galleries, customizable online forms, general information regarding the museum, and is fully visible to the public. The microsite or "trivia" website (as the website designers referred to it) was designed by Tim Raymer, Fusioncorp's CEO and Chief Designer. Its main goal was to provide an "on-the-boat" interactive user experience complete with three trivia sections to test the knowledge of visitors, HTML5 audio and video, a guestbook to which users could post, and virtual tours of the M/V Mississippi IV. This website is not visible to the public and is only accessible on the museum kiosks.

The teams decided to utilize Apple Computers products and Elo TouchSystems touchscreens as the primary hardware for the elaborate project. Apple proved to be the most stable hardware and software platform, is more efficient for cooling, and has better overall visual aesthetics than Microsoft Windows hardware. Apple's firmware is very compatible with the touchscreen interface as well. The United States Army Corps of Engineers purchased custom kiosks, and Rely Technology fitted them with audio modules and touchscreens at their headquarters in Kentucky prior to transporting them to Vicksburg in mid July 2012. They successfully installed the hardware on August 13, 2012 before the grand opening of the museum August 24, 2012.