Earthquake House

[Music plays]

Interviewer: You might not have heard, but our latest exhibit,

The Earthquake House, is open at Questacon, so we thought we'd go ask some visitors what they thought.

[Music plays]

Interviewer: Can you describe your experience in Earthquake House today for us?

Female: Really good. It felt really lifelike. It was quite fun and interesting.

Girl 1: Good and shaky.

Interviewer:  Shaky.

Girl 2: It felt like a real earthquake.

Male: Yeah, it was good. It was fun.

[Music plays]

Interviewer:  Did you learn anything about earthquakes today?

Male: Yes, that there's aftershocks.

Girl 2: They're really shaky.

Female: I think it would be really scary in real life after feeling that.

Boy: They're not something you want to be a part of.

[Music plays]

Interviewer:  Do you know what to do to stay safe in an earthquake?

Girl 3: You take cover under stuff?

Girl 4: Get out of your house.

Girl 1: Drop and take, try to take cover.

[Music plays]

Interviewer: Thank you so much. Can we do one more shake for the camera?

[People imitate shaking in an earthquake]

[Music plays]

[Image changes to Earthquake house logo with animation of the background cracking and falling away to show Now Open text]

[Image shows the Australian Government Department of Industry Innovation and Science Coat of arms, and Questacon logo]

[Earthquake and shattering glass sounds can be heard]

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(Matt Cracknell) The original Earthquake House was a lot of people's favourite part of visiting Questacon,

and we're bringing it back in an all new version.

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We've worked with Geoscience Australia's National Earthquake Alert Centre

to make this earthquake experience as accurate and true to life as possible.

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(Tamarah King) Geoscience Australia were asked to contribute to our Questacon Earthquake House experience.

We modelled an earthquake on the Lake George Fault, which is a magnitude 5.8 earthquake at 8kms depth.

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This earthquake is feasible within what we know of Lake George's earthquake history.

So it's really useful to see this being implemented in the Earthquake House and giving people an experience of what might actually happen in an Australian earthquake.

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(Rachel Bail) How we decide what to include in an immersive experience such as this.

Is we work very closely with our concept developers who have the knowledge base behind what an earthquake would be like,

as well as our production team which have strong knowledge of what is actually possible through the engineering process.

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So with their knowledge on board, I apply the visualisation of making it feel cohesive and naturally part of what you would see in a house and then try and include as many moving objects as possible to make it really immersive.

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(Matt Cracknell) The new Earthquake House isn't just a fun ride or a science exhibit.

It has a lot of hidden Easter eggs for visitors to find.

Pay close attention to the photo frames that move around the house.

Have a close look at the books in the bookshelf.

What are they called and who wrote them?

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(Justin Bush) So today we're here in suburban Canberra for Questacon Earthquake House for the digital display window.

It's going to be an emulation of essentially what one would expect to see out their window during an actual earthquake.

(Joel Barcham) I am here as the talent.

I'm a performer.

I'm going to be performing in our Earthquake House.

I'm playing the role of guy who's upset that his house is broken.

[Music plays]

(Brianna Keys) Hector and I are going on a walk.

But we have to put our acting skills on because later this afternoon there's going to be an earthquake.

(Andre Kottek) If you've got a really keen eye, because it's in the background of the shot, you'll see the swings moving.

There's like a frog and a rabbit,

kids playground toys as well,

which will also be moving in the background.

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(Mark Gledhill) There's a lot of components in this,

but most of them are pretty simple.

However, making them work all together for long periods of time can be quite intense on the equipment.

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This is our test rig for endurance testing.

Most of the objects were selected by the Concepts and Design Teams.

They had some ideas and we've thrown in a few as well.

It's basically supposed to be just general household things that you would see in a normal house or flat.

We're trying to make the room look like you're sitting in your lounge room at home and an earthquake happens.

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(Matt Cracknell) With Geoscience Australia's help,

we've been able to create an earthquake experience that would be just like if a real earthquake happened just north of Canberra.

(Michelle Salmon) Geoscience Australia came out to the Earthquake House, and we used some earthquake monitoring equipment

that we would use normally to measure aftershocks from earthquakes.

[Music plays]

We put that on the shake table and we recorded the shaking that had already been set up and we helped Questacon tweak the shake table so that it was more realistic for the audience.

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(Tamarah King) The earthquake simulation and Earthquake House is a really useful tool to make the general public aware

that Australia does have earthquakes.

I think there's a general perception that Australia is seismically inactive, which is incorrect.

We do have earthquakes and we can have damaging earthquakes,

so it's important for the public to know what to do in an earthquake and what that might feel like.

[Music plays]

(Brianna Keys) Do you know what to do to stay safe in an earthquake?

(Girl 1) You take cover under stuff?

(Girl 2) Drop and try to take cover.

[Music plays]

[Image changes to Earthquake house logo with animation of the background cracking and falling away to show Now Open text]

[Image shows the Australian Government Department of Industry Innovation and Science Coat of arms, and Questacon logo]