We wanted to immerse visitors in the experience of Shackleton’s famous lifeboat journey to show them what an amazing feat it was to travel in a straight line over 800 miles of ocean in 60-foot-high seas, using only rudimentary navigation instruments. We created a realistic, high-resolution animated simulation of rolling seas, and projected it on 12-foot screens around the boat to create an immersive effect. By animating this instead of using real footage, we were able to simulate the ocean conditions and sun position on the Weddell Sea in 1915. This was crucial for the interactive portion described below. The ocean simulation was projected onto three 12-foot, curved screens surrounding the boat. The result is dramatic, but cannot come close to the icy, 60-foot sea conditions that Shackleton and his crew actually faced.

The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy provided some World War II-era sextants that nearly matched the one used by Shackleton, and we outfitted them with sensors and microcontrollers. Visitors are able to take a sighting using the real sextants, while an adjacent LCD screen calculates their sighting and compares the result with Shackleton's actual path. The sextant is the only means of interaction; by following the on-screen instructions and operating the sextant, the visitor learns celestial navigation through doing it. In the ocean simulation, the sun remains roughly in the same spot to make it easier to take a sighting. But it is still difficult to take a perfect sighting, and this was intentional; over ten days, Shackleton saw the sun only two times well enough to take good sightings, and these two sightings kept them on course for 800 miles.