MAAM 2026 Annual Conference

How can virtual reality technology benefit museums? What outcomes justify the investment of significant financial and staff resources? For staff at the Intrepid Museum, virtual reality seemed like the key to unlocking unrestored, inaccessible ship spaces. The Museum prototyped a virtual reality experience centered on digital recreations of the ship’s engineering compartments, the most asked-about unrestored spaces on Intrepid. This panel brings together staff from different departments to share what they learned from the development of Explore Intrepid: Engines and Boilers.

Session Takeaways:
•Explore the opportunities and challenges of “digital restoration”
•Understand digital accessibility needs and the role of iterative feedback and updates
•Assess the value of on-site use and app store distribution

What does it take for a small or mid-sized museum to use mobile technology in ways that actually meet visitor needs? Lynne Calamia (Roebling Museum, NJ) shares how a small museum funded and scoped its mobile work. Ethan Miller (Night Kitchen Interactive) zooms out into a trifold case study spanning Roebling, Pearl S. Buck House, and Whitesbog Historic Farm and Village — three MAAM-region museums, three approaches to mobile. Samantha Gibson (Jackie Robinson Museum, NYC) brings the engagement lens with the "Citi Field Challenge" and a Harlem walking tour.

Session Takeaways:
•How to fund the work: Roebling’s strategy for stacking grants from New Jersey state agencies with external content partnerships, and how to scope a mobile project to the budget you actually have.
•How small museums can stretch limited staff by repurposing existing collections — oral history clips, historic photos, prior research — into mobile content that reaches new audiences. Drawing on Roebling Museum’s approach of presenting existing material in fresh ways rather than developing everything from scratch.
•A realistic view of the timelines, internal capacity, and stakeholder coordination required to launch and maintain a museum mobile experience.
•Design moves that turn a static digital guide into an interactive engagement tool, drawing on the Jackie Robinson Museum’s "Citi Field Challenge" and Harlem walking tour.