ABSTRACT
Unlike most conventional museum displays then and now, rather than emerging from the curatorial department, Launchpadwas the product of the Museum's Education Department; it was described as the first Gallery at the Museum intended to generate an experience rather than an interpretation of objects. From the very start, the aim was to create an informality and freedom, 'not usually found in a large Museum'. The impetus for the Gallery reached back to the 1930s and the Science Museum's first Children's Gallery in the Museum basement. It was a long-established process at the Museum to display working models, including models that visitors could interact with, in order to understand how something worked. As Tulley reported, however, in reality, the exhibit checklist wasn't used as fully as it might have been and the process was compromised somewhat by the drive to have exhibits ready for the gallery opening.
