360 Degrees of Maritime History

Night Kitchen Interactive has installed an interactive dome theater at the Camden Shipyard & Maritime Museum. This socially-immersive experience enables groups of visitors to dive into the history of shipbuilding by exploring over 30 minutes of 360° videography produced by our media team.

Camden Shipyard has partnered with UrbanPromise to launch BoatWorks, a shipbuilding workshop and vocational trade skills program. Students and volunteers use traditional woodworking techniques to craft kayaks, canoes, and rivercraft that are used in interpretive programming on Camden's waterways.

To reflect their commitment to community outreach, the Maritime Museum has restructured their floorplan and identified a need for a flexible and compact exhibit space to teach visitors about maritime history and shipbuilding. This initiative presented an opportunity to update exhibit materials with high-tech, digital, and immersive experiences to engage groups.

The Dove 360 immersive theater program features five videos centered on a recreation of the Maryland Dove with commentary by master shipwright Joseph Connor of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. It presents visitors with a large-scale demonstration of historical shipbuilding techniques including lofting, framing, planking, and rigging. The series includes an interactive VR video featuring living history interpreters sailing the historic ship through the Chesapeake Bay.

By exploring this immersive exhibit, students in the BoatWorks program can learn about the same tools and materials that they can gain hands-on experience with in their woodworking class and connect more deeply with Camden Maritime Museum's exhibits. To learn more about the dome system, read about our work with the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.