Quick Take
Visitors to Santa Cruz's Seymour Marine Discovery Center can experience the iconic whale skeleton known as Ms. Blue as augmented reality on their phones while the bones undergo a lengthy restoration process.
For the past 25 years, visitors to the Seymour Marine Discovery Center have been delighted by one of the largest blue whale skeletons on display in the world. But harsh conditions forced the 87-foot-long skeleton, affectionately known as Ms. Blue, to be partially dismantled from its perch outside the Westside Santa Cruz cliffside science museum in 2023 for a restoration that is expected to last 18 months.
Now, technology is allowing visitors to the Seymour Center to come face to face with Ms. Blue using augmented reality (AR) on their mobile phones.
Starting Tuesday – Earth Day – visitors can download a free app to see Ms. Blue in her full glory. By scanning a marker near Ms. Blue, then pointing your phone at the remaining skeleton — about half of which is still on display — you can see her become a full-bodied blue whale.
Augmented reality brings computer-generated images into the real world via your phone. The full-bodied Ms. Blue on your device will be superimposed over her skeleton in front of you. By walking around her in person, you can see her from all angles as she would have looked in the ocean nearly 50 years ago.
“Ms. Blue has educated millions of people about blue whales and conservation of the oceans and Monterey Bay for decades. With the AR experience, we think that the emotional connection to the species is going to get deeper,” said Jonathan Hicken, the Seymour Center’s executive director. “That’s our hope.”
Ms. Blue comes to life
The whale comes to life on the screen, allowing visitors to get eye to eye with the local icon. With the app, visitors get the chance to take a picture with a blue whale, no diving license required.
A slider allows visitors to move between a 3D representation of Ms. Blue’s full body as it would have been when she was alive, and her skeleton — preserving the skeleton experience while bones are taken down for repair.
Another marker located indoors, directly across from the entrance next to the large windows overlooking Monterey Bay, places Ms. Blue inside the Seymour Center at 75% scale. “She quite literally would not fit in the building if we made her full size,” Hicken said.
This model lets visitors get up close and personal with Ms. Blue. You can walk inside her skeleton and get a peek at her tongue. “We’re hoping to enhance visitors’ connection with this species [and] deepen their bond with what they’re seeing,” Hicken said.
Starting in the fall, students who visit the center for the “Discovery Lab & Tour” field trips will be able to enhance their experience by learning from Ms. Blue directly. Another augmented reality experience will show them how blue whales eat krill in the wild, right on their device. Students will see Ms. Blue swimming along their screen to catch her next meal, superimposed over wherever the device is pointed. Walking around will allow them to see her feast at different angles.
Ari Friedlaender, a professor of ocean sciences at UC Santa Cruz, consulted on the external anatomy and movement of the whale.
A “Ms. Blue on the go” will let Ms. Blue travel directly to the community. This version creates a mini AR model of the both full-bodied and skeletal Ms. Blue that the center plans to take to community events.
A coastal icon
Ms. Blue washed upon the shores of Pescadero State Beach in 1979. Her bones were saved by UC Santa Cruz faculty, students and staff, then mounted to a steel structure in 1985. Since 2000, the bones have been displayed next to the Seymour Marine Discovery Center.
Over the years, coastal conditions have caused her bones to deteriorate. In late 2023, parts of the skeleton were lowered from their mount to protect visitors and the bones. While the Seymour Center works to restore these bones using climate-safe solutions, its staff want to try new ways to keep her alive and accessible.
Typical bone restoration involves a large amount of plastic and synthetic foams. In order to restore Ms. Blue without creating more waste, the center is working with local companies and researchers to create new techniques that are better for the environment. These include bone repair putty made from shrimp shells and replacement bones made from recycled hospital trays.
The center worked with Halon Entertainment — a visual effects studio that created computer graphics for films such as “Avatar,” “Jurassic World” and several in the Star Wars series. Halon Entertainment used laser technology to create a three-dimensional scan of Ms. Blue before parts of the skeleton were lowered to the ground. The company then used the scan to build a digital 3D model of the skeleton and body, seen in the AR experience.
The model will also be used to replicate the bones that need to be replaced and can be used by researchers to study the skeletal structure of a blue whale. The center is currently working to raise $350,000 in its first phase of fundraising for Ms. Blue’s restoration efforts.
“There are so few of us who get to see the entirety of a whale,” said Hicken. “And with the augmented reality Ms. Blue, everybody is going to have the chance to see a full-sized blue whale, as if she were really there in front of them, which doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.