The Nemo’s Garden exhibit used VR to showcase an underwater greenhouse offering detailed information on the biosphere.
Powered by a new tagline—“Dream it. Make it.”—Siemens Digital Industries Software, which is celebrating 175 years, wove its technologies into a collection of four exhibit spaces at CES 2023, Jan. 5-8, in Las Vegas, that together showcased how its products drive sustainability and innovation today and how they will in the future.
“We’ve always been seen as an industrial, manufacturing, engineering company, but over the years, we have really developed into a technology company that transforms everyday lives, so that human or personal perspective has been missing for a long time,” says Stacey Gromlich, director-audience engagement and global events at Siemens. “Because Siemens has a really big push to become sustainable ourselves and knowing that all of our technology can help our customers meet their goals faster, more efficiently, this was a really good place for us to be. … We went to our customers and our partners and asked who was willing to partner with us and what story they had to tell.”
With its work encompassing nine industries, from automotive to marine to consumer-packaged goods, Siemens wanted to highlight a variety of applications for its Xcelerator business platform and digital twin solutions (virtual representations of physical products or processes to understand and predict the physical counterparts’ performance characteristics). Gromlich says the booth came together in about 12 weeks, from concepting with partner Freeman to opening on the first day of CES.
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Space Journey Simulation
Siemens’ centerpiece experience featured Space Perspective, a carbon-neutral luxury space flight experience company on a mission to make space travel accessible. Attendees stepped into a round theater for a simulated journey to outer space. Video that wrapped around the theater’s walls and floor showed off Space Perspective’s SpaceBalloon, while narration talked through Siemens’ digital twin technology employed to visualize, test and optimize the capsule to bring it closer to becoming a reality. (The first commercial space flights are planned for late 2024.) As a bonus, attendees could enter to win a trip to Florida’s Space Coast to visit Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and Space Perspective’s headquarters.
Underwater VR Greenhouse
The Nemo’s Garden exhibit used VR to plunge attendees into the ocean off the coast of Genoa, Italy, to explore the startup’s underwater greenhouse. Through a headset and handheld controllers, participants could look around the sub-aqua biosphere and point to text boxes for detailed information on the components that virtually model an ideal environment for terrestrial crop cultivation. A large screen projected the headsets’ visuals for all to see.
Vertical Farming Touch Screens
Going ashore to 80 Acres Farms, attendees interacted with touch screens and videos to learn about the Ohio-based company’s approach to vertical farming and how Siemens is helping it standardize and scale for different environments around the world.
“We’re doing amazing things in the metaverse, vertical farming, aquaculture and all kinds of things that we just want people to understand how we’re leveraging our technology, even in the cloud, to be able to deliver cool projects like this that are really helping the world, especially since sustainability issues are huge,” says Tom Tengan, director-digital enterprise at Siemens.
Autonomous Driving Experience
Moving to virtual Las Vegas streets, the PAVE360 digital twin autonomous driving experience let attendees take the wheel to test their driving abilities against AI. Like an arcade game, participants used a steering wheel and pedals to navigate their virtual car on the screen around a simulated environment that included stoplights, turns, traffic and pedestrians. The developers aimed to make the experience close to what drivers would encounter on real-life roads with some challenging obstacles, such as pedestrians running into the street without regard for the approaching vehicle. At the end of the course, participants received a driving score and CO2 emissions score (calculated by how easy they went on the gas pedal and brakes) for a chance to make the top 10 leaderboard and beat the AI in the No. 1 spot.
After engaging with each experience, attendees received a pin with the exhibit’s name and company logo, incentivizing visits to every station to collect them all. Brand ambassadors sporting blue and white Siemens-branded track jackets with “Dream it. Make it.” emblazoned on the back were on hand to assist participants with the exhibits and offer more information.
“I hope [[attendees]] realize that the value of what they dream up can truly be made in a timely, economical and sustainable fashion, and that we really are moving the needle on changing people’s lives,” Gromlich says. “This isn’t just about the automotive industry, mobility or aerospace; we want to change people’s mindset. We want them to know that we really are transforming lives every day based on the technologies that we’re bringing to our customers.” Agency: Freeman.
A simulated space flight experience included a theater demo that showcased Siemens’ vision for an accessible space capsule.
