Anyone with an Internet connection and a computer capable of installing the latest Macromedia Shockwave Player (Version 8.0) can participate in VirtualFishtank.com. When you dive into the tank, the website will automatically determine if you have the Shockwave plugin installed on your computer. If not, you will be directed to the Macromedia site to download it for free. (It will take approximately 3 minutes to download Shockwave Player over a 56k modem connection.)

VirtualFishtank.com was created by Nearlife, Inc.. The website is made up of three main modules:

• the web client implemented in Shockwave,
• the backend Java server and database, and
• the Virtual FishTank^(TM) exhibit at the Museum of Science, Boston.
• the Virtual FishTank^(TM) exhibit at the St. Louis Science Center.

Website visitors can build a fish at home and watch it swim in a web tank that is an online version of the Museum's simulated tank. They can also release their fish into the running exhibit. Museum visitors can retrieve fish that they created on the website and then release them into the exhibit tank.

Macromedia's Director (Shockwave Player) provides the main visual interface to the interactive portion of the website. In order to make the Virtual FishTank^(TM) experience available on the web, Nearlife ported the 3D behavioral fish simulation that is running in the Museum exhibit to work in Shockwave. The fish simulation and the user interface in the Shockwave client are implemented in Lingo and use Macromedia's Multi-User Xtra to do network communications with the backend Java server. The Shockwave client sends information about the user and his/her fish and communicates with the Museum-based exhibit through the backend server.

On the backend is an SQL database that is used to record user data (e.g., fish behavior parameters, fish life events, etc.) and visitor statistics. Between the Shockwave front end and SQL backend sits a custom Java server that facilitates communication with the Virtual FishTank^(TM) exhibits (currently at Museum of Science, Boston and St. Louis Science Center).

The Virtual FishTank^(TM) exhibit has been modified to allow it to communicate with the backend database server. The connection serves two functions: to receive fish release messages from the web and to allow museum visitors to login and retrieve their saved fish. When a museum visitor logs in, the museum exhibit looks like just another web client to the backend Java server. When a website visitor releases a fish, a message is sent to the backend server that places the fish in a release queue. When it is that fish's turn, the backend server relays the "release" message to the exhibit. When the fish in the exhibit completes its life cycle, the fish's life story data (recorded depth data, food eating events, etc.) is sent from the museum back to the backend server where it gets recorded into a database. This information is then immediately available to the web site visitor in the form of a graph.