For the Bishop Museum we built an exhibit at which visitors pump hot wax up through a steel plate to simulate the formation of shield volcanos by the changing flow rates of hot lava. We prototyped this exhibit extensively. Originally the hot wax was going to be pumped through a moving plate that simulates the formation of island chains over volcanic "hot spots", but during prototyping we learned that visitors are less interested in the moving plate than they are in controlling the flow of wax to duplicate features of Hawaiian shield volcanos such as lava tubes. Even though we had completed most of the engineering to make the plate move over the wax hot spot, we redesigned the exhibit to get rid of the moving plate and give visitors more control over the wax speed and pressure. This exhibit was designed in collaboration with Gyroscope Inc.