When Philip was first approached by the curators of the forthcoming exhibition at John Curtin Gallery – NRGaia – to develop a new form of interactive book, he immediately thought back to his project with David Frohlich at the University of Surrey. David had been leading the Next Generation Paper project which has now finished (see the wrap-up here) with George, Radu and Haiyue.
Philip and David had discussed some initial ideas (we’ll share some sketches on another post) and we met online with George and Haiyue. George sent through an initial sketch of how the book, with it’s magic bookmark, might work. David sent the drawing with a list of possible components to Philip in the 16th September 2021:
This initial design included a control unit that included an ADAFRUIT Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE MCU Development Board 2829, five reflective sensors (QRE1113GR ON Semiconductor + SMT Reflective Sensor w.Phototransistor Output), a small RS PRO 3.7V lithium polymer rechargeable battery and (perhaps two) Arcol Ohmite touch screen sensors.
We started the process of costing up the software and hardware build to submit a funding proposal to Stuart and Rachel, the researchers leading the Energy Futures Visualisation project (now the NRGaia exhibition project).
Building on the Next Generation Paper project, we were ready to explore our Book of the Future.