Week 1: 16 - 23 Feb. [Meeting with Museum Director]

While I was intrigued by both the energy efficient car and the museums interactive experience, the prospect of working with new technology directly related to the content of the degree, where people outside of the university would be the end users made the museum’s project far more appealing.

Diss museum had reached out to the university for assistance with their upcoming exhibition, to commemorate the successful double Atlantic crossing of the R34 airship.

No brief or requirements were specified in the museum’s request, so after learning of the project I contacted the museum manager, Basil Abbott, to arrange a meeting to further clarify what they hoped to include in their exhibition and available resources.

From initial email exchanges it was clear that the intention was to involve the community with a hands-on experience(s) rather than a static exhibition, the implementation of which the museum has left to our discretion.

To prepare for the meeting it was necessary to familiarise ourselves with the history of the airship – the origin, the evolution, the projects goals, its achievements and its end. In addition to information found online and from books, we arranged to speak with Sheila at Pennoyers Centre (Pulham), who provided further details into the procedures of airships of the time as well as more specific accounts of the airships voyage.

By the time a meeting date had been arranged with Basil, we had a solid understanding of the projects history and had been able to put significant thought into possible technology the project could explore. We offered our ideas to Basil:

• Creating a VR experience (VR headset, option of leap motion hand tracking) where both milestones from the Atlantic crossing and more specific stories from the crew could be showcased. Could provide interaction between the user and items in the environment, movement through the environment or expandable information panels, all through simple gestures.

• Multi-screen display using IR head tracking could produce a similar experience, that could be used by a primary user and shared with onlookers at the same time.

• Printing 3D models which could then be painted by local school children to involve the community. There is also the possibility to add RFID phidgets to the models to then given the models functionality within the experience.

• Using a projector/multiple screens in combination with an Xbox Kinect would allow limb tracking so many users could interact with the experience simultaneously (though designing a suitable experience, enjoyable for all, using this implementation may prove difficult).

• Mobile devices with cameras could be used to provide an AR experience by loading assets onto the device screen when the camera is pointed at and recognises defined patterns.

All the above appealed to Basil, though particular interest was shown towards applications which more directly involve the primary user and show more detailed information.

Basil kindly provided further reading resources and a wealth of material related to the R34 as fuel for our project.

The next step is to begin development of the most promising avenues to assess which will best fit the museum’s needs.