This poster was presented by Thomas Kubitza at the Microsoft PhD Summer School, which took place 01.07.2013 – 05.07.2013, in Cambridge (UK). The research presented here is part of the meSch project. The project (2013-2016) receives funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme ‘ICT for access to cultural resources’ (ICT Call 9: FP7-ICT- 2011-9) under the Grant Agreement 600851. See: http://mesch-project.eu/

1. Pla orm for Custom Wireless Embedded Devices in Museums
Thomas Kubitza ‐ Human Computer Interac on Group ‐ VIS ‐ University of Stu gart ‐ Germany
Motivation
Today museums are facing the challenge of bringing physical and digital heritage together. Although current technology
already allows to create interactive exhibitions, their creation is still very expensive, time consuming and executed by professionals. Within the meSch EU project we envision a platform that enables curators and their teams to create interactive
objects and environments on their own.
Platform
Sensor
Events
Media /
Actions
XBee
The Museofy platform focuses on providing the infrastructure for easy creation and configuration of
interactive environments and objects based on
sensor/actuator networks.
Clients can range from wearable microcontrollers
Seeeduino
Film
/ Lilypad
Arduino
.NET Gadgeteer
RaspBerry Pi
& Co
Off the shelf devices
with custom
enclosure
(e.g. Arduino FIO), custom .NET Gadgeteer devices
to of-the-shelf smartphone devices. Various wireless technologies such as WiFi, XBee, Bluetooth and
3Gcan be used concurrently.
Usage
1.
Example
The integration of devices into a net-
The SmartPlinth is an inconspicuous device that
work and the definition of its behaviour
can be embedded in museum environments. Exhibition objects are placed on top of the device
are accomplished in three simple steps:
1. Choose platform and add sen-
and an array of 6-8 distance sensors allows to
2.
detect where and how long people are located
around the object. In addition local actuators al-
sors/actuators. Save configura-
low highlighting of the object as well as display-
tion.
ing of adaptive labels
2. Create new rules: If This then
That!
3. Assemble device physically and
3.
power it up. Done!
Future Work

Integration of additional embedded platforms (e.g. Arduino, Android)

Integration with curator authoring tools and digital media

Deployment and evaluation in meSch partner museums
Thomas Kubitza (thomas.kubitza@vis.uni‐stu gart.de)
Sven Plohmer
(svenplohmer@gmx.de)
Albrecht Schmidt (albrecht.schmidt@vis.uni‐stu gart.de)