Science exhibit interaction adviser

Client: Dave Ansell, Cambridge Science Centre <dave@cambridgesciencecentre.org>

The newly established Cambridge Science Centre is building a major interactive public science exhibition space in Cambridge. We want this to be the best of its kind in the world! One issue faced by interactive science exhibits is the tendency for visitors to play with the knobs and handles in a random way, without the guidance that might make the discovery experience more enjoyable and educational. The goal of this project is to make a configurable exhibit monitor (delivered via an embedded Raspberry Pi), that will prompt visitors to explore behaviours they haven't yet seen. This might have a simple authoring language associated with it (perhaps configured via a flow chart) that describes possible exploration paths, and allows a scientific adviser or exhibit designer to tag those that appear to be off-topic, incomplete or unhelpful. Configuration and review of interaction statistics should be available remotely, via a network connection to each exhibit equipped with one of these devices.