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Many successful organisations such as Google and Apple have a strong Keep it simple ethos. I’ve written a document looking at why keeping it simple is important for museum exhibits and how to stop them becoming over complicated.
Read KISS chase - How to keep your exhibit simple.

The Science of Survival exhibition has now opened at the Science Museum in London. We provided consultancy to create the “Oyster card” like visitor tracking system. This uses RfID technology to create an individual record of each person’s visit. The system is fast, easy to to use and fits in well with the “futuristic” feel of the exhibition.
Find out more >

Joe’s niece received an interesting toy for Christmas. It was a small plastic car which would follow any line that you drew on a piece of paper. After spending a while playing with this we were inspired to create a game based on the same idea. In Ants you have to guide a small group of er, ants by drawing a trail for them to follow. The little creatures are pretty obedient but as the levels progress it gets much trickier than you’d think.
Play Ants >

This week was pretty exciting for me as I gained my first employee in the shape of Dave Wainfor. Dave’s just finished his degree in Cybernetics and Virtual worlds during which he’s spent a lot of time building robots out of lego. Right now he’s getting up to speed with the specifics of computer exhibits but having him helping out means we can take on bigger projects which will be great.

I mentioned in a previous post that I’ll be updating the portfolio page with some recent projects. I’ve finally managed to get round to it and have added the Climate change weather studio, three Find out more exhibits, the Science news quiz and Wasted - The recycling game. This is making the portfolio page look pretty long so I’m going to have to start thinking about ways to make it easier to find what you want. The question is what criteria do people use when looking through it? Are they looking for particular subjects (science or art?), types of interaction (games, browsing or immersive?), or form factor (touchscreens or projections?). Hmm, I suspect a mixture of all three and a few more besides.

The Centre for Life were looking for an exhibit to display the latest science news feeds from the internet. The problem is this isn’t really new any more. My local Sainsbury’s has a newsfeed display and so do some of the bus stops here in York. Nobody takes any notice of them. So we came up with the idea of turning those news headlines into a simple Have I got news for you style missing words quiz. The one in the Centre for Life is displayed on a huge 55 inch screen, complete with thumpable push buttons and “uhh-ohh” noises. Needless to say its a great hit with visitors and who leave knowing far more about what’s happening in science than they ever expected.

Play the Science news quiz

Some of you will have noticed that this news column went a bit quiet during the last few months. This wasn’t because nothing’s happened - more the opposite really. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to keep it updated. Things are a little calmer now and I’ll be gradually posting reports of what I’ve been doing. The first of these is a game about recycling for the Science Museum in London. In Wasted you have to recycle as much rubbish as possible before it fills up your bedroom. To make matters worse your mum and dad are out shopping for more stuff - you need to give them the right advice to avoid getting even more rubbish. The only good news is that you’re being helped by your two pet mice. Yes, it’s going to be one of those days…

Play Wasted

I spent most of last week moving office and sorting out things like broadband. I had to move out of the old one as York Council have decided to knock it down and build a home for the homeless there instead. My new address is 35 Hospital Fields Road, York, YO10 4DZ. Phone number and email address stay the same. The new office is still only about 100 metres from the river and about 10 minutes walk from my house. There’s also a few extra facilities that the old one didn’t have such as an entryphone and heating.

It’s reached that stage when I’ve got far, far too much to do and I need to employ someone to do programming. Of course that’s just the start, I’m looking for someone keen to learn and try new things and I’ll be looking to train you up on projectors, physical interfaces, graphics and everything else I do. If you’re interested here are some more details. The closing date for applications is 31st July 2007.

I’ve put some more information about the Find out more exhibit that I made for the Company of Merchant Adventurers on the web. The exhibit contains the complete story of the hall as well as 3D reconstructions, a timeline and a quiz. Building the 3D model was no easy task as the hall is over 650 years old and there’s almost no right-angle joints in the whole structure. You can see a sample of the 3D reconstruction of the hall here and some screen shots from the exhibit here.