Melt Awardees

by Bryan Reynolds (Gamesauce) & Andrew Wilson (Blink)

Genie uses RFID technology to generate creativity and enhance younger audience’s engagement with museums and galleries. The Genie project is a partnership between Blink, who devised the concept and designed the interaction and interface and Gamesauce who developed the interface, hardware and programming. The narrative and creative writing interface was developed by poets Peter and Ann Sansom and the visuals were designed by Finger Industries.

After a period of research and creative and technical development, Genie was piloted at Magna in late 2006 and allowed young children to use uniquely designed hardware and software to search for exhibits marked with a secret sign and interact with the genie ‘spirits’ inside. Children were able to use a “magic mirror” (a tablet PC with RFID reader) to interact with the spirit characters and bring them to life by creating memories stories and picture for them.

During the trail Genie was also independently evaluated at Magna with school and family groups. The feedback about ease of use, engagement and enhancement of experience was extremely positive and demonstrated that only minor changes were necessary to potentially bring the project to market.

The team is currently exploring a number of options for commercialisation.

www.blinkmedia.org
www.gamesauce.co.uk

Photograph by Shaun Bloodworth