This document summarizes a project to help museums in the West Midlands region of the UK develop digital interactives. Over three months, the author held workshops and provided ongoing mentorship for staff from 10 selected museums. Participants built simple, low-cost interactives using technologies like Android phones and tablets, Raspberry Pis, and Microsoft Sticks. Examples created included touchscreen applications using PowerPoint, NFC-triggered storytelling trails, and interactive fiction games. The project aimed to demystify digital technology and empower non-expert museum staff and volunteers to create their own interactive experiences.

1. DIY Interactives
Practical findings from
10 West Midlands Museums
@MrJohnSear
Real-world Game Designer

2. TL;DR
• Broadening Digital Horizons Project
• 3 months last Summer
• Across West Midlands Museums
• Started with 3 day long workshops
• 10 museums received further mentorship
• Built our own interactives

3. SPOILER ALERT
Tutorials:
johnsear.com
Use  Repurpose  Remix

4. Me

7. Game-like experiences for public spaces

8. The Project:
Broadening Digital
Horizons

9. Training & Mentorship
3 x day long workshops
15 x people per workshop
23 x museums staff (+hangers on)
14 x museums
10 museums selected for mentorship

11. My idea: Turn everyone into Makers…

14. What could we build?
• Humidity sensors
• Selfie Cams
• Touchscreen displays
• Audio Tour Guides
• PirateBox
• Twitter walls
• Visitor counters
• Feedback systems
• Triggered video / audio
• Virtual Reality
experiences
• Augmented Reality
• Digital Interactives
• Announcement displays

15. My oversight:
• Museum staff & volunteers are not Digital Natives
• Generally from smaller museums
• Demographic of volunteers is generally older
• Digital is ‘difficult & scary’

16. Change of direction:
• Change the level of difficulty
• Simplify the technology
• Raspberry Pi is too hard
Take ‘experiences’ I make & change them so anyone
could.

17. Android Phone / Tablet
• Touchscreen
• Battery
• Storage
• WiFi
• OS Installed
• Cameras
• Apps
• Sensors: compass, gyroscope,
accelerometer, GPS, NFC
Google Nexus 4: £45

18. Microsoft Stick PC (or tablet)
• Low-powered run
off USB
• Windows 10
• Plug into a screen
via HDMI
• Run (just about)
any software
• Microsoft Office
Intel Compute Stick (2016): £110

19. Interactives

21. Built: Touchscreen Application
DIY Touch screen application using Microsoft PowerPoint
viewer. All for less than £400!

24. Can you create a PowerPoint
Slideshow?
You can build a TouchScreen Application:
• Images
• Audio
• Video
• Maps
• Quizzes & simple games (more work)
Note: You don’t even need PowerPoint (use the
OpenSource versions & PowerPoint viewer!)

30. Built: NFC Babbling Beasts
• Create stories / treasure trails with museum objects
• Record these on phone
• Trigger by ‘Near Field Communication’ Tags

33. Basic approach
• Figure out your story
• How is it connected to objects in the gallery?
• Record onto phone
• Associate NFC tags with recordings (NFC Tools PRO)
• Place tags in real-world
• Playtest!

36. Built: Interactive Fiction Game
• Advanced ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’
• Set in their own museum with own objects
• Played on touchscreens, online or phones

41. Twinery.org

44. Wrap-up

45. Lessons Learned
• Amazing museums, staff & volunteers.
• IT (inc WiFi) is hard – often council run.
• Even building simple interactives is terrifying – me
just being in the room helped!
• ill-equipped to even source digital projects
• Lots of ‘broken’ spare tech equipment in cupboards
that could be salvaged!

46. What Next?
• ‘Broadening Digital Horizons’ may repeat this
summer in the WM
• I’m running two days of game making at Ecsite in
Porto (GameLab)
• Grab the materials and ‘do it yourself’ 

47. DIY coming soon…
NFC Triggered Tablets Live Escape Rooms meet
Museums (Treasure Trails
2.0)

48. johnsear.com/diy-museum-tutorials/
@MrJohnSear
john@johnsear.com