Terry Burton shared this great eBookmark project with us from 7Electrons, created as he said “with lots of parts from Adafruit”:
From Jinna’s first concept sketch to my completing actual hardware, our eBookmark was envisioned as purely an art piece and a statement, although some we’ve shown it to have expressed interest in it being an actual product. Now it is finally done, working, and we are happy to show it.
From the beginning, the eBookmark was conceptualized as a statement on books and their current place in the world. Our generation bridges a strange divide where paper exists but is slowly being nudged out. The eBookmark attempts to bridge a similar divide that we ourselves have lived through. Jinna used to re-read pages because she would forget which paragraph and side of the page she left off on (ironically, kindle still doesn’t let you know which paragraph you left off on). Our bookmark lets the reader save their place on the page and with a switch they can also select the left or right page. The top also extends to allow use in larger books.
The process of creating the bookmark involved wood carving, software development in C on an Atmel 8-bit processor, and hand wiring of all the electronics, LEDs and battery with fine wire. 16 tiny surface mount LEDs shine through the opaque face and the mcu remembers where you left off in your reading.
In an era where bookstores are dying and libraries are collecting cobwebs, our piece is a bridge between analog and digital….
