Sian Wheatcroft created an interactive story display to enable children to explore her picture book This Bear, That Bear. She explains the project, and her current work in teaching, in the newest issue of Hello World magazine, available now.
The task of promoting my first children’s picture book, This Bear, That Bear, was a daunting one. At the time, I wasn’t a teacher and the thought of standing in front of assembly halls and classrooms sounded terrifying. As well as reading the book to the children, I wanted to make my events interactive using physical computing, showing a creative side to coding and enabling a story to come to life in a different way than what the children would typically see, i.e. animated retellings.
The plan
Coming from a tech-loving family, I naturally gravitated towards the Raspberry Pi, and found out about Bare Conductive and their PiCap. I first envisaged using their conductive paint on the canvas, enabling users to touch the paint to interact with the piece. It would be some sort of scene from the book, bringing some of the characters to life. I soon scrapped that idea, as I discovered that simply using copper tape on the back of the canvas was conductive enough, which also allowed me to add colour to the piece.
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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!