Thinking about the interaction. One idea is to have any number of standalone objects… each will have a 2.4GHz transceiver, and can be interacted with in some way (hopefully capacitive field). These will connect back to a hub which will have it’s own 2.4GHz transceiver and is most likely a computer that controls the Flatholm Island map (essentially, a database with an internet connection). The hub could potentially be as simple as a Raspberry Pi or as complex as a Mac Mini or something there abouts…
The above breadboard has a chip on it called an ATTiny84 which is an MCU, and is pretty much an “Arduino” in as reduced a package as possible. It will happily run on low voltage and has enough pins to connect to the radio transceiver module (nrf24l01) with a few spare to make a capacitive field and possibly some other things (sound potentially?). It is currently running on AAA batteries.
The below is the radio transceiver with a range of at least 20/30 metres (they cost about 50p a piece when bought in small quantities– happy days). Saying that, the printed circuit board (PCB) has been made compact and the pins are in an awkward arrangement which is why it is on an annoying mini cable loom.
The “shields” are for the Arduino Uno. They are used to bootload and program ATTiny84 or the smaller ATTiny85.
And then an Uno is acting as the ‘hub’ or a receiver device, listening for the ATTiny84 transmissions…
It is working so far, but the wire looms make the radios pretty unreliable which is pretty annoying. Next step is to try making a really basic capacitive sensor for the ATTiny84 . Once the concept is down, a PCB can be designed which can contain everything for the standalone objects.
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