For the next six months, I\u2019ll be working full time on a collaboration with the thriving ed-tech company Museum in a Box<\/a>. If you\u2019ve never seen a museum in a box\u2014 here\u2019s your chance. It is more fun than you can imagine, and even for a Gremlin like me (there\u2019s a reason I work with manuscripts), very simple to use. You begin with a \u2018Brain Box\u2019\u2014a programmable plywood box containing speakers, an NFC reader and a Raspberry Pi. For the uninitiated (and that included me until about a week ago): NFC technology is what allows contactless cards to work; a Raspberry Pi is a tiny, very powerful single board computer which you can program with all sorts of bells and whistles. They are wrapped up in a tactile box which can come in any colour and finish you like, even silicone, and look a bit like something you\u2019d find at Bletchley Park.<\/p>\n Next, you obtain a Collection\u2014 a number of 3D printed objects, under a thematic heading (\u2018American Songbirds\u2019 or \u2018Statues of Suffragettes\u2019, and so on). You can then tap (or \u2018boop\u2019) your printed objects on the Brain Box, and, rather thrillingly, they speak to you<\/em>. Because each object has an NFC sticker somewhere about its person, the Brain Box can recognise which of the objects you\u2019ve booped, and tell you about them accordingly. Like all of the finest ideas, it\u2019s both fiendishly clever and brilliantly simple. Museum in a Box have already collaborated with the Smithsonian, the British Museum, Jewish Museum London, the National Museum of Iraq; if you\u2019d like to see one in action, have a look on their website<\/a>.<\/p>\n For this fellowship, I\u2019ve been thinking about what it might be like to send the Fitzwilliam, in bits. A rolling box of 3D printed objects from the collection, through your letterbox, for you to \u2018boop\u2019 (on a box you rent or buy from Museum in a Box) and learn from. Maybe a \u2018Surprise Me\u2019 function (much like the random Wikipedia page generator), or maybe one you choose yourself from our ever-expanding list of boxes. Send them back for another set, or buy them for keeps. Subscription services are ubiquitous, from mascara to cheese to fancy socks; why not build on that same \u2018unboxing\u2019 buzz, and immerse yourself in a harmless bit of culcha while you\u2019re at it? Jokes aside, what a brilliant thing for people who can\u2019t come to the museum.\u00a0 Personally and professionally, I\u2019m committed to access, especially for those who don\u2019t receive the wider cultural provision that so often we take for granted in the University. This might be because of a disability, or geography, or finances, or a combination of those; no matter. With this collaboration, I\u2019m hopeful that we can go some ways to bringing the Fitzwilliam to everyone.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say we can\u2019t use this technology to advance and enhance visitors\u2019 experiences. My goal is to eventually have a Countdown to Cambridge option for the boxes. You would receive a miniature version of an object in the museum (your \u2018Boop Buddy\u2019), and when you come to the galleries, you could boop your Buddy on a designated Brain Box next to the original object (#bigboop). Primed and programmed to recognise you, the object and your Buddy could then communicate, or even say hello to you. I can\u2019t be alone in finding almost excessive joy in the prospect of being greeted by a mummy, but there you go.<\/p>\n But this is a while off yet. For now, we\u2019re hitting the ground running\u2014designing the contents of the collections boxes, working with our talented and generous Keepers to choose the objects, plotting our outreach strategy, drawing up lists of unsuspecting victims for our focus groups (do get in touch if you\u2019re keen; we will be running some pop-up events for feedback over the coming months), meeting with George of Museum in a Box for a field trip to the local Makespace<\/a>\u2026it\u2019s all go, and we\u2019re only on week two. I can\u2019t wait to share our progress with you here on the UCM Blog, but also through some Instagram videos and behind-the-scenes tweets. Meanwhile, please send me (at alg66@cam.ac.uk<\/a> or @FitzMuseum_UK, #CEEF) what kinds of things you\u2019d like to see in the boxes; I\u2019ll also accept lawyers, guns, money, snacks, voice actors, the loan of your dog, and picture postcards. Till next time!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What links a sarcophagus, a Millais painting, an exquisite Anglo-Norman manuscript, and a large tureen in the shape of a carp? Seemingly nothing, but that is the joy of the Fitzwilliam Museum\u2019s collections: something for everyone. But what would it be like for the collection to truly reach everyone? I am entirely thrilled to be one of four postdoctoral researchers… Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":9813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165,167,156],"tags":[219,218,368,306],"coauthors":[274],"class_list":["post-9812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engagement","category-research-practice","category-the-fitzwilliam-museum","tag-collections-engagement","tag-cultural-value","tag-digital","tag-research"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9812"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9817,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812\/revisions\/9817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9812"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Museum-in-a-box.jpg\")