Project Title: Voice of the Past

Brief Description:

Voice of the Past is a project that is meant to add new levels of interactivity to the Long Island Museum’s Carriage Exhibit. With the use of voice commands captured from the audience, the mannequins in the museum are brought to life. The dialogue between user and mannequin simulates a real life conversation in the 19th century and gives visitors knowledge on past careers, lifestyle, and environment.

Target Audience:

Age range: 6-12
General educational level: Any
Computer/technology literacy: Minimal knowledge of voice control and commands
Technology access: None
Occupation: Students, elementary to high school level
Environment: School, educational
Socioeconomic group: Any
Gender, Race, or Ethnic group if applicable: Any
Language: English
Cultural preferences: None

Client or Collaborator: Long Island Museum https://longislandmuseum.org/

The Long Island Museum was established in 1939 and is a Smithsonian affiliate. The museum was inspired by this premise and museum grounds soon resembled a New England Village as local historic buildings were carefully trucked onto the grounds.

Similar/competitive products in genre: Disney’s Haunted House

Our approach is unique to Disney’s Haunted House because of the educational aspect to it. Our goal is to educate children and young adults on historical components, while Disney’s Haunted House is an entertainment attraction.

Full Description:

Task Analysis (needs, desired outcomes): Children and young adults visiting museums are usually looking for a creative learning environment. By using an interactive voice command featured in our project, users will be actively engaged and interested in participating with the mannequin projections. Users will have access to a stack of cards with a variety of written questions that can be asked. Voice capture will then be translated to text, and when the text matches a question we have stored, a video playback of the appropriate character will speak the answer. The outcome is to simulate a scenario as if the user were to go back in time and actually be speaking with people of the 19th century. Users will learn about the way of life in New York of the 19th century including information on jobs, environment, hobbies, etc.
Use model (environment, workflow): Museum visitors
Architecture (stand-alone or client/server…): The project will be a stand-alone piece solely for the Long Island Museum Carriage Exhibit.
Repetoire of functionality (list of significant features): Voice recognition of user’s speech, video playback of appropriate answers with facial expressions
Distribution and dissemination: Word of the project or videos of it can inspire people to visit the museum to try it out for themselves. However, the project will solely be featured at LIM and not distributed outside of it.
Business model (retail, subscription?): No necessary purchase or subscription.
Support (user help, updates): No updates are required because the scenarios of the past will always be constant and therefore, the project will always be relevant to any one looking into learning about the 19th century in New York.

Special Requirements:

Novel input/output hardware: Projectors, speakers, camera
Software development tools: Voice capture/recognition

Bibliography:

https:/longislandmuseum.org/