This is a nifty little project that arose after I got a bit hyper watching Mark the curator of the Grant Museum do a talk about video games. An odd way of getting projects off the ground I’ll admit, but it seems quite a lot of my projects occur during or after I bounce around excitingly and say repeatedly “oooh wouldn’t it be cool if…”

So put together the fact that the Grant Museum has some really cool specimens (the anaconda is my favourite I think) and has a refreshing outlook for pushing the boundaries of how museums should/could behave with the team behind CASA’s wicked Tales of Things project, throw in a bit of me going ooooh and the fact that we all like the idea of playing with iPads and you get a project called QRator.

With the help of UCL’s Public Engagement Unit Innovation Seed funding the QRator project is exploring how handheld mobile devices, QR codes and interactive digital labels can create new models for public engagement, personal meaning making and the construction of narrative opportunities inside museum spaces. The project aims to engage members of the public within the Grant Museum by allowing them to become the ‘Curators’.  Asking visitors to think deeply about museum concepts and the specimens and then offer their own interpretation.

I’m really excited about this project, we are just really starting off, but it has a really quick turn around (panic over deadlines may begin soon) and am really looking forward to seeing all the tech in situ and seeing how the public interact with it. Fingers crossed the visitors like it.

You can find out a bit more about the QRator project at the UCL Public Engagement site