Tangible Media Group

Our input device uses a digital pen, which captures and converts handwriting on paper into digital data . We have expanded the pen design to include gestural pointing and, zoom in/out functions by attaching a custom designed pen-cap. The hardware attachment consists of a linear potentiometer, an IR LED connected to an Arduino board a switch. By sliding the potentiometer up and down the length of the pen cap, the user can increase or decrease the size of their canvas area on the whiteboard inside which their text displays. A laptop acts as the central server for collecting the digitized content from each users pen and projecting it on the whiteboard at the spot selected by the user. Our software enables the display of text written on paper, on the whiteboard. The software also permits the interaction mechanisms as well as takes snapshots of the whiteboard every ten seconds for archiving the content.