Touch-Responsive Models for Universal Access to Smithsonian Museums Exhibits

This project develops new methods for fabricating replicas of museum artifacts and other 3D objects that describe themselves when touched, so that museums can create exhibits that are accessible to everyone, including visitors with visual impairments. Phase I demonstrated how ordinary capacitive touchscreens could be repurposed as sensors for determining locations of finger touches on 3D surfaces and objects that have been hand painted with a carbon-rich conductive coating. Phase II improves on these methods by showing how both conductive (graphene) filament, and transparent insulating filament, can be loaded into a standard, dual extruder 3D printer, to create light transmissive, inherently touch-responsive objects in one step, obviating the need for hand painting. The new translucent models can be illuminated from below by the touch screen, allowing dynamic lighting effects and visual feedback when models or parts of models are touched.