Project: The Embedded Book Course: ME 216B: Implementation Assignment: This assignment is the capstone of our Product Design experience at Stanford. Students develop a product through various stages: prototyping, testing, creating a bill of materials and figuring out what it would take to bring the product to market. My Approach: Many children are "reluctant readers," reading at grade level, but choosing not to read because nothing grabs their attention. To address this problem, I looked to increase the interactivity of ordinary paper book technology by integrating electrical components. I developed a model for a new genre of book--The Embedded Book.

Prototyping: The most difficult part of this project was finding a way to produce reliable electrical contacts out of paper and metallic components. I spent many hours walking around the crafts store with a multi-meter, checking the conductivity of every brad, staple, tape, rivet, button, and clip they sold. I produced many prototypes to test my ideas. Product: The final product for this project was a functional sample layout that highlighted the potential for the Embedded Book technology. This model used simple switches and electronics to produce an interactive element that worked in tandem with the layout and story of the book. Video: I created this video to explain the functionality of the Embedded Book.