What's "My Naturewatch Camera"?
The My Naturewatch Camera is an affordable wildlife camera that is affordable and anyone can build. The project’s aim is to understand if do-it-yourself technology is a good strategy to promote engagement with nature and digital technology. Over 1000 cameras have been built taking countless photographs of wildlife.
Who's it for?
This work is likely to mainly be of relevance to academic researchers, however there may be interest across disciplines including Human-Computer Interaction, Design, and the Philosophy of Technology.
Approach
The project employs Research through Design as the guiding research principle with the research team learning about the challenge by immersing themselves in it and learning how to build, communicate about, and support the wildlife cameras. The project was not only Research through Design, but also included many avenues of dissemination including a television appearance. Additional research data was collected from an online forum set up to support the project.
Contribution
The project offers many fascinating contributions including lessons about designing affordable do-it-yourself hardware (from the electronics through to how to use everyday items to make safe housings for the electronics). The team also learned many lessons about the unique value of engaging with nature in one’s own locality. Finally, the project reveals ways to engage large number of people with digital making by involving them in the creation of research products.
Why is it in the Observatory?
Appearing on the BBC’s Springwatch television programme took this project to a mass audience. This resulted in over 1000 people getting involved. The research shows that the project clearly affected many of those people positively. Moreover, the work demonstrates how Design Research techniques can be applied in the realm of public engagement. The group behind this work - The Interaction Research Studio - is hugely influential in the field of Research through Design.