ScienceALIVE PDA Tour Guide Case Study:

Singapore Science Centre

01 May 2005

From May 2005, each Singapore Science Centre visitor will be equipped with a Wi-Fi enabled Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), complete with a myriad of multimedia games and quizzes designed to enrich visitor experience. Using Wireless LAN (WLAN) technologies to pinpoint a visitor's location, the system acts as a virtual tour guide, with a digital map to help visitors navigate through the premises. Updated videos, sounds, images and texts describing all the exhibits will be introduced to visitors via the PDAs. Centre visitors will also be notified on available demonstrations and show times, as well as receive location-based games and quizzes, wherever they are within the Centre.

The interactive location-based system promises Science Centre visitors a thoroughly engaging learning experience. As visitors move through the exhibits on display, they will receive rich multimedia content, interactive games and quizzes, and even specially designed learning trials sent wirelessly to their PDAs. As most visitors will not have sufficient time to go through all exhibits in detail, the location-based solution facilitates continuous education and learning by allowing visitors to request for information on selected exhibits to be sent to their personal email accounts, for easy retrieval when they are back home. With LBS, the Centre can also boost its marketing efforts by providing personalised information e.g. related promotions, upcoming events and new exhibits to entice repeat visitors to its premises. By gathering accurate visitor feedback through survey questions delivered to the PDAs at the end of the visits, the Centre can also gain better insight to its service offerings and exhibits.