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Background

The Easter Ross Seaboard is a stretch of coastline approximately fourteen miles in length and the Seaboard villages of Shandwick, Balintore and Hilton are situated halfway along this coast. They are often referred to locally as ‘the villages’ or ‘the Seaboard’ and have a strong background in the fishing industry. The Seaboard Memorial Hall (SMH, also known as the Seaboard Centre), which started out in 1958 as a small village hall, was rebuilt in 2001 and is now a modern adaptable venue with excellent conference, training and arts facilities.  It is the hub of the local community accommodating regular user groups and a community café.

Challenge

Seaboard Memorial Hall Ltd (SMH) was looking to create a new and permanent Heritage Community Centre to serve the local community and attract new tourism to the area.  The Centre was to be based on the extensive and exceptional collection of paintings and memorabilia of John Paterson (1872-1945), a fishing station owner and amateur artist.  Over 200 paintings survive, many being portraits of local people who modelled for him.  The fishing industry that sustained the local community no longer exists but the family has retained a wealth of related materials that will form the core collections for the heritage centre.  The fishing sheds and studio are still in existence and form an integral part of the story.

The immediate aim of SMH was to develop a workforce plan for the centre, identifying the new skills and expertise that would be required for the successful and sustainable operation of the heritage centre.  Such a facility, through the development of a diverse and flexible workforce, both paid and volunteer, would benefit the local community by enhancing this area as a destination of cultural interest.

Solution

After being referred by Highlands & Islands Enterprise (HIE), the SMH contacted Interface, who were able to secure the expertise of the University of St Andrews Museums, Galleries and Collections Institute (MCGI).  The MCGI is the research arm of Museum and Gallery Studies at St Andrews. The Museum and Gallery Studies Masters course at the University of St Andrews is the longest running course in Scotland and over the past three decades has built up practical, vocational and research expertise in all areas of museum work.

Their collaborative project was funded by a Scottish Funding Council Workforce Innovation Voucher.

Benefits

The resulting products from this collaborative project were:

For the first time, the Heritage Centre will be able to tell the story of the Seaboard area and its past fishing industry, using the time capsule of one local man, his life and work as a lens to focus on and engage with the wider fishing community and society, bringing the rich history of the area to life.  It will bring in new visitor and tourist business, and it will enable the local population to use their personal knowledge of the area in different ways and pass on that local knowledge to visitors and the local younger generation.  It will also offer new workforce opportunities to develop expertise and practice in the many aspects of heritage management.

Impacts

Background

Millport Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme (CARS) is jointly funded  by Historic Environment Scotland and North Ayrshire Council and aims to preserve the historical features of Millport (Isle of Cumbrae) and reinvigorate it as a seaside and island destination.  The conservation works are supported by an outreach plan aiming to engage local community and visitors with the local heritage and history.

Challenge

One of the aims of the outreach plan was to engage local children with local heritage via a series of face-to-face workshops that would explore the history and heritage of the area, including Scottish culture, language and tradition.

However, due to COVID-19 and the resulting isolation rules for home schooling, Kasia Smith, the Millport CARS officer, needed to develop an alternative to her planned face-to-face activities and had an idea to use Minecraft to engage with the children.  She turned to Mari Findlay from Interface to help her find a suitable academic partner or student group that could develop a heritage themed interactive game that could be used in both classroom and remotely in a home learning environment based on a very modest budget.   

Solution

Mari introduced Kasia to the internationally renowned School of Design and Informatics at Abertay University; Europe’s top-ranked institution for video games education. Supported by teaching fellow Kayleigh Macleod, the project was assigned to games students Claire Monaghan, Fergus Coyne and Romain Bourdon who worked on the project for three months.

Due to travel restrictions, the students were unable to visit the island before they began their work and had to use images and other online resources as their only point of reference.  Housed on the Minecraft Education platform, Cumbraecraft has been designed with eight distinct lessons and is designed to let children explore local heritage landmarks and learn more about their local history.  

Benefits

In addition to enhancing the Curriculum for Excellence – the national curriculum for Scottish schools – Cumbraecraft has demonstrated how games can engage young people with learning about their heritage in a visual, interactive and fun way.  Additional benefits also included contributing to an electronic record of local heritage as well as introducing young people to potential career options in gaming and computer arts.

Depending on the success of this pilot project, the potential is there for implementing this tested and fully evaluated model across other schools within North Ayrshire Council, as well as a package for other conservation projects across Scotland.

Background

Wanlockhead Museum represents the local social and industrial history of this once important site of lead mining. The museum consists of an underground mine (open to the public); Straitsteps Cottages, representing miners’ lives in 1750, 1850 and 1910; the Miners’ Library and the Visitor Centre; and the Museum. The library holds 2800 books and is the second oldest subscription library in Europe.

Challenge

Restrictions due to Covid-19 have had a negative effect on how the Museum can deliver the visitor experience.  In May of 2020, Interface joined forces with VisitScotland and the Scottish Tourism Alliance to launch the Adopt a Business scheme; a new initiative aimed at boosting the sector’s recovery from Covid-19 by connecting tourism businesses to university academics and students for research and development projects, helping businesses to diversify and adapt to the new environment.

Wanlockhead Museum were looking to develop an informed digitisation strategy. They have valuable resources in the library which could be more widely shared on a digital platform. Social distancing would be very difficult to undertake on the mine tour, but a virtual tour could widen their audience and increase access for those not physically able to enter the mine; and, with the inclusion of text, could also be accessible to the hearing impaired.

Solution

The Trust applied to the Adopt a Business initiative looking for academic support.  Mari Findlay, Business Engagement Executive at Interface, put Kathryn Linsell, Trustee, Wanlockhead Museum, in touch with Dr Kirsten Cowan from the University of Edinburgh and Dr Alena Kostyk from the University of Glasgow, who had expressed interest in participating in the Adopt a Business initiative.  Intrigued by the Museum’s rich history and everything it had to offer, the academics volunteered to work jointly on the project as there was a good fit between their expertise and the needs of the Museum.

Benefits

The academics were able to secure funding for the project that included ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) Impact Acceleration Account funding from the University of Glasgow; allowing them to create and test digital marketing solutions for the Museum as well as being able to purchase the necessary equipment to do this.

In collaboration with filmmakers “Silly Wee Films” from Glasgow, a static scenes VR tour for the Wanlockhead’s Lead mine, Miners’ library, and Miners’ cottages was created.

Audio narrations for these VR scenes were created in collaboration with “The Big Light” podcast company from Glasgow.

A small pre-Christmas Facebook campaign was tested to facilitate donations to the Wanlockhead’s fundraiser, and to build social media following. It generated 18,000+ post engagements, and 1,575 link clicks. Facebook page following went from 2,300 to 2,700 potential visitors during that brief campaign.

The academics are now preparing (January 2021) to launch a Facebook campaign to build a larger social media following for the Museum as well as generating more traction for the fundraiser. They will be testing out several digital campaign designs to find optimal solutions.

A further student marketing project is currently underway with the University of Glasgow.

Drs Cowan and Kostyk have supported the Museum throughout the course of the project and continue to do so. 

The Adopt a Business scheme was shortlisted by PraxisAuril for the 2021 Pandemic Pivot of the Year Award.

Background

The Whithorn Trust was founded in 1988 to inspire the public with the story of Whithorn, which is one of the earliest sites in Scotland where archaeological evidence of Christian practice is found. The site was an early medieval monastery and later a pilgrimage shrine. The Trust operates a visitor centre; museum; guided tours, including its full-scale replica Iron Age Roundhouse; and a café and shop to support its activities. It also promotes wide ranging economic development and educational initiatives, working with bioarchaeologists on dating and population information for the early burials.

Challenge

In May of 2020, Interface joined forces with VisitScotland and the Scottish Tourism Alliance to launch the Adopt a Business scheme; a new initiative aimed at boosting the sector’s recovery from COVID-19 by connecting tourism businesses to university academics and students for research and development projects; helping businesses to diversify and adapt to the new environment.

Julia Muir Watt, Development Manager at The Whithorn Trust, responded to the Adopt a Business initiative saying: “We would be interested in hearing from anyone who can work with a heritage organisation on virtual reality. We already work with archaeologists who are looking to produce an interactive archaeopuzzle with 3D models, but we have lots of resources where virtual reality experiences may be applicable.”

Solution

Mari Findlay, Business Engagement Executive at Interface, put Julia in touch with Dr Kirsten Cowan from University of Edinburgh and Dr Alena Kostyk from University of Glasgow, who had both expressed interest in participating in the Adopt a Business initiative and volunteered to work jointly on the project during their summer holidays.

Benefits

Drs Cowan and Kostyk were able to secure funding for the project that included ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) Impact Acceleration Account funding from both the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow that was used to fund filmmakers, post-production costs, podcasts and 3D headsets; enable the continuance of the collaboration; and support the creation and testing of digital marketing solutions. 

In collaboration with filmmakers, Silly Wee Films based in Glasgow, a static scenes VR tour for the Whithorn Trust’s Iron Age Roundhouse and Priory was created and the academics are in the process (January 2021) of creating a 360-degree video VR tour, which is in line with the Trust’s new digital ambitions.  Audio narrations were developed in collaboration with The Big Light podcast company from Glasgow.

A Facebook campaign was designed and tested to facilitate the sales of the Whithorn Trust’s “digital ticket” initiative and to build a larger social media following.

An additional student marketing project was also secured by the academics to look at improving the Trust’s general marketing activities for 2021.

The academics continue to support the Trust.

Background

SENSEcity Ltd. is a dynamic, high-tech start-up company looking to disrupt the traditional travel guidebook market. Pooja Katara, an architect, is the founder of the company and came up with the idea of an alternative guidebook as an artistically illustrated booklet with a complimentary mobile application during her Masters’ degree at The Glasgow School of Art. The output from her degree included a test of this guidebook.  

Challenge

SENSEcity Ltd. wanted to develop the test case into a working product, addressing the demand for an authentic tourism experience by offering a unique interactive guidebook that would work along with an augmented reality application delivered on a mobile phone. The intent was to bring the cultural heritage of the city to life through experiential tourism. Pooja was looking to collaborate with academics to develop a prototype which could also be a fully working product.

Although Pooja had studied at The Glasgow School of Art (GSA), she was not sure which university would have the capacity and capability to work with her, or how to contact the right people to take forward a collaborative project.

Solution

Pooja met Ruth Oliver, Interface’s Business Engagement Executive for Glasgow and Clyde Valley, at the RBS Accelerator in Glasgow, where the company is based. Ruth drew up a brief outlining the challenge, which was issued to universities throughout Scotland. Several responded to the brief and Pooja chose to collaborate with The Glasgow School of Art’s School of Simulation and Visualisation to use augmented reality to bring archive images and animations to life, and embed audio into the app.

The project was to focus on:

The collaborative project was part-funded funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher, administered by Interface.

Benefits

The development of this project alongside the expertise from GSA proved extremely beneficial to SENSEcity and led to their first commercial travel guidebook and mobile application.  The creation of high-quality 3D content improved the AR interactions that users will now get to experience. The re-written narrative, and access to local expert knowledge of the history professor, made the content richer and, with access to the professional sound recording studio at GSA, the company was able to create a high-quality audio guide along with sound effects; an important feature within the app.

Follow-On Activity

Interface provided additional support to the company through a collaborative project with digital marketing students at the University of Glasgow looking at how to promote the SENSEcity app.

In collaboration with West Coast Motors and The Glasgow School of Art (following on from the original project with GSA), SENSEcity received £7,500 from the £50k Collaboration Fund launched by the new Experience Glasgow tourism network, which will allow visitors onboard the Glasgow City Sightseeing bus tours to experience Glasgow in a hi-tech way.

Pooja has since become a Converge Challenge winner of the newly introduced Creative Challenge category for her new-age travel guide.

The company are currently looking at evolving their product to fit into the Covid and post-Covid world.

The ABCs….and Ds of Success

Alpacas, branding, collaboration……and diversification are the keys to success for a Borders’ based company.

Beirhope Alpacas are a family-owned smallholding located in the stunning Cheviot Hills. They started operating in 2017 with five alpacas and 12 acres of smallholding.  Since then, the business has thrived and managed to withstand the COVID-19 crisis.

Their core offering is alpaca treks and ‘meet the alpaca’ experiences. This is just their starting point, however, and they want to take their assets – the alpacas and beautiful setting in the Borders – and develop a range of offerings all based around the ‘Beirhope Brand’. Initially, the company was looking for visual design and communication ideas around how to develop the story of their smallholding, their alpacas and yarn, and their packaging and branding, all with a focus on provenance.

The company was referred to Interface by the South of Scotland Enterprise (SOSE). Since SOSE’s inception in March, Interface has been working closely with their team members to ensure that the Interface service is signposted for businesses within their region for COVID-19 support and beyond.

With assistance from Interface, Beirhope Alpacas successfully applied to the University of the Highlands and Islands for consideration for the Visual Communication and Design BA programme to help develop their brand.  The students started working on this collaborative project in September.

Background

The Scottish Crannog Centre, located on Loch Tay in Perthshire, includes a museum, the reconstructed crannog (typically a partially or entirely artificial island, usually built in lakes and estuarine waters of Scotland) and living history area with interactive demonstrations of ancient crafts and technologies from the Early Iron Age. 

As a community, they care for and make accessible the finds of Scottish crannog excavations and interpret the lives of crannog dwellers for the benefit, enjoyment, education and inspiration of all.

All work is funded from visitors supporting their work through paid admissions, grants and donations or undertaken on a voluntary basis.

Challenge

The Scottish Crannog Centre is shifting from a successful, though tired, visitor centre to a museum-focussed organisation, encompassing all the various roles of modern museums to educate, entertain, stimulate debate and involve diverse people meaningfully in the museum.

The short-term goal for the Crannog Centre was to look at identifying ways to modernise the current exhibitions and telling of more compelling stories. They required specialised assistance from an academic group to review current exhibits and layout of the visitor centre and expertise in heritage interpretation and immersive technologies.

The long-term plan is to move across Loch Tay to a better situated site which can house larger, more extensive visitor facilities including a visitor centre, parking and learning space. A crucial part of this project is building new crannog reconstructions, based on say three different styles of dwelling found in different areas of Scotland. The nature of the build would be to involve communities and volunteers and foster traditional skills and well-being benefits of participants.

Solution

The Museum Director, Mike Benson, was referred to Interface through Perth & Kinross Council and picked up by our local Business Engagement Executive Lorna Watson. Lorna worked closely with Mike to understand the Centre’s requirements and identified expertise within the University of the West of Scotland (UWS).

Dr Marco Gilardi, Lecturer, School of Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences, undertook a feasibility study and design of a new form of interactive, mixed reality, immersive experience to virtually link past dwellers and present visitors.

The project delivered:

The project was funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher, administered by Interface.

Business benefits

The project delivered a new gallery, and the designs for the interactive immersive experiences were integrated within the gallery design and some of them prototyped using different media including virtual reality and mobile apps.

Outside of the formal outputs, the evidence from this project will support a step change that will look to secure the museums future, location and expansion. Being at the forefront of innovation in immersive heritage experiences will attract larger visitor numbers and thereby support the economy of the local area and in Scotland.

The Centre has now received permission and bought the land to move across the loch as part of a £6 million project.

Academic Benefits

The project developed for the Scottish Crannog Centre was challenging, as it needed to contribute to the stakeholders’ vision of the Scottish Crannog Centre of the future by integrating new technologies without detracting from the excellent visitor experience that the Centre already provides and will provide in the future.

The major benefit UWS got from the project is the relationship established with the Scottish Crannog Centre. Through this relationship, the Centre has enriched their student experience by contributing business-based scenarios for the assessment of some of their modules as well as providing honours degree project opportunities, and opportunities for summer projects with the Digital Arts programme’s students.

Finally, the Centre invited Dr Gilardi to join the Advisory Panel for the new Scottish Crannog Centre development, increasing UWS prestige as an applied University that supports Scottish communities.

Follow on

The initial project with UWS led to a further project to bring to life an artefact which had never been displayed before. The bridge of a musical instrument, possibly a lyre (a stringed instrument like a small u-shaped harp), was created from the original artefact using 3D printing and is used as a physical exhibit for visitors to be able to hold and feel.

A third project to design a small comic book aimed at children as a paper-based product was undertaken by a student from the University of the Highlands & Islands. This comic, which will be sold in the gift shop, is designed to educate children and young people on life in Iron Age Scotland, as well as the artefacts found on the excavation site and how they relate to life in 500BC.

Mike and the team at the Centre are still actively working with UWS and trying to raise the funding to take projects further. Interface are also continuing to provide support with future projects in the pipeline.

Background

Dr Werner Kissling was a German aristocrat who was born into great wealth but ended up living as a tenant of a bedsit in Dumfries. He left the German diplomatic service whilst posted to London in 1931, unwilling to work for a Nazi government. Instead, he pursued academic research in the UK even after anti-Hitler activities cost his family their fortune.

Dr Kissling was a distinguished ethnologist, particularly taking photographs in the Western Isles of Scotland.  He made the first ever film to use spoken Gaelic and is regarded as one of the great photographers of the Western Isles.

Dumfries Museum houses an extensive collection of photographs taken by Dr Kissling between 1935 and the 1970s.  Many show images of crafts people and agricultural workers from New Zealand to the Western Isles of Scotland at work, some practising crafts which have since died out.

Challenge

In 2018, a suitcase of Dr Kissling’s personal possessions was donated to the museum.  A great deal of work had been done already in terms of sorting, copying and documenting the contents of this suitcase, but further work was required to archive, digitise and catalogue them.

This inspired the Dr Werner Kissling Project 2019, a project to document the newly acquired collections and collect reminiscences from people who remembered Dr Kissling.

Solution

Mari Findlay, from Interface, put Siobhán Ratchford, curator at Dumfries Museum, in touch with the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities (SGSAH) Internship/Artist Residency programme, where PhD student Kirsty Kernohan expressed an interest in the project.

Kirsty, who was studying anthropology at University of Aberdeen, created over 500 new catalogue records for the museum’s collection and developed a record identifying Kissling collections in other institutions, available for future research by public and experts. She also compiled three online information pages including around 120 digitised photographs for Future Museum, a resource showcasing the collections of museums in Ayrshire and Dumfries & Galloway. Kirsty’s work on Futuremuseum.co.uk can be viewed here.

Benefits

Company – A Scottish museum’s internationally significant collection of photographs has been expanded and preserved for future generations, thanks to Interface’s connections. The staff at the museum were delighted to see Dr Kissling’s collection finally honoured and become more accessible to the public.

Academic – The Dr Werner Kissling Project 2019 gave the PhD student the chance to take on a multi-faceted project in a museum context, allowing her to put into practice skills she had gained volunteering in other museums and through her PhD research.  Previous experience on anthropological fieldwork allowed her to conduct ethical interviews and add to the museum’s records, and research experience allowed her to collate information about Dr Kissling, enhancing the museum’s collection.

Kirsty won the Truckell Prize 2020 for her research paper into Dr Kissling, awarded by the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society.

Background

Flaér (a brand by Scottoiler Sport Solutions) are a new performance cycling brand established to launch their most recent innovation, the Revo Via, the world’s first chain performance system for road bicycles.

The Flaér Revo Via chain performance system applies micro-doses of a specially developed fluid to the chain at set time intervals during the ride, so no matter what the conditions, the chain remains perfectly optimised – all the time.

This unique system ensures maximum power transfer to the wheel, smoother gear shifts and a visibly cleaner transmission. The result – you get the most out of the effort you put in. Our extensive testing has shown up to 12 watts in power gains at the wheel – a figure which increases the longer the duration of the ride.

Challenge

A key aim with this product is to engage with professional road cycling teams.  Prior to starting production, Flaér were keen to conduct aerodynamic testing that would help them better understand the performance benefits of the Revo Via and establish what drag their system would create on a road bike.

Solution

Chris Simpson, the Technical Director at Flaér, contacted Interface when they were in this last stage of testing as they were looking to engage with an academic department with full wind tunnel facilities and associated expertise to carry this out. Interface was able to help him;

After putting out a search to various universities, Interface introduced Chris to Dr Richard Green from the Department of Aerospace Sciences at the University of Glasgow to access their wind tunnel facility and the related support the University offers.

Benefits

The project has since led to the creation of improved processes and improved, as well as new, products, with a resulting increase in overall productivity, products and turnover. The business has now also secured a UCI professional road cycling team (Orica-Scott) who they will work with for the next 3 years as technical development partners.

“Thanks to the work of Interface and their wide reach of academic contacts, we have been able to reach out to specialists who have been able to help us fulfil our project requirements. The response time, communication and understanding provided by Interface was outstanding. Their attention to detail and support was extremely valuable in our business achieving its goals”. Chris Simpson, Technical Director, Flaér.

The project has led to follow on work with the University of Glasgow where a Postgraduate student is carrying out computational work to add more detail to the experimental work that Dr Richard Green performed for them.