Overflow of information in tourism

The idea for the prototype came from Rovaniemi based Gran Carage. The entrepreneur wanted to create a solution to facilitate information overflow experienced by tourists. He felt that the material distributed in paper form was often impractical and non ecological, and wanted to develop a way for the tourists to access it digitally by utilizing a wooden card. As an experienced woodworker and CNC-machinery user the entrepreneur had the means for production, but needed professional assistance especially with the technology part of the idea. The design objective was to create a memorable product, that has a local feeling.

Prototyped solution

When placed against a mobile phone, the wooden, Nordic styled card displays a northern light effect and opens a browser based service portal including offers and services from local businesses. The system works with an in-built, passive NFC tag, that takes the energy needed from the reading device. As a thin card, the product is easy to carry along, and the material and design make it a good souvenir to take back home after a trip in Lapland.

The flex PCB NFC antenna was tuned to the correct NFC resonant frequency (13.56MHz) in order to provide maximum power transfer.

The VSWR-value as a function of frequency. The higher the value, the more energy is reflected back to the reading device.

There are 6 leds in total to create a nice, even spread for the illumination. By placing them on the side of an acrylic plate with the same pattern, the light-effect can be maximized even with a low energy in-take.

The making of Tourist Card

Tourist Card prototype is part of e-Sprint, a public development project aiming to boost local entrepreneurship. e-Sprint is managed by Lapland University of Applied Sciences and it has an ERDF funding granted by the Regional Council of Lapland.