Download Redacted Version - Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Design of a Digital Choral Folder
Executive Summary
The purpose of this project was to design a digital choral folder, as envisioned by
Professor John Delorey. Professor Delorey's idea was inspired by a demonstration he saw
of E-Ink technology. E-Ink is an e-paper technology developed at the MIT Media Lab,
produced by E-Ink Corporation based out of Cambridge, MA. Professor Delorey is the
choral director at WPI. His love for music made him think of an application for the new
technology as a means of displaying choral sheet music.
Copies of choral sheet music are printed by the tens of thousands and distributed all over
the world to schools, professional and amateur choirs, and choral conventions. Often, the
paper sheet music will be performed only a few times and then discarded or locked in
storage for years. This method wastes space and paper, and can become an
organizational nightmare for choral directors and singers alike. Professor Delorey saw
the need to bring modern digital storage technology to choral music. The problem was
finding a medium through which choral music could be viewed in a concert setting,
without printing it. Previous attempts to display music digitally include projection
systems and custom tablet PCs. However, Professor Delorey realized that the best
approach would be to use a screen technology as close as possible to real paper. E-Ink
provided the solution to the problem.
The first step in this project was to examine previous implementations of digital choral
folders, as well as other e-paper technologies such as the Amazon Kindle. The
weaknesses and strengths of these products would be examined in the context of a choral
performance, in order to arrive at the best possible approach to the problem of delivering
a digital choral folder using an e-paper display. The analysis of prior art and Professor
Delorey's guidance led to a set of design goals to be met for the project. These goals
included using two screens and displaying PDF documents natively, while maintaining a
lightweight design.
The next step in this project was to obtain the e-paper screens from E-Ink along with the
necessary driving circuitry. E-Ink Corporation was chosen because Professor Delorey
had previously made contact with them, and because they provide a of development kit
suited to this project's needs. It was determined that the AM-200 EPD Prototype Kit was
the most appropriate for this project. This kit comes with an e-paper display panel, the
Metronome IC which interfaces with the display, a host system comprised of a Gumstix
motherboard and an Intel microprocessor capable of driving the Metronome, and some
startup software. The AM-200 kit provided nearly everything necessary to develop the
digital choral folder. However, the development kit did leave out a few key pieces
necessary for implementing a complete design. For one, there was no second e-paper
panel, which had to be ordered separately. Also, there was no method for driving both
screens using only one Metronome controller. Finally, the included software was
primitive and incapable of drawing PDFs natively. Therefore, the bulk portion of the
project was to design solutions to these missing pieces.
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