Designing interactive systems for long-term deployment in public museums introduces unique challenges that are not often addressed in research-through-design or domestic HCI contexts. In this paper, we document the technical development of three bespoke interactive devices embedded within a decade-long exhibition at a museum. Our work builds on the concept of research products, adapting their core principles to a fixed, high-traffic museum context. We describe the hardware and software strategies used to build robust, maintainable systems capable of evolving over time without reliance on external services. A year into the decade-long exhibition, we reflect on the role of maintenance, repair, and care in sustaining these systems throughout the lifetime of the exhibition, and contribute practical strategies for supporting longevity in tangible systems intended to live in the "long now".

Yo–Yo Machines are playful communication devices designed to help people feel socially connected while physically separated. We designed them to reach as many people as possible, both to make a positive impact during the COVID-19 pandemic and to assess a self-build approach to circulating research products and the appeal of peripheral and expressive communication devices. A portfolio of four distinct designs, based on over 30 years of research, were made available for people to make by following simple online instructions (yoyomachines.io). Each involves connecting a pair of identical devices over the internet to allow simple communication at a distance. This paper describes our motivation for the project, previous work in the area, the design of the devices, supporting website and publicity, and how users have made and used Yo-Yo Machines. Finally, we reflect on what we learned about peripheral and expressive communication devices and implications for the self-build approach.

My Naturewatch Camera is an inexpensive wildlife camera that we designed for people to make themselves as a way of promoting engagement with nature and digital making. We aligned its development to the interests of the BBC's Natural History Unit as part of an orchestrated engagement strategy also involving our project website and outreach to social media. Since June 2018, when the BBC featured the camera on one of their Springwatch 2018 broadcasts, over 1000 My Naturewatch Cameras have been constructed using instructions and software from our project website and commercially available components, without direct contact with our studio. In this paper, we describe the project and outcomes with a focus on its success in promoting engagement with nature, engagement with digital making, and the effectiveness of this strategy for sharing research products outside traditional commercial channels.

TaskCams are simple digital cameras intended to serve as a tool for Cultural Probe studies and made available by the Interaction Research Studio via open-source distribution. In conjunction with an associated website, instructions and videos, they represent a novel strategy for disseminating and facilitating a research methodology. At the same time, they provide a myriad of options for customisation and modification, allowing researchers to adopt and adapt them to their needs. In the first part of this paper, the design team describes the rationale and design of the TaskCams and the tactics developed to make them publicly available. In the second part, the story is taken up by designers from the Everyday Design Studio, who assembled their own TaskCams and customised them extensively for a Cultural Probe study they ran for an ongoing project. Rather than discussing the results of their study, we focus on how their experiences reveal some of the issues both in producing and using open-source products such as these. These suggest the potential of TaskCams to support design-led user studies more generally.