Recreating the day-to-day life of a Women’s Royal Navy Service Worker ‘Wren’, AY-PE developed two colossal touch-interactive experiences, with the software projected across 18m2 of capacitive touch-wall. 

Working with Bletchley Park experts and historians, we adapted original Admiralty Hydrographic Charts for the era, into digital software – plotting courses and software algorithms to relate to key routes across the Mediterranean and Atlantic in war time. 

Our coding randomly prompts a shadow Officer to appear when the visitor hits a plot. This means across the 6 player areas (approx.1 metre each) one or two shadow Officers may be moving in and out of screen, to talk to the Wren about their plot.

Tying in with RAA’s surrounding 2D graphics and the exhibitions elegantly themed silhouettes and shadows which guide the visitor through Hut A’s operations, the Plotting Room interactive experience is a pinnacle moment in the visitor’s immersion into the code-breaking world.

The scaling up of Bletchley Park 1942-45 came with great administrative and operational responsibility for the park – an area often overlooked. Every day the Park management would face hoards of Memo’s requiring or requesting changes to anything from shower blocks and bus routes to staff recruitment and security. AY-PE’s task was to design a stunning, large-scale interactive table which would both explore the administrative function and support multiple users at once. 

The ‘board’ itself was designed by AY-PE to creatively reflect an abstract version of the Park which is seemingly alive as the visitor makes their choices – with WW2 vehicles, people, cyclists and more moving around the Park, and outcome animations popping up across the Board.

(Image: Bletchley Park Trust)