I have observed that all individuals have a certain personal space which reduces as they grow older. This leads to social cocooning where interpersonal interaction is reduced. This phenomenon is mostly caused by personalization and customization of our living spaces and the artifacts they contain.

One could expect that introducing children to personal gadgets from a very young age would reduce their personal space and thereby lead to them to have an even smaller personal space than children not exposed to personal gadgets as they grow up.

Children were visited in hospitals as well as in kindergarten spaces and it was realized that in sensitive contexts such as a hospitals and schools the conventional means of displaying information (LED/LCD displays etc) are too loud and turbulent and need to be mellowed down. Thus what was needed was an unconventional playful medium to display information, which could be used not only to display public/private messages but also allows children to come together while playing a collaborative game.

After brainstorming one idea was selected—that of a bubble display, the AQUAplay. Information would be displayed as text or graphics rising as a pattern of bubbles within a liquid medium. The bubble display would have a release mechanism at the bottom of a tank-like structure filled with a viscose liquid and this control mechanism would be interfaced with a computer. A code can be written to carefully time the release of each shutter of the release mechanism so that bubbles can be released as a rising 3D/2D pattern to depict a graphic or text. The display could also have a touch surface on which children could draw and the drawn shape would be replicated as a rising pattern of bubbles in the liquid.

Thus the device would serve three main purposes:
a) Children share an ambient magical installation.
b) They can read or display messages.
c) They can make patterns and play with each other at the bubble display.