Please join us to hear Mechanical Engineering 450 students discuss their Linear Book Scanner project, describe the improved design, and demo their prototype.

This fall, the University of Michigan Library collaborated with ME450 students to create a prototype linear scanner based on openly-available designs by Google. The goal of the Linear Book Scanner is to create a new type of automatic page-turning book scanner with a simple, low-cost design. In particular, students worked to improve the Google designs by modifying the scanner to accommodate books of different sizes, reducing noise to an acceptable level, and improving image quality to conform to industry standards.

The prototype scanner created by the students cost approximately $1500, making it an exciting advancement towards the creation of an affordable and scalable book scanner for use in the cultural heritage community.