Smart Paper Won’t Improve Your Grades, But Might Make Testing Easier

Engineering students are used to electronics being part their daily lives – sometimes using them, sometimes designing or building them. 

So when exam time comes around, being forced to use plain paper can feel like you’re stuck in ye olden days of engineering.

Standard test methods often still have students sitting at separate desks in a classroom or giant auditorium with nothing more than a paper test booklet, a calculator, some blank pages and a pencil.

It’s understandable. The demands of monitoring activity to prevent cheating are too great to allow test-taking on personal laptops or smartphones.  Plus, no one wants to be mid-test, see their power indicator dip into the red, and feel panic set in when there’s no outlet in reach.

Of course, computer testing is used when the value comes from students knowing how to locate and apply information correctly or demonstrate the use of a software program, rather than simply being able to reel off facts from memory.

But paper-based, multiple-choice tests are still common, and requiring marking by Scantron or (for the unlucky TA) by hand.

All this could change thanks to a “smart paper” being developed by computer science and engineering researchers at the University of Washington (UW) in collaboration with Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

Smart Paper for the Tests of Tomorrow

Called “PaperID,” this smart paper technology won’t necessarily improve your grades.  But it may become the teaching and testing method of the future.

So what is the PaperID smart paper?

According to the researchers, PaperID uses inexpensive, off-the-shelf passive radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to incorporate sensing capabilities into a piece of paper.  The tags can then be calibrated to recognize a range of touch and gesture commands and connect to the digital space.

RFID technology in itself is nothing new.  Comprised of a small chip and antenna, RFID tags can transmit, receive and store small amounts of data, which can then be read or changed with a tag reader.  The data can also be transmitted to another electronic device such as a computer or mobile phone.  Current uses of RFID tags cover a range of applications including door lock keycards, inventory tracking in transportation, retail and warehouses and personal identification.

The beauty of the PaperID technology, however, is both its simplicity and its versatility.

“Paper is our inspiration for this technology,” said Hanchuan Li, a UW doctoral student in computer science and engineering. “A piece of paper is still by far one of the most ubiquitous mediums. If RFID tags can make interfaces as simple, flexible and cheap as paper, it makes good sense to deploy those tags anywhere.”

The method uses commercially available RFID tags that can be stuck on, printed, or drawn onto everyday paper to create interactive, lightweight and flexible sensor interfaces.  

These tags are classified as “passive” RFID because they don’t require a battery or other power source to operate, instead being powered by the reader’s interrogating radio waves. 

Every tag also carries a unique identifier, and can be identified out of many signals by a reader device located anywhere in the same room.

The flexible sticker-style tags, similar to those found in merchandise and library books, only cost around 10 cents each.

Do you prefer to work a bit more freeform? Conductive ink can also be used to print or draw the tag’s antenna pattern onto a sheet of paper.

If this research bears fruit, maybe the next test or survey you take will let you touch your answers on the page and submit them directly to a grading system. 

Then you can walk out the door with your marks sent immediately to your email or mobile phone; no more waiting, fussing with Scantron sheets, or marking by hand.

PaperID Applications Beyond the Classroom

Of course, test-taking or evaluation in an educational setting is really only one of the potential applications for this technology. The test scenario mostly relies on the single-touch interaction, but this tech is capable of much more.

The research team developed a variety of interaction methods by adopting the RFID tags in different ways depending on the type of interaction the user wants to achieve.

A simple sticker tag works very well for an on/off switch or selection button. However, multiple tags arranged in an array or circle pattern can serve as sliders or knobs.

When the user touches, swipes, covers or waves their hand over a tag, the signal path between the tag and the reader is interrupted.  Algorithms recognize specific movements and classify the matching signal interruption as a specific command.

“These little tags, by applying our signal processing and machine learning algorithms, can be turned into a multi-gesture sensor,” Li said. “Our research is pushing the boundaries of using commodity hardware to do something it wasn’t able to do before.”

The tag’s signals can also be used to track moving objects’ velocity and map to onscreen graphics. The research team chose to demonstrate on paper in part because it’s ubiquitous, flexible and recyclable. 

It also fit the goal of creating simple, cost-effective interfaces able to be made on demand for small tasks.

“Ultimately, these techniques can be extended beyond paper to a wide range of materials and usage scenarios,” said Alanson Sample, research scientist at Disney Research. “What’s exciting is that PaperID provides a new way to link the real and virtual worlds through low cost and ubiquitous gesture interfaces.”

If you want to learn more about the PaperID technology and future applications, check out the full research paper available at Disney Research.

To see this and other engineering research projects, visit the University of Washington and Carnegie Mellon University.