Final Project Idea

For this final project there are two things that are most important to me

1. Picking something I can actually work with. My knowledge of electronics is limited to what I've learned in this class, since I'm working by myself and I don't have as much time as I did for the mid-term project I need to choose something thats realistic towards my abilities and time frame.

2. I really want to take this opportunity to relate a project back to my major- Art Education. As an Art Ed major I chose Digital Media as my concentration, not only because it interests me, but because I want to learn how I can incorporate technology in the classroom in new and unique ways. With that goal in mind I want this project to become something that can be used in a classroom.

THE IDEA:
I want to use sensors to create some sort of interactive and educational experience for students and anyone else. I want to work with the idea of art history and famous works of art. I'm thinking of how a museum is set up with artworks, and a little blurb on the wall that you have to read. What if you didn't have to read the blurb to get information about the piece?

I want to create a system where proximity sensors track movement in front of a piece of art, signaling that someone is viewing the piece, and then attached speakers will play pre-recorded information about the piece, sort of like "fun-facts" the statements will be brief and interesting.

I can imagine that this system would be much more interesting and fun than just reading the statements, it also relates to ideas about assistive devices for people with vision impairments, and those cannot read well.

As far as the work I'm thinking about using, I'm considering something very well known visually but they may not know details about. I want this to appeal to people from elementary age and up. I'm thinking about the Mona Lisa (which has a very interesting history), or perhaps a Van Gogh or Picasso Piece. I'm really leaning towards the Mona Lisa though because I just learned a lot about it in my Renaissance art history course.

Now I have to figure out the mechanics of this thing.
I need to figure out :
How to use proximity sensors
How to make them activate speakers which will play my sounds
Where/How exactly is the proximity sensor triggered