School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering
AUGMENTED REALITY SANDBOX
Augmented Reality Sandboxes are recently becoming increasingly popular as interactive exhibition pieces and teaching aids. These AR Sandboxes consist of a box of sand that can be freely sculpted by hand. The topography of the sand is constantly scanned with a depth camera and a computed image is projected back onto the sand surface, augmenting the sandbox with digital information. The functionally of these Sandboxes is commonly limited to the visualization of topography with contour lines and colors, as well as water simulations on the digital terrain surface (see video example below).
About three years ago, the School of Environment & Technology has begun using an AR Sandbox, of which design and development have been funded by a Learning & Teaching Scholarship. Through the use of the UCD VR Sandbox Open-Source software, the school has entirely built and customized the AR system in accordance with their specific pedagogic needs. Through a cause-effect mechanism, the technology has, therefore, been used to teach undergraduates about Topography, form landscape mapping to flood Simulations all in a 3D visualization format. The Sandbox, in fact, allows students to mimic rain, rivers, sea and understand the causes and effects of flooding. Through a collaborative effort between the School and one of the London Universities and Loughborough University, new parameters have also been added to the Sandbox, allowing students to now turn rain into lava or into snow to simulate vulcanos and snowy landscapes. The tool has resulted to be useful and effective for teaching Geography and Environmental Sciences. Other courses, from Geology to Civil Engineering, are currently discussing the integration of AR Sandboxes within their teaching practices.
The sandboxed has also been outreached and brought at the Schottish Parlament and at the Big Bang Festival for pupils to play with and learn from. Furthermore, the AR system has also been used in first-year undergraduates tutorials to get students knowing each other through the making of mini-projects.
The AR Simulation Box has also turned out to be effective when experienced in VR. However, as the school currently lacks the resources needed to further experimented in this area – there has only been one previous case in which a VR headset has been externally borrowed for experimental purposes. The School, however, would be interested in exploring further the possibility of VR and experiment with other forms of immersive learning design software and/or platforms, such as Flash Flood! and VR Glaciers and Glaciated Landscapes.
TAGS: SET, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality
Giulia Tranquillini • April 16, 2019