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PUPIL: LEARNING IN MIXED REALITY
FALL 2018, CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
Pupil is a semester-long student project at the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), Carnegie Mellon University aiming to create educational prototypes on mixed reality platforms for the future classroom, where AR gears and spatial display are readily available as teaching tools. Through multiple prototypes, our team aims to come up with educational design patterns in AR.
The client who sponsored this project is Mark J. W. Lee, an educational technology and learning sciences researcher and practitioner, currently a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University and an adjunct senior lecturer at Charles Sturt University, Australia.
PUPIL: LEARNING IN MIXED REALITY
FALL 2018, CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
OVERVIEW
Pupil is a semester-long student project at the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), Carnegie Mellon University aiming to create educational prototypes for high schools on mixed reality platforms for the future classroom, where AR gears and spatial display are readily available as teaching tools.
The client of this project is Mark J. W. Lee, an educational technology and learning sciences researcher and practitioner, currently a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University and an adjunct senior lecturer at Charles Sturt University, Australia.
CHALLENGES
The greatest challenge we faced was the future-facing nature of the project - we had to find technology to support us. Initially, we considered using the Hololens, Meta 2, and the Magic Leap. However, we encountered difficulty with tracking and found the existing gesture library relatively restricted. While those could be considered a helpful constraint, the user experience is fairly frustrating.
Passthrough VR: VR headset + ZED mini + Leap Motion
A powerful alternative we came out of was a customized Passthrough VR setup. It involves using a VR headset in combination with a stereo camera to simulate AR on a VR headset. This instantly ameliorates a major pain point that is unavoidable with all current-gen AR headsets – a field-of-view limitation that allows you to view virtual content in only a small rectangular area in your view through the glasses.
In addition, combining this setup with a Leap Motion hand controller could give us access to the much more natural gesture library of the Leap Motion SDK. This setup felt more comfortably in line with our vision of a future AR headset, so we used it throughout our project.
PROCESS
Ideation
While brainstorming, we consulted educators including Mark, our client, and teachers from Elizabeth Forward High School for insights in designing AR educational work-frame
Research
We conducted a group interview with 30 high school students discussing technology and high school curriculums
Prototyping
The prototypes went through a few iterations based on playtesting findings to make gestures and visual cues in AR feel natural and appropriate for learning purposes
LEARNINGS
ETC: an academic institute & "virtual playground"
We were very fortunate to explore this cool and futuristic area thanks to our program that encourages relentless innovation. Though challenges and failures were part of the project, I enjoyed problems solving with the team. I believe this meaningful in expanding our horizon today and in the future.
Next Gen of Augmented Learning
Our project, with small slices of interactions and models, has endeavored to discover patterns and use-cases, that can give rise to new ideas around the use of wearable Augmented Reality technology in the classroom. . These ideas and patterns can be further developed by researchers, educators and creators to design more complete learning experiences using emerging technologies in the classroom.
Team
Team Pupil consists of ETC students from diverse backgrounds including experience design, computer science, technical art and visual arts:
Yujin Ariza
Qiqi Feng
Bryan Kim
Erhan Qu
Ridima Ramesh
Ricardo Tucker
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