… build their own augmented reality sandboxes, that is.
We still haven’t installed the three follow-up AR sandboxes at the participating institutions of our informal science education NSF project — Tahoe Environmental Research Center, Lawrence Hall of Science, and ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center — but others have picked up the slack and gone ahead and built their own, based on our software and designs.
Figure 1: Augmented reality sandbox constructed by “Code Red,” Ithaca High School’s FIRST Robotics Team 639, and shown here at the school’s open house on 02/02/2013.
The newest addition to my External Installations page is “Code Red,” Ithaca High School’s FIRST Robotics Team 639, who just unveiled theirs at their school’s open house (see Figure 1), and were kind enough to send a note and some pictures, with many more “behind the scenes” pictures on their sandbox project page. There’s an article in the local newspaper with more information as well.
Together with Bold Park Community School’s, this is the second unveiled AR sandbox that I’m aware of. That doesn’t sound like much, but the software hasn’t been out for that long, and there are a few others that I know are currently in the works. And who knows how many are being built or are already completed that I’m totally unaware of; after all, this is free software. Team 639’s achievement, for one, came completely out of the blue.
Update: And I missed this Czech project (no, not that other Czech project that gave us the idea in the first place!). They built several versions of the sandbox and showed them off at hacker meets. And they say they’re currently trying to port the software to lower-power computers. Good on them!
Update 2: One more I missed, this time done by/for the Undergraduate Library at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I don’t have any more information; but this is the YouTube video.
I should point out that these last two were news to me; I only found out about them after googling for “AR sandbox.”
So please, if you did build one and don’t mind, send me a note. š There’s a ready-made box awaiting your input right there āāāā
Thanks for sharing your guide for making this!
I’ve been building one for my undergraduate dissertation in archaeology, looking at how it can be used in archaeological education and outreach.
It was a semi-success in the end, but it’s nothing like as good looking or smoothly working as any of these other examples. I ran into a lot of difficulties along the way – the Kinect wouldn’t work directly on my Mac, but would on a virtual Linux machine within it, for one, which was just a pain. My DIY skills also aren’t that great, so the rig is a bit of a hodge-podge of bits, mainly held together with duct tape. The software was great, but I’m not sure why in all the applications the menus were appearing behind the view from the Kinect, which made it a little difficult to use.
However, it was definitely a learning experience, and I know my mistakes in order to do it better next time. It’s a fantastic system that has masses of potential within archaeological education and outreach.
Good Afternoon Dr. Kreylos!
I have been meaning to leave you a message about the ARsandbox I built in spring of 2015. I am a student at the University of Alaska, Anchorage majoring in Geomatics. As a member of the Geomatics Student Association (GSA), I thought this would be a great tool for student outreach and it absolutely has been!
It is currently located in the Engineering and Industry Building on our campus and it has made a few public appearances (e.g. 2016 50th Annual Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference, multiple GIS days, Campus kickoff as well as UAA Engineering Career Day).
It is a great tool and draws people in like a moth to the flame. It gives us the opportunity to talk with a greater number of people about our program.
Thank you again for all you have put into this project. Your work has and continues to inspire students of all ages.
Best regards,
David Parret
Thank you! I really appreciate the feedback.
Best of luck with your AR Sandbox going forward.