Following up from my earlier outing with the my Terrain Box, it got a second outing to a Maker Space event at work. Maker Space is a group at work which periodically hosts events to share all the cool projects people get their teeth into outside of work. I was eager to bring the Terrain Box along and let more people interact with this mesmerising educational tool.
The initial purpose of the Terrain Box was to teach kids new to orienteering how to read contours. This is a significant learning step and is the main challenge to overcome when moving through the grades. After its first outing, I realised that there were also older people who, despite been involved in orienteering for some time, had never been taught how to read contours well, and they were getting as much benefit out of it as the young ones.
Taking it to work though, had a different focus. This occasion was more about an experience; a brief glimpse at a skill not used by many. A brightly lit, colourful surface is the first step to attracting people, and from then on the crowd simply attracts more people. It was interesting to see that very few people immediately noticed how the system was set up, maybe since the Kinect 3D camera and projector are relatively discrete compared to the colourful sand surface. But once people realised what was going on they all wanted to know how it worked, and not just the engineers! It was also worth noting the amazement once people realised that this was a live demonstration. Despite the technical challenge of a constantly updating image being only marginally greater than that of a static image, the response is hugely different. I think this speaks of the quantity of information conveyed by movement, a concept we often forget about but can be seen more and more in website and app design to convey more information to the user with the same screen area.
On top of some large round hills and smiley faces, I was pleased to see a number of people stick around for a reasonable time to construct some plausible and interesting land forms.
A new potential use at kids parties or at adults’ dinners as the kids’ distractor was eagerly discussed by parents, as it manages to capture entertainment and creativity while facilitating learning. I totally agree and wish to see the purpose of education moved more from the monotony of learning subjects you aren’t interested in at school, to the thrill of discovering something that holds your attention. Education has come a long way since parrot-fashion learning, but I believe there is still a long way to go.
I’m confident we will see more augmented reality systems used in education and the work place as they provide a level of interaction that feels more intuitive and natural than using a 2D computer monitor. Some of the interfaces are still primitive, but as the functionality and usability of these systems is developed further I think we will see a continued increase in demand.