PrototypAR

Quick Info

Project Date Jan. 1, 2017 - June 12, 2019
PIs: Jon E. Froehlich (PI)
Tamara L. Clegg (Co-PI)
Sponsors: NSF UW Reality Lab
Keywords: children, augmented reality, paper craft, prototyping, design process, simulation, prototyping tool

News

Announcing Dr. Seokbin Kang

Nov 10, 2020 | Jon

Announcing Dr. Seokbin Kang—Seokbin successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled Augmented Reality Systems and USer Interaction Techniques for STEM Learning." Seokbin is my last UMD CS advisee and it was an enormous honor working with him. Thanks also to the amazing commitee, which included Professors David Jacobs, Tamara Clegg, Huaishu Peng, and David Weintrop.

PrototypAR Wins Facilitators' Choice Award on 2019 STEM Video Showcase

May 31, 2019 | Jon

We are honored that our video for PrototypAR won the 2019 NSF STEM Video Showcase Facilitators' Award. Congrats team and particularly Seokbin Kang who led the PrototypAR project, including the video.

PrototypAR is Now On the NSF Video Showcase

May 13, 2019 | Jon

Today, our video on PrototypAR entitled "PrototypAR: Learning through AR Design and Experimentation" just launched on the NSF video showcase. Please check it out and explore the site for more inspirational "Innovations in STEM Education" videos.

Augmented Reality STEM Projects Funded by UW Reality Lab

Mar 19, 2019 | Jon

The UW Reality Lab just announced that they are funding our work in augmented reality (AR) and STEM for elementary school learners. Our most recent project in this area, PrototypAR, was just accepted to IDC'19: Kang, S., Norooz, L., Bonsignore, E., Byrne, V., Clegg, T. L., Froehlich, J. E. (2019). PrototypAR: Prototyping and Simulating Complex Systems With Paper Craft and Augmented Reality Proceedings of IDC 2019. 14 pages. To Appear.

About

Prototyping and Simulating Complex Systems with Paper Craft and Augmented Reality: An Initial Investigation

Complex systems such as combustion engines and the human body are made up of interrelated components that form a holistic, interdependent system. Despite their pervasiveness in everyday life, complex systems are challenging for children to learn and for educators to teach. Prior work has shown that students struggle to understand how individual parts of a system affect the system’s operation as a whole, narrowly focus on visible aspects like a system’s structure, and have limited access to real examples that could affirm or contradict their understanding.

We introduce PrototypAR, an AR-based “smart desk” that allows children to prototype complex systems using familiar paper craft, to learn about and correct design mistakes via real-time AR-based feedback, and to test their creations in a digital simulation environment. Our overarching goal is to explore how AR and emerging techniques in computer vision and the learning sciences can be combined to engage children in novel STEM learning experiences.