Augmented Reality Sandbox

Augmented Reality is using a computer to enhance reality. It isn't virtual reality; the stuff the computer puts out can't exist without a real-world base. An example would be using an app on your phone that accesses the camera to track a sensor. The screen shows you a fairy frolicking around your desk, when the only thing really there is a tracking sensor that lets the camera figure out what its looking at.

We've been set an... interesting... task.

Steve found this thing and wants the interns to make one for PARI. Space themed, preferably, although I get the idea that he'd be just as happy with the software in its existing condition to make a really cool sandbox.

The idea is that a computer uses a sensor to read the topography of the sandbox and projects a contour map over it. I'm already envisioning relocating our earth science computers to the Third Room--currently the library, which Steve wants to seize in the name of museology--and turning it into something of an interactive earth science lab. Which would be pretty dang cool, now, wouldn't it? 

If we can build this thing....

But there are step-by-step instructions for most of the project, excepting the precise method of mounting a projector and sensor above the sandbox. We'd only really need said sandbox, a projector, and whatever sensors are involved. I think the website mentions an Xbox. I'm not sure Steve really knows what he's asking people to do...but I guess we'll try to get it done? Or, more accurately, I'll try to get it done, because this falls mostly under the header of my project and I can, at least, follow instructions. Enough people have built their own that there's actually a support forum.

Still. I found the code that actually tells the computer how to sandbox, and sent it to people who can actually speak C++. I don't know how feasible this will be to setup, but it looks well documented and as straightforward as coding-illiterate me could hope to expect. Do we have a gaming computer languishing in the basement, with the sort of high-end graphics card required to take advantage of the water simulation? I don't know, but I would hazard that we probably don't. Do we have a Kinect camera? I doubt it. Do the guys I emailed the information to seem fairly positive about the idea right now? Yes. 

So we can probably do it. I think they only really want to be able to make jokes about sending the interns to play in the sandbox in the immediate future, anyway. Could we make it space themed? I can't. The fact that nobody has means that it's an enormous task, plus, how would you do it? I'd ask if computers are capable, but probably. Computers are capable of all manner of witchcraft. Heck, a computer can project an AR unicorn onto a cake just by using a printed paper target--it's marketed by a woman who bakes cakes on YouTube, although I think the unicorn's 3D model is creepy. 

But I'll let you be the judge, yeah? There's only so much creep-factor you can get out of a topographic map, although the topographic map with projected water could really flip out a computer ill-prepared to deal with the processing demands. 

I will add, before moving on to a different subject, that these look like a really nice ways to display such a sandbox: 

Although I question Steve's sanity if he thinks there's some way to avoid getting sand all over whatever room we eventually put this in, especially if it's intended to engage kids. Maybe some kind of plastic tarp under the table, or a floor mat like Discovery Place has for its bead machine thing. 

I also don't know what to do with some new information: Ken Steiner, who's probably the closest PARI has to a space junk curator (his official title is electronics consultant, but he's responsible for the space junk curation as well) just got back from the Cape. Kennedy, that is. And, of course, he brought back more space junk.

It's officially been donated to PARI. We can't sell it, but who would buy it? ...for that matter, why do we have it? I know how cool the stuff is, they know how cool the stuff is, but for the average Joe? They're literally black boxes full of fancy electronics.

A Space Shuttle Star Tracker

This is a star tracker. PARI also has and uses scanners involved in the development of this little (loaf of bread sized) black box, which relies on the X number of brightest stars to locate the shuttle in Space. Apollo used a manual sextant and training; you probably saw it in Apollo 13. If not, NASA produced a series of promotional videos prior to Apollo 11. This one details the general task that this black box took over:

Which is...great. But how am I supposed to make that more interesting? Or, worse, the KU-band antenna assembly Ken also brought back? 

If you're keeping score at home, by the way, we now have an example of basically every antenna the Space Shuttle ever used. Ever. We have S-band, Ku-band, UHF, EVA, TACAN and a duplicate S-band. Plus telescopes used to relay early S-band signals. (Link goes to article about Space Shuttle communications.)

Is this interesting beyond a Gotta Catch Em All standpoint? No idea. 

I think he also mentioned a drag chute door. Also from STS. To add to our random shuttle parts collection.

Just because.

I'm starting to get a sense that there's a difference in building a museum collection out of whatever you can find and building a museum collection to tell a story as a museum, and the latter is way easier to work with. If you can swap stuff with other museums, or find artefacts that are inherently interesting even to some random dude, or at least arrange your collection around a coherent theme, well, that's pretty swell. If you have a bunch of random space junk...what can you do? Search for a coherent theme, I guess, and hope. Heck, I wouldn't find this stuff interesting if I hadn't gone to Space Camp, and I still doubt I would have any relationship with these artefacts if we hadn't had to read the Big Book of Space Shuttle Instructions to figure out how to deploy the Ku-band antenna and stop using S-band. I still would have possibly forgotten this stuff had we not resolved the problem by selling off a guy who had "died" of anaphylactic shock after an unusually severe reaction to some silk flowers. 

Killing a guy off and selling him in exchange for radio communications may not be a good exhibit design tactic, I'm just sayin'. My method of connecting to some random antennae may not be a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. 

Le sigh.