Enhancing the Augmented Reality Sandbox's Software and Hardware to Support Quantitative Simulation for STEM Education

该项目旨在通过增强和评估增强现实沙盒来推进土木工程和环境科学课程的技术课程，从而为国家利益服务。沙盒是一种广泛部署的STEM课堂工具，使学生能够用沙子模拟景观，并观察虚拟水如何在景观上流动。它的基本设计是在桌子上放一盒沙子，上面有一个近距离投影仪和一个安装在沙子上方约3英尺处的测高传感器。测高传感器将沙子表面的3D扫描图传递给软件，软件生成沙子表面的彩色高程图，并将其投影到沙子表面。该软件根据沙质表面形状驱动的流体动力学，在沙质景观中模拟虚拟水流。该项目将通过在其开源软件中添加新的模拟功能来推进Sandbox可以建模的地球物理原理。该项目旨在通过衡量沙盒对学生课程表现的影响，提高教育工作者对该工具最佳实践的理解。该项目将汇集土木工程和环境科学的一组研究人员，将产生实验室项目和评估，这些项目和评估将影响这两个领域共同的地球物理和水文主题的教学方法。它还将满足更新Sandbox软件的关键需求，使其能够与更新的测高传感器一起工作，从而延长Sandbox作为教室仪器的使用寿命。项目成果将包括发表关于使用课堂工具的最佳实践的研究结果。该项目将在增强现实沙盒软件中添加新功能。新功能的范围包括建模流域描绘，以及定义和表示景观区域的入渗率，景观区域的降雨率，以及沙盒建模区域的尺度分解。这些软件扩展将为环境科学和土木工程课程的学生提供参与学习的经验，描述水循环的动态，并支持定量和定性建模。该项目还将开发沙盒框架设计的硬件扩展，以支持实验室项目设置之间的快速周转，并在实验室阶段和项目之间建立一致的沙子地貌模型。该项目的评估目标是研究沙盒在学生学习中的有效性。该项目将通过学生调查和相关考试问题的综合分数分析来评估沙盒的原始版本和扩展版本。有了这些信息，该项目将进一步了解沙盒对学生对地球物理过程的定性理解的影响。该项目还将研究在何种条件下，Sandbox的新建模能力可以帮助学生通过模拟来理解地球物理过程。该项目旨在通过测量沙盒对学生在不同数量的实验室项目中使用沙盒的课程表现的影响，提高教育工作者对该工具最佳实践的理解。NSF IUSE:EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by enhancing and evaluating the Augmented Reality Sandbox to advance technical curricula in civil engineering and environmental science courses. The Sandbox is a widely deployed STEM classroom tool that enables students to model landscapes with sand and observe how virtual water flows over the landscape. Its basic design consists of a box of sand on a table with a short-throw projector and an altimetry sensor mounted about 3 feet above the sand. The altimetry sensor passes a 3D scan of the sand surface to software that generates a color elevation map of the surface and projects it onto the surface of the sand. The software projects virtual water flowing across the sand landscape according to the fluid dynamics driven by the sand surface's shape. This project will advance the geophysical principles that the Sandbox can model by adding new simulation capabilities to its open-source software. The project aims to improve educators' understanding of best practices for this tool by measuring the Sandbox's effect on students' performance in courses. By bringing together a team of investigators from both civil engineering and environmental science, the project will produce laboratory projects and evaluations that will impact the pedagogy of geophysics and hydrology topics common to both fields. It will also meet a critical need for updating the Sandbox's software to work with newer altimetry sensors, thereby extending the Sandbox's life as a classroom instrument. Project outcomes will include publication of findings on best practices for using the classroom tool.The project will add new capabilities in the Augmented Reality Sandbox's software. The scope of the new abilities covers modeling drainage basin delineation, as well as defining and representing infiltration rates for regions in the landscape, rainfall rates over regions of the landscape, and scale factoring for the sandbox's modeled area. These software extensions will provide students in environmental science and civil engineering courses with engaged learning experiences that depict the dynamics of the water cycle and support both quantitative and qualitative modeling. This project will also develop hardware extensions to the sandbox frame's design to support rapid turnaround on laboratory project setup between lab periods and consistent sand landform models across lab periods and projects. The project's evaluation goal is to study the Sandbox's effectiveness in student learning. The project will evaluate both the original and the extended versions of the Sandbox through student surveys and analysis of aggregated scores on pertinent exam questions. With this information, the project will advance understanding of the Sandbox's effect on students' qualitative understanding of geophysical processes. The project will also investigate conditions under which the Sandbox's new modeling capabilities help students understand geophysical processes through simulations. The project aims to improve educators' understanding of best practices for this tool by measuring the Sandbox's effect on students' performance in courses under varying numbers of laboratory projects in which students use the Sandbox. The NSF IUSE:EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.