Lego

Simple way to understand Faulting in geology. A fault being a planar or gently curved fracture in the rocks of the Earth’s crust.

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Inspiration

My key inspiration was a masterclass I watched by Tom Goldsmith who is a Product manager on Spark AR and Josh who is the engineering manager. Find the reference below. I had never fully understood the concept of the earth rotating around the sun. My understanding of this was that the earth was stationary and it only moved about its orbit around the sun. After watching the video in the masterclass, I realized that the earth actually rotates as it moves along the orbit around the stationary sun. I was quite disappointed at how much I missed this key fact about the solar system, but I was rather encouraged by Spark AR technology that will greatly ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. In my view, anyone with the right information is able to properly utilize Spark AR to better society through quality education. I was, therefore, motivated to design a simple illustration of how the rift valley was formed. Through this education, I hope to help a geology teacher, lecturer, student, parent or researcher better understand the whole concept of faulting.

I want to also ensure that there is inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. According to UNDP, over 170 million people could be lifted out of poverty if all students learned basic reading skills.

I come from a third world country where education is at times very hard to get. As regards quality education, it's a story for another day. Through spark AR, I would like students to have exhibitions where they can learn all these different concepts with respect to their syllabi so that we can make a sound investment in quality education by ensuring that primary and secondary schools are free for every child by 2030.

Reference video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0JlBamTUVs

What it does?

Lego is an illustration of a geology concept called faulting. Which is the process by which the rift-valley was formed. Through this education, I hope that it’ll help a geology teacher, lecturer, student, parent or researcher better understand the whole concept of faulting.

Knowing the signs of fault formation helps to guide people in several ways. Some of the ways are;

  1. Depression in the Rift Valley contains water that forms lakes.
  2. Faulting exposes minerals such as diatomite.
  3. Steep faulting makes rivers to have waterfalls, rapids, and cataracts.
  4. The scrap slopes/steep slopes tend to discourage settlement.
  5. Some rivers such as Katonga in Uganda have had their directions of flow changed.

How I built it

I built it using Spark AR by facebook

Challenges I ran into

I ran into a couple of challenges while building out my concept. These include;

  1. Besides the documentation, I was quite constrained on how to get some specific questions answered.
  2. The spark AR community in Uganda is still small to provide enough support or generate a committed team to work with.
  3. I was constrained with tools and resources to use while building. This greatly affected my ability to deliver more considering that I was new to the technology and I was constrained by time.
  4. I also realized that the spark AR was still going through multiple updates and it affected mastery of some concepts.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm proud that I got to learn a new technology while I built out my project. I'm also proud that when it comes to quality education, I have a stake as I have built an illustration that a learner can easily interact with and gain a full understanding.

I also feel proud that I have motivated colleagues at my place of work to learn Spark AR. Most of them were passionate about the personalized camera effects that can be made possible by the tool.

What I learned

I learned the power and vision of Spark AR, it's limitless and it can greatly impact the globe as regards to quality education. But learning can still be extended to achieve other goals as well.

I also learned that Spark AR gives its users ownership. Which is much different from the usual video that you have to regularly pause before you digest a concept while you watch. As illustrated in the Lego spark AR app, a user has the power of ownership and control during each tap gesture they make.

What's next for Lego

I would like to use Lego as a case study and reach out to Learning institutions around Uganda for the start, mainly Makerere University and higher learning institutions. Lego can boost the learning of students as it'll foster the learning of spark AR amongst students, henceforth allowing students, teachers and even researchers to build out illustrations. The illustrations can be used to support their learning, thesis, growth as well as comprehension of concepts; which will allow for quality education in Uganda and other countries.

I hope to build out other Lego products for learning purposes and also hold masterclasses in different institutions thereby encouraging them to use and gain mastery of Spark AR. In my view, Spark AR could actually become one of the most recommended scholars' tools for demonstrations at learning institutions.

The success of Lego will pave way for more lego related products about various concepts to be created thereby giving people the power to connect with friends and family, find communities and grow businesses after gaining a better understanding of any domain that they connect to with others.

Built With

  • sparkar
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