Overview

Space has been in the news a lot recently, particularly with regards to the possibility of life existing on other planets (such as the discovery of chemicals necessary to life on the exoplanet K2-18 b). It has caused me to think a lot about our place in the universe, as well as to revisit some of the excellent writings of the astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan (whose birthday was coincidentally yesterday, Thursday 9th November). Science fascinates many people, but how it is taught in many classrooms could be more engaging. That's where this project idea Teaching Students About Gravity With Augmented Reality comes in.

Background

One of the questions that I have asked since been thoughtful of our position in space is: "What would it be like to terraform Mars or another planet?" Terraforming describes the process of making an uninhabitable planet suitable for human life and other organisms. One of the biggest candidates within our solar system that could be terraformed is Mars.

In physics classes, and related classes such as Mechanics, we are frequently taught that is that gravity (or acceleration due to gravity) is 9.8 m/s^2. However, this is the gravity on earth. On Mars, it is 3.71 m/s^2, for Venus it is 8.87 m/s^2 and for Mercury it is 3.71 m/s^2 (in fact, Mercury and Mars have very similar gravities). However, reading this in a textbook is very "bland" and doesn't capture the imagination of a young reader. This application hopes to change that.

Application Idea

Teaching Students About Gravity with Augmented Reality aims to use augmented reality (AR) with PICO to teach students about what gravity looks like on various planets with real-life objects around them. Powered by PICO's hand-tracking feature, users can pick up a real-life object such as a pen or book and drop it in front of their phone or device's camera. The app then converts this into a 3d model and then displays the object on their device and simulates the effect of gravity on the object in the real-world.

The conversion of a real-world object into a 3d model requires artificial intelligence. The respected technology company Nvidia has made great inroads in this area, although not yet finalised, which involve recognising objects in the real world and then transforming this into a 3d object that can be altered in computer software, with many potential use cases for augmented reality.

Anticipated results

It is hoped that with the program, students can obtain a practical knowledge of how gravity is on different planets/moons.

Built With

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