XYZ | Devpost

detail of april tag
finished wand

Inspiration

We came together as a team from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, knowing little about each other, but approached the hackathon with the same level of enthusiasm and ambition. It was immediately clear to us that this was an ideal opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration because of our team make up (Lucas-Meche, Arka and Claire--> ECE, Samantha--> Design & Meche). With this we explored different ideas that would incorporate the best of both software and hardware, from wearable technology to wellness apps. Up to this point we were uneasy about using augmented reality because our limited experience with the software and hardware that would need to be involved. Neither Claire nor Arka have experience in Vuforia (the AR software) or Unity, but they were willing to learn and try, having been comfortable with other coding languages like C and Python as well as having participated in other hackathons in the past. Lucas serves as the resident hackathon veteran on the team, as he boasts participation in nine others within the past year. In contrast, Samantha has no experience with hackathons, but a somewhat decent working knowledge of hardware; She was genuinely planning on relying on adaptability to remain a functional member of the team.

What it does

It detects the xyz coordinates from the April tag, size variants and transmits the information into an augmented reality mobile app.

How we built it

We coded in unity and Vufaria. Hardware-wise, we used a LightBlue bean, a bluetooth capable arduino platform to transmit the coordinates.

Challenges we ran into

We had little experience and understanding of triangulation. We were very split on how to use

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We finished the design to a higher level than we would've expected as well as accomplishing AR on a mobile platform early in the process.

What we learned

How to use Vufaria, Unity, working on connections between hardware and software (bluetooth and wifi especially), servers, project management (communication), rapid prototyping.

What's next for XYZ AR

OCR recognition of key strokes and plotting of three-dimensional functions.

Built With

arduino
lightblue-bean
unity
vuforia

Submitted to

TartanHacks 2017
- Winner Google "Most Likely to Make Tangible and Lasting Change"

Created by

I worked on all things mechanical within this project. Designed and manufactured the wand component in collaboration.

Samantha Ho
I worked on the software end of this project. I worked on Unity and Vulforia, focusing mostly on trying to triangulate the points we're drew and the connection between hardware and software. This was the first time I've worked with augmented reality and Unity!

Claire Chen
I worked on the Unity game engine and Vuforia API to develop the AR whiteboard as well as establishing a bluetooth connection between the software and hardware.

Arka Roy
I designed the hardware for the wand and developed the April tag system of identifying points in space. I also helped design the general functionality of the device.

Lucas Moiseyev