Stress-Relief in the DSL
College is a fun time for all of us to find what we were meant to do and see who we can be in this society while juggling the challenges of maintaining our social life with friends and other members of our college experience. While this process can be filled with excitement and thrill, it can also be stressful. We need to be mindful of our personal health along the way. Fortunately the Digital Scholarship lab is filled with fun and unique tools to help students de-stress at the library.
AUGMENTED REALITY SANDBOX
The sandbox located in the back of the DSL (Digital Scholarship Lab) is a fun way to de-stress. This fun tool is used by molding and shaping the sand with your hands. When you do this you can see the platform you created come to life. Users at UC Davis give this really great definition of what the sandbox is used for.
“The sand is augmented in real-time with an elevation color map, topographic contour lines, and simulated water. The system teaches geographic, geologic, and hydrologic concepts such as how to read a topographic map, the meaning of contour lines, watersheds, catchment areas, levees, etc.”
Need help using the Sandbox? Check out this link from UC Davis.
And watch this cool video on what a Sandbox can do!
MICROSOFT SURFACE HUB
The Surface Hub is located on the left back corner in the DSL. This piece of equipment is helpful to de-stress because it creates a fun outlet to studying and reviewing notes with friends. You can reserve this space ahead of time and check out the stylus to write at the circulation desk. Basically the Surface Hub is a smart board with an interactive screen and one of the coolest functions on there is that you can save your work that you do on there to your laptop! You could always just project your desktop on there as well.
If you need help projecting your laptop onto the Surface Hub view, check out this page: Projecting to the Surface Hub.
For help on saving your work after view, check out this link here: Saving Your Work.
VISUALIZATION STATION
This Hi-Def Mac that we have placed in the DSL has tons of cool software downloaded onto it but one of the coolest ones that we have is Tableau. This could help students be less stressed because it is a very straight forward but sophisticated software that students can use to complete certain projects. There are other blog articles written on how to use tableau along with workshops offered to teach us how to use tableau. This is to help put students at ease when working on projects.
TUTORS
And lastly one of the important resources available at the DSL are the tutors. We are here for you whenever you have any questions related to any of these tools in the Digital Scholarship Lab as well as any other project questions you have. Our main purpose is to help your process of exploring tools and digital software easier and painless. If you ever have any serious questions or project help feel free to walk up to us at the circulation desk Monday through Thursday from 4–9. Also you can make a consultation on our website for detailed help through this form here.
