MIT Integrated Learning Initiative research update

By Steve Nelson

The MIT Integrated Learning Initiative (MITili) has provided nearly $500K in funding this year to five research projects. MITili recently met with each team to inquire about the progress of their research, discuss ways their findings can be shared at the end of the year, and consider any collaborations that might grow through cross-team discussions. The following report includes the original abstract as well as a brief summary of the research team’s progress to date. We are excited to follow up with the teams again later in the coming months as their projects come to an end. In the meantime, you can sign up for our monthly

• Fabrication Skills: Upon unlocking the spotlight in the virtual game play, the game generates a tutorial for how to create a matching physical spotlight (e.g., using a laser cutter). Once the player fabricated the physical spotlight and holds it in his/her hand, the game engine registers the spotlight (e.g., by tracking a fiducial marker engraved on the design) and it becomes available in the virtual game. This now enables the player to uncover items in the AR game that were ‘hidden in the dark’ when the player swipes the physical spotlight across a space in front of him/her.
• Electronics Skills: After using the spotlight for a while, the game notifies the player that the spotlight is always on and the player is running low on virtual battery power. The game next instructs the player to add an on/off button and provides a tutorial for how to accomplish this using the Arduino electronics toolkit. After the player finished wiring, the game registers the button as part of the virtual game play and the player can now turn the spotlight on/off in the virtually world, saving battery power.

The impact of infusing computation and visualization into introductory physics subjects — Kyle Keane, Michelle Tomasik, and Peter Barendse

Originally published at https://mitili.mit.edu on March 9, 2020.