This AR Sandbox Exhibit was created while working for the Children’s Creativity Museum. The original AR Sandbox software was developed by Oliver Kreylos at UC Davis for graduate students studying topology, erosion, watershed, etc. Using a Microsoft Kinect, the program creates a depth image of the sand below and projects topography lines and color shading onto the sand itself. Users are able to resculpt the virtual landscape in real time simply by playing with sand. Users are also able to create rain clouds with an open-hand gesture, and a real time water simulation shows how the rain collects into valleys and lower lying areas.
Through an IMLS grant we were charged with taking the AR Sandbox and adapting it for use in children’s museums. We designed new sandboxes that allowed for access from all four sides. Almost all designs that we had seen at that point mounted the projector from the middle edge of the sandbox, leaving only 3 sides for visitor access. We also were concerned about sand traveling throughout the museum, so we created Hand Wash stations that mimicked the end of a car wash.
Since we were able to do the development in-house, we were able to stretch our grant funding to create two sandboxes. One slightly taller sandbox would feature the UC Davis software, but for the 2nd sandbox I found another open-source program called Magic Sand. The Magic Sand code was written in Open Frameworks which I was more comfortable working with, but also focused on a game engine featuring land and sea creatures instead of water simulation. The rendering of the “rabbits” and “fish” was a bit too simple, so I created my own fork of the project that added a sprite renderer to these animal classes. We initially chose salmon and raccoons for our animals, but have also implemented polar bears with an arctic color scheme and even dinosaurs.
