Check this out! This is an augmented reality sandbox and this is one of the
most fantastic things I've ever built for my classroom this is sand you can
see me playing with it and it's redrawing topographic shapes as I play
This isn't magic people this is science! But it's pretty magical here's what it's
doing as you change the shape of the sand the program is redrawing new
contours on top of the sand. Here's all it is
we've got a projector with an Xbox
Kinect looking down at the sand this is all being run by a computer program more
information at the end and as you move it around the Kinect sees the change in
the sand and redraws new shapes. Now specifically in this video I'm going to
show you how to build the sandbox. The technical information is coming at the
end and where you can find all the help you need
to run the program and to download the program
but for now we're just using
plywood we're going to build essentially a box I got the technical information
popping up there on the screen and this is really the best size that the program
is suited for so the 30 by 40 I would stick with that if I was you
I've used a lot of 4x4 inch posts both for the legs and for the stands that
you're going to see and I cut them at 24 inches I didn't want it very tall
because I wanted little guys, little kids, especially kindergarteners and that age
to be able to play without having to stand on something. The rest of us we
just have to bend over to be able to play in the sand but that's ok. This is
going to get heavy we're going to put 250 pounds of sand inside of this so you
can see I've really really tried to build this very robust including high
quality heavy-duty casters so it could be rolled around the school from room to
room and especially taken to the elementary schools. You can see I've got
braces between all the legs again I want this 250 pounds of sand to be able to
roll around but I also want to be able to dismantle this put it into the back
of the pickup to a new location and quickly set it
back up. So you can see I've tried to make this as portable as possible. Now
for the projector setup I've got what is a mount, the mount can be articulated
several different ways and the projector can be slid in and out of the mount that
was important for me because I wanted to be able to move this. Now these are the
screws that are pretty standard for projectors but they proved they took
forever for me to find them so I wanted to share that and we're going to mount
the projector 40 inches above the sand that's the recommended height so now you
can see I put the bracket for the projector right on the vertical pole and
it's 40 inches above. My projector slides right into that mount and again this one
here I can articulate it on X and y-axis and of course the Z by hand I can really
make sure I'm getting a good picture in my sand box. Now for the Xbox Kinect this
took a little more ingenuity on my part because I wanted to be able to remove it
so I've just taken some pieces of wood there and built them up and glued them
and screw them in so that that thing can be taken in and out you can see it's
over on the side I just built this box this box is what's going to hold that
Kinect up there on that projector stand, you'll see it in just a moment, to really
make sense of what I'm talking about. Now I like to use some water on the sand
it helps you build a little more robust shapes and cliffs and nice plateaus so
we made sure to stain this thing really well to make it water-resistant and
here's the setup process. You just put the vertical pole on with the hex bolts
slide the projector in and then fill it up with sand. This is the good stuff
this is super white reflective play sand and we're using 250 pounds
I wouldn't use any less than that. And here's how the Kinect goes in look I've
just fit that so it'll just squish down in there and it's just held in by
pressure so that I can easily pop it out. One thing you're not going to hear about
is that an Xbox Kinect does not have a normal
USB. You have to get an adapter so that's what was popping up there. And this is
the finished product. When you're done make some time to play you're going to
want it and if you want to learn how to use this in a classroom or how to use
this in another setting for all sorts of educational things and watch people
doing amazing things I've got another video it's popping up on the screen
again here it's also down in the description and you'll see a link at the
end but check that one out it's got all sorts of different uses for this amazing
amazing educational tool now I didn't develop this, this was
developed by the folks at UC Davis with a grant they've done an amazing job and
they made everything available the link is there it's also in the description
down at the bottom and it's over at BealsScience.com - Notice high school kids I
can't even get them away from this thing. It's awesome. Come on over to
BealsScience.com and check it out and don't forget to subscribe thanks for watching