TX Dev Fest A&M Research Projects notes

amresearchprojects.txt

A&M Research Projects
  David Turner, Manoj Prasad, Dr. Tracy Hammond
  Platforms: Android, Google App Engine
  API's: Google Maps
  Mechanix: Free body diagram tutoring program
    Predictive labeling system
    Checklist and examination system guides user through process of creating a free body diagram
    Tutorial video on YouTube
    Currently at A&M in classes
      Has been shown to improve learning
    Does not scale well (fails at ~30 users)
    Only supports one domain
    Does not allow for easy expansion
    Only works at A&M
      Did work at one other school, but harrowing moments
  Better: Course Sketch
    Presentation on YouTube
    Sketch Recognition Lab developing MOOC platform that uses sketch recognition for automatic grading
    Currently supports Physics, Chemistry, and Kanji
    Web app
    Learning outside classroom
    Challenges
      Provide personalized feedback
      Internationalization
      Low interaction overhead/natural interaction
      Education for whole world
    Currently
      Provides feedback
      Supports 3 domains
      has courses
      Runs on App Engine
    Backend goals
      Send and Receive data quickly
      Remain responsive under stress
      Maintain communication during sketch while conducting multiple simultaneous recognition processes
      Tolerate intermittent network disconnect
      Interface design
    Used App Engine to make quick iterations
      Can scale quickly without load concerns
      Cheap
      Easy API
    Interaction process
      Begin stroke - starts recognition
      Stroke is sent back
      Model is created/updated
      Recognition is sent out to other App engines
      Different results are compiled
      User is supplied with updated model
    Flexible
      App engine allows flexible network
      Ability to outsource recognition to external developers
      Makes network easier to distribute
      Allows easy extensions & growth
    Connecting externally
      External developers host their own app engines to do more specific domains (courses)
      If we can't answer a request, send the request through HTTP
    Future plans
      Create API for recognition and checking answers
      Answer/domain creation
      Enhanced interaction for domains
        More specific object detection
      Ability to connect external developers
  Animal Games
    Ad-hoc multiplayer games
      Smartphones/Tablet
    Traditional console environment does not allow for private information in games
    Demo on YouTube
  Campus Compass
    TAMU campus specific mapping service
      iOS/Android/Web
    Locate buildings on campus
    Route to buildings
    Demo video on YouTube
  World of Workout
    Exergaming on smartphones
    Mapping physical attributes to avatar in game
    Use accelerometer and GPS
    Workout amounts determine stats of character
  Good Bytes
    Restaurant sentiment analysis
    Dr. Baker - language analysis research
    Demo video on YouTube
  Kamistry
    Teaching Chemistry
    Augmented reality + gestural interface
    Kinect + Android/iOS