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LSU College of Art & Design Teams Up with CCT to Create High-Tech Science Learning Device

Source: LSU Office of Communications & University Relations

BATON ROUGE – In one of the most unique collaborative efforts on the LSU campus, students and faculty from the College of Art & Design have teamed up with researchers in the Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, and the LSU Department of Computer Science to produce a tangible interaction kiosk that will help middle school students learn about science in a whole new way.
 
If “tangible interaction kiosk” is too much of a mouthful, call it the science portal project. Either way, it’s a large console with a high-tech interface that allows multiple users to simultaneously engage in learning through a variety of interactive media tools. Thus far, the prototype that has been constructed is configured to teach middle school students about science, but the basic concept can easily be tailored for any user interested in any subject.
 
“This project is really exciting because it brings the arts together with technology, working side by side,” said Rod Parker, director of the LSU School of Art. “It’s really the embodiment of the university’s AVATAR initiative.”
 
AVATAR — short for Arts, Visualization, Advanced Technologies and Research — is a multi-disciplinary hiring initiative that is designed to bring together several academic departments in an effort to create a multi-disciplinary research and teaching environment in the field of digital art.
 
The science portal project certainly falls within the scope of the AVATAR mission. It’s the result of a joint effort between Parker and LSU Department of Computer Science Assistant Professor Brygg Ullmer, who holds a joint faculty appointment with the CCT. Together, the two have received two grants to further their collaboration – one for $150,000 from the Louisiana Board of Regents, and the other for $200,000 from the National Science Foundation.
 
The Board of Regents grant charged Parker and Ullmer with designing a creative way to connect middle school classrooms to the the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, Science and Education Center in Livingston Parish. LIGO is a world-class facility dedicated to the detection and measurement of cosmic gravitational waves. Even for the casual observer, the LIGO facility in Livingston is remarkable, including two L-shaped arms,  each 2.5 miles in length. It is available for use by the world scientific community, and is a vital member in a developing global network of gravitational wave observatories. Only two LIGO facilities exist in the United States — with the other in Washington state. Equally important to Louisianans, the LIGO Science Education Center offers dozens of hands-on science exhibits, which are visited each year by thousands of Louisiana students.
 
Building on the center’s educational impact, the Board of Regents has been cultivating innovative ways of engaging Louisiana middle school students considered to be the “at-risk” population in K-12 science education, for use both at the center and in their own schools.
 
The science portal project does that by serving as an experiential learning tool. Ullmer’s team of undergraduate and graduate students, working in his laboratory at CCT, led the technology design while Parker’s students in the Graphic Design Student Organization collaborated in developing the physical and visual user interface and screen designs. The result of their collaboration is a kiosk that resembles a large video arcade game. Users stand at the portal and manipulate innovative devices, including cartouches — physical tiles embedded with electronic RFID tags — and custom electronics first developed at LSU for professional scientists. These allow students to move between several different interfaces that bring to life interactive games, videos, quizzes and fact sheets on a variety of scientific topics.
 
So far, one kiosk has been constructed by the team of students, but the project is going so well, the researchers plan to build several others during the course of the academic year. They plan to unveil a first machine at LIGO in October, and later install them in key middle schools around the state early next year.
           
While the Board of Regents funding included relatively limited support for graphic and product designers, the NSF grant is offering equal support for both Parker and Ullmer’s students. It charged Parker and Ullmer with finding ways of training their own students to be skilled in both design and technology, and to better integrate the skills and knowledge that come from both disciplines. The science portal project offered a perfect example of that kind of cross-disciplinary collaboration, so the team is using the NSF funding to continue their work throughout the year.
 
Where it will lead is anyone’s guess, but Parker and Ullmer are enthusiastic. They see the science portal project as just the first application of a new kind of richly physical and visual interactive learning tool with unlimited possibilities. They’re also excited about the experience that LSU students both on the technology and the design side of the project are coming away with as they work together in this emerging field.
 
“Together, we’re training a generation of students who are able to see, think and act with the perspectives of designers, scientists and technical engineers,” Ullmer said. “They will be comfortable spanning both ends of the arts and technology spectrum, letting them stand out with skills second to none amidst today’s new digital economies.”
 
To learn more about the LSU College of Art & Design, visit www.design.lsu.edu.
 
To learn more about the LSU Center for Computation and Technology, visit www.cct.lsu.edu/home.
 
To learn more about LIGO, visit http://www.ligo.org.

Back to Articles

LSU College of Art & Design Teams Up with CCT to Create High-Tech Science Learning Device

Source: LSU Office of Communications & University Relations

BATON ROUGE – In one of the most unique collaborative efforts on the LSU campus, students and faculty from the College of Art & Design have teamed up with researchers in the Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, and the LSU Department of Computer Science to produce a tangible interaction kiosk that will help middle school students learn about science in a whole new way.
 
If “tangible interaction kiosk” is too much of a mouthful, call it the science portal project. Either way, it’s a large console with a high-tech interface that allows multiple users to simultaneously engage in learning through a variety of interactive media tools. Thus far, the prototype that has been constructed is configured to teach middle school students about science, but the basic concept can easily be tailored for any user interested in any subject.
 
“This project is really exciting because it brings the arts together with technology, working side by side,” said Rod Parker, director of the LSU School of Art. “It’s really the embodiment of the university’s AVATAR initiative.”
 
AVATAR — short for Arts, Visualization, Advanced Technologies and Research — is a multi-disciplinary hiring initiative that is designed to bring together several academic departments in an effort to create a multi-disciplinary research and teaching environment in the field of digital art.
 
The science portal project certainly falls within the scope of the AVATAR mission. It’s the result of a joint effort between Parker and LSU Department of Computer Science Assistant Professor Brygg Ullmer, who holds a joint faculty appointment with the CCT. Together, the two have received two grants to further their collaboration – one for $150,000 from the Louisiana Board of Regents, and the other for $200,000 from the National Science Foundation.
 
The Board of Regents grant charged Parker and Ullmer with designing a creative way to connect middle school classrooms to the the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, Science and Education Center in Livingston Parish. LIGO is a world-class facility dedicated to the detection and measurement of cosmic gravitational waves. Even for the casual observer, the LIGO facility in Livingston is remarkable, including two L-shaped arms,  each 2.5 miles in length. It is available for use by the world scientific community, and is a vital member in a developing global network of gravitational wave observatories. Only two LIGO facilities exist in the United States — with the other in Washington state. Equally important to Louisianans, the LIGO Science Education Center offers dozens of hands-on science exhibits, which are visited each year by thousands of Louisiana students.
 
Building on the center’s educational impact, the Board of Regents has been cultivating innovative ways of engaging Louisiana middle school students considered to be the “at-risk” population in K-12 science education, for use both at the center and in their own schools.
 
The science portal project does that by serving as an experiential learning tool. Ullmer’s team of undergraduate and graduate students, working in his laboratory at CCT, led the technology design while Parker’s students in the Graphic Design Student Organization collaborated in developing the physical and visual user interface and screen designs. The result of their collaboration is a kiosk that resembles a large video arcade game. Users stand at the portal and manipulate innovative devices, including cartouches — physical tiles embedded with electronic RFID tags — and custom electronics first developed at LSU for professional scientists. These allow students to move between several different interfaces that bring to life interactive games, videos, quizzes and fact sheets on a variety of scientific topics.
 
So far, one kiosk has been constructed by the team of students, but the project is going so well, the researchers plan to build several others during the course of the academic year. They plan to unveil a first machine at LIGO in October, and later install them in key middle schools around the state early next year.
           
While the Board of Regents funding included relatively limited support for graphic and product designers, the NSF grant is offering equal support for both Parker and Ullmer’s students. It charged Parker and Ullmer with finding ways of training their own students to be skilled in both design and technology, and to better integrate the skills and knowledge that come from both disciplines. The science portal project offered a perfect example of that kind of cross-disciplinary collaboration, so the team is using the NSF funding to continue their work throughout the year.
 
Where it will lead is anyone’s guess, but Parker and Ullmer are enthusiastic. They see the science portal project as just the first application of a new kind of richly physical and visual interactive learning tool with unlimited possibilities. They’re also excited about the experience that LSU students both on the technology and the design side of the project are coming away with as they work together in this emerging field.
 
“Together, we’re training a generation of students who are able to see, think and act with the perspectives of designers, scientists and technical engineers,” Ullmer said. “They will be comfortable spanning both ends of the arts and technology spectrum, letting them stand out with skills second to none amidst today’s new digital economies.”
 
To learn more about the LSU College of Art & Design, visit www.design.lsu.edu.
 
To learn more about the LSU Center for Computation and Technology, visit www.cct.lsu.edu/home.
 
To learn more about LIGO, visit http://www.ligo.org.