04/10/2006

An innovative technological system which visualises non-visible, physical phenomena during educational trips to science and technology museums has been developed within the context of the CONNECT research project. The system combines augmented reality and internet technologies enabling school pupils to see actual museum exhibits and at the same time view non-visible, physical phenomena such as forces, electric and magnetic fields.

The objective of the CONNECT project is to incorporate educational trips into the school curriculum and particularly with physical science courses to make difficult-to-comprehend phenomena and concepts more understandable. The project is co-financed by the EU's 6th Framework Programme (Information Society Technologies thematic priority) and is being implemented by 15 organisations from Greece, the UK, Germany, Belgium, the USA, Sweden, Israel, Portugal and Finland. The Greek bodies participating are the Institute of Communications and Computer Systems / National Technical University of Athens (which is the project coordinator), and Ellinogermaniki Agogi, the Eugenides Foundation and the companies Q-Plan and Epinoia.

System operation is based on a Virtual Science Thematic Park and a mobile augmented reality system. The Virtual Science Thematic Park includes all available teaching materials which are used by teachers to plan scenarios to be presented to school pupils (educational content, pathway and time of presentation, virtual objects, etc.). The teaching materials chosen are presented to school pupils via a mobile augmented reality system which is comprised of a laptop, an optical system and a GPS system so that relevant content can be presented at appropriate location at any time.

Via a broadband connection, the system also supports remote visits to museums for the general public in remote areas. In other words, when a school pupil or teacher visits the museum and interacts with the exhibits, pupils at remote schools can watch the activities and the augmented reality scenes via a broadband transmission. In addition to connecting museums to schools, it is also possible to connect two schools which, for example, are visiting two different science museums and for them to "meet up" in virtual classrooms to exchange materials.

The technology has already been tested at four science centres in Europe, including the Eugenides Foundation, where the experiment related to the basic laws of Newtonian mechanics for linear motion. It was also presented for the first time live in real time at the Thessaloniki International Fair using the HellasSAT satellite.

Source: CONNECT project