Supercomputer/Internet2 Applications
Student Projects
Year 2001-2002

  1. Star Formation
    Project Abstract
    
    For our Imagining the Future project, our team collaborated on a simulation of 
    the formation of a star. Stars are formed by gravity acting on spinning disks 
    where particles nearer the center of the disk move much faster than those on 
    the outside. As the particles rotate, they accrete in the center to form a star
    and in smaller groups to form planets. Current simulations of planetary and 
    stellar accretion to not account for the current state of many star systems 
    because no one has the computing power to map the velocity, energy, momentum, 
    position, state and other factors affecting billions of particles over time. 
    Internet2 could allow these calculations do be done on a supercomputer in one 
    location and a simulation viewed elsewhere. If a supercomputer was unavailable,
    computing power and storage space could be shared among multiple computers 
    around the country or world to allow for these massive simulations. This would 
    especially benefit students who could interact directly with complex concepts 
    that they had previously only been able to imagine.
    

  2. Helping Hand
    The Helping Hand is a virtual hand programmed in C++, utilizing many 3 dimensional aspects of OpenGL. The current program draws the hand and its joints, and rotates with user input (mouse input and keyboard input).
    The plan is to create a virtual prototype of a robotic hand which can perform 
    tasks.  The hand will have several degrees of freedom, and be able to rotate around
    the wrist and bend joints individually.  A real robotic hand such as this can 
    be used for teleoperation- the ability to control the hand from great distances
    via a computer using the high-bandwidth capabilities of Internet 2.  Several 
    possible implementations of an actual robotic hand would be to have operational
    hands where humans cannot be present, such as in space, or they can be used to 
    help disabled people.
    
  3. Portal to the Past: A Virtual Museum
    The usefulness of the Internet comes from its ability to provide data and 
    information to people who would not otherwise be able to access it. The 
    Internett2 is an even more powerful learning tool, and we created our Imagine 
    the Future project with this idea in mind.
    
    The concept behind the project is relatively simple. We realized that museums 
    are an excellent source of knowledge that are simply unavailable to many 
    people. While most museums do have websites, these do not even come close to 
    giving the viewer an experience similar to visiting the museum itself. We 
    decided that the massive bandwidth capabilities of the Internet2 would allow 
    for the creation of completely virtual museums. With no real limit on their 
    size, these museums could contain nearly infinite amounts of data. Exhibits 
    would not have to be taken down to make way for new ones, which could just be 
    added to to ever growing pool of data. Virtual museums would be able to display
    types of media that are limited in conventional museums (such as 3-D modeling, 
    film, and music). These new ways of creating exhibits open the door to a host 
    of educational possibilities. But most importantly, this tremendous amount of 
    data would be available to everyone with Internet2 access.
    
    While creating a true virtual museum is quite beyond our team, as part of our 
    Super Computer Applications course at our school our team has created a 
    3-dimensional prototype of what such a museum could look like. The prototype is
    essentially a very small scale version of a true virtual museum. The user can 
    control the movement and direction of a camera, allowing them to move through 
    a series of hallways. The user can use the mouse to open exhibits by clicking 
    on pictures set into the wall. In a real virtual museum, the user would control
    the camera view over the internet.
    
    Our basic prototype is meant to demonstrate how a user could interact with a 
    real virtual museum program. But our simple design barely scratches to surface 
    of what could potentially be done in such an environment. We imagine that in 
    the future, such museums could become a tremendous source of knowledge and 
    information, available to everyone through the pipeline of the Internet2.
    
    Visit some of the exhibits we've made as a starting point for a much larger 
    and more comprehensive museum!
    
  4. 3-D Navigation
     Our 3D Navigation project utilizes OpenGL to model a basic interactive 
    animation. This type of applet can be used for a wide range of applications, 
    from modelling realistic simulations to computer gaming. Our demonstration 
    simulation models a man running from a helicopter. Rock formations are 
    generated in random places around the man. The animation holds the man 
    stationary and moves objects around him to create the illusion that he is 
    running. Other features of our program include a fully rotating "camera" along 
    with the ability to change to first person view (of the running man). The man 
    can also move through the scene by user-input. Taking inspiration from the 
    Matrix, when a certain key is pressed the helicopter fires a projectile at the 
    man. Of course, running men are not the only use for our program. It is just a 
    basic shell for possible extensions.
     
    
  5. Computer Vision
    The goal of our project, Computer Vision, is precisely that: To bestow onto 
    computers the ability to recognize images. We hope to be able to use various 
    algorithms to allow computers to be able to utilize edge detection and 
    analyzation protocols to discern one picture from another. Parallel computing 
    would allow it to compute a large number of higher resolution pictures at an 
    increased rate. A user-friendly interface would allow people to input certain 
    criteria to narrow down the search. Ultimately, this utility would be applied 
    to the internet in order to provide a "smart" alternative to the current image 
    searches.
    
  6. An Interactive History and Geosystems Learning Environment
       The goal of this project is to take two seemingly unrelated areas of study 
    and combine them in such a way as to maximize a studen's learning potential. 
    The final product will allow the user to navigate through colonial Jamestown. 
    He/she will be able to click on various items throughout the fort, which will 
    take the student to an interactive program that teaches about some aspect of 
    colonial life. The various interactive objects will include buildings, land 
    features (such as the James River), the fort itself, and the tobacco field 
    outside the fort. 
     The starting point for the interactive environment will be the great outdoors 
    around Jamestown. Students can move through the fort and areas around it, 
    including a tobacco field. Currently the scene contains only the fence 
    surrounding the fort, houses within the fort, a British flag, a tobacco field, 
    and a simplified river.
     In a completed system the user would be able to click on these elements and 
    learn more about them. For instance, they could click on a building and learn 
    more about it. An example is the Apothecary.
    The apothecary's shop will be an interactive portion of colonial Jamestown. It 
    is a gif image modeled after a typical colonial shop. After learning about the 
    various diseases and medicines in use in the 1600's, students will be able to 
    put into practice the knowledge they have gained. Acting as the apothecary, 
    students will have to choose which medicine to use in a certain situtation. 
    For example, a mother comes in to buy medicine for her son who is sick with a 
    fever. The student is given a certain amount of time to decide which medicine 
    to recommend. In this case, the apothecary would most likely have offered 
    cinchona bark. Cinchona bark was later discovered to to containe quinine, which
    helps cure malaria. Information such as this will be contained in pop-up 
    windows that explain the different aspects of colonial life. 
    
    
  7. Physics Phun
    This ThinkQuest Imagining The Future project consists of 4 seperate projects. 
    There is an interactive physics simulation, a socket program, a terrain program,
    and a keyboard input program. These four projects will bo incorporated into one
    large, multiplayer interactive physics simulation with randomly generated 
    terrain.
       The socket client and server consist of 2 programs which interact over a 
    UNIX socket connection. The server, when run, listens on a specific port. The 
    client program gets user input and broadcasts that input across the port. Many 
    instances of the same server and client programs may be run simultaneously on 
    one port. All client programs will broadcast to all servers, and all servers 
    will receive the same messages from all clients. This turns out be an efficient
    method of multicasting without having explicit knowledge of all computers 
    connected. 
       This physics simulation was modified to a format having multiple class to ease 
    the transition into multi-user use. It consists of a 3D world in which the user
    may simulate the firing of a projectile in any direction. 
       This terrain code generates random terrain and stores the height into a 2D 
    array of integers. The random generation uses a somewhat unique algorithm to 
    generate a believable terrain, showing coherent trends in terrain height. Many 
    randomly generated lines are drawn across the floor. All points above the line 
    are raised and all points below the line are lowered. This process is repeated 
    numerous times and the terrain develops a random shape, while still retaining 
    realistic trends in height change. 
    
    
  8. Glimmersion (2002 Winner!)
    Glimmersion is an online 3d environment which allows interactivity among 
    several users simultaneously. This environment is capable of supporting physics
    (collisions, gravity, acceleration, velocity, etc.), dynamic terrains, and 
    maneuverability to create a rich environment where learning could be conducted.
    Means of communication is a major priority in Glimmersion. Users of this 
    program are able to hold text-based, video-based, and/or audio-based 
    conversations while navigating the world. The nature of this program tailors 
    itself to the ultra-high bandwidth offered by Internet2. Examples of the ways 
    Internet2 could allow this program to work are: high-speed transfers for 
    terrain data, texture data, models, coordinate data, video, and audio. This 3d 
    environment allows people to go places that would otherwise be impractical to 
    go. For instance, a classroom in California could take a tour of the white 
    house guided by their teacher, or even by a White House Tour guide using the 
    program. This program has uses that range from tours, physics demonstrations, 
    or even plain lecturing. This product has an unlimited variety of uses in 
    education.
    
  9. Physics Lesson of the Future
    As technology continues to advance at a rapid rate, our educational systems are
    being forced to revamp classrooms constantly. Technology will be the focus 
    around which the classrooms of the future will be built around, and the ways in
    which both a teacher and a student will take advantage of this new technology 
    is quickly evolving. One of the most visible changes in American classrooms has
    been the addition of computers. Computers are now commonplace in most 
    classrooms and will continue to become more common until every student has a 
    computer at his or her workstation. Along with these workstations, the student 
    of the future will need software and the Internet to take advantage of these 
    workstations.
    
    Our collection of programs created in OpenGL demonstrate the benefits of having
    such a futuristic classroom. In a physics classroom, lectures could be 
    enhanced, and potentially even replaced by software that could be run on the 
    student's computers or from a remote computer using an ultrafast Internet2 
    connection. The high-bandwidth Internet2 will provide the capability for rich 
    multimedia lessons, and make better distance learning classrooms possible. 
    Important principles of physics can be taught interactively, allowing each 
    student to respond to questions. The principles themselves would also be easier
    to learn and understand, because the dynamic simulations would be easier for 
    most students to understand to than would static pages in a book. These 
    programs are therefore designed for the physics classrooms of the future, where
    technology will allow students to reach greater and greater heights of 
    education.
    
  10. 8-Ball: Pool Table Simulation
    Team 8-ball was formed to help students across the world master the realm of 
    collisions. Many physics students find collisions to be overwhelming. 
    Collisions encompass nearly every element of mechanics, and dealing with so 
    many aspects at once can be a daunting task.
    
    We believe that students can understand collisions better if they can visualize
    and interact with the system. We also feel that it is important to make 
    learning physics a fun experience. We decided to design a pool table simulation
    in which students control all the physical constants.The students can utilize 
    the effects of elasticity, friction, and momentum to make shots.
    
    Ideally, students across the globe will be able to interact with each other 
    while using the pool simulation.To service schools with older computers, all 
    the calculations will be computed on the server and the data will be 
    transmitted on high-speed internet.