- 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.
- 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.
- 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!
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.