LIU (ZUGUANG LIU)

Gateway To Honors is an introductory course for all UC transfer honors students, including me. The class helped us  build up our experiences in the UC Honors Program by making us understand our interests, passions and strengths. We were also asked to conduct a mini-experience as a group at the end of the course. Wayne Stegner, Bowen Xu and I grouped together to discover how current technology can be used creatively. The chosen topic is technology. The expected learning outcome is "Discover new techniques to gain knowledge, consider options, make new connections, and ask questions” in Creativity Thematic Area. 

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We investigated Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology. Surya, one of our other classmates, knew Professor Rapien who owns a Microsoft HoloLens, which is an AR headset that is being developed. He agreed that we could borrow his HoloLens for a weekend so that we could experiment every feature that it has. We each used the headset for at least 30 minutes, and exchanged our idea related to HoloLens and AR.

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Overall, the whole experience of HoloLens was enjoyable and surprising. HoloLens could be a very useful tool for 3D modelers like civil engineers. It is generally useful for one to throw windows everywhere in one room so that he can have multiple windows in his sight without selecting it. This can be used by researcher who has data, reference book, simulator, calculator, etc. open at the same time; or computer programmer who has multiple structure of codes simultaneously.

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Inspired by Craig’s idea about Collaborative AR as demonstrated in Figure 1(2013), and based on my experience of learning multivariable calculus last semester, I believe multivariable calculus would be much easier if AR technology is utilized. Figure 2-3 are three-dimensional math models, found in Calculus textbook by James Steward, which students may not be able to visualize (2016). The calculus professor can set up so-called lab sessions, when students are asked to put on the HoloLens in an empty. 3D models are shared inside of the room with the students collaboratively, except only the professor has the permission to modify the model. Additionally, for the professor to know students’ learning progress, he may have the access to other students’ certain applications as well, like Homework Workbook.

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To sum up, the experience of Microsoft HoloLens was enjoyable and meaningful. It is a progress of human’s digital experience, given the fact that AR/VR industry just starts up. Although I’m not convinced that I will wear it like wearing glasses for now because of a lot of practical issues that the current HoloLens has, it is still a very useful tool for education and working. Specifically, multivariable calculus would be much more intuitive for college students by using Collaborative Augmented Reality. Therefore, augmented reality is concluded to be a promising technology that will progress in the future.

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References

Craig, A. B. (2013). Understanding augmented reality (1st ed.) Morgan Kaufmann.

Stewart, J. (2016). Calculus: Early transcendentals (Eighth ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.