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1. Hyperion: A 3D Visualization Platform for Optical Design of Folded Systems

   Nikolov, Daniel K; Ye, Sifan; Dlhopolsky, Sydney; Bai, Zhen; Zhu, Yuhao; and Rolland, Jannick P. (January 2020, Frameless Symposium)

   Hyperion is a 3D visualization platform for optical design. It provides a fully immersive, intuitive, and interactive 3D user experience by leveraging existing AR/VR technologies. It enables the visualization of models of folded freeform optical systems in a dynamic 3D environment. The frontend user experience is supported by the computational ray-tracing engine of Eikonal+, an optical design research software currently being developed. We have built a cross-platform light-weight version of Eikonal+ that can communicate with any user interface or other scientific software. We have also demonstrated a prototype of the Hyperion 3D user experience using a Hololens AR display. 

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2. Assessing Post-hoc Explainability of the BKT Algorithm

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3375627.3375856  

   Zhou, Tongyu; Sheng, Haoyu; Howley, Iris (February 2020, ACM/AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society)

   As machine intelligence is increasingly incorporated into educational technologies, it becomes imperative for instructors and students to understand the potential flaws of the algorithms on which their systems rely. This paper describes the design and implementation of an interactive post-hoc explanation of the Bayesian Knowledge Tracing algorithm which is implemented in learning analytics systems used across the United States. After a user-centered design process to smooth out interaction design difficulties, we ran a controlled experiment to evaluate whether the interactive or static version of the explainable led to increased learning. Our results reveal that learning about an algorithm through an explainable depends on users' educational background. For other contexts, designers of post-hoc explainables must consider their users' educational background to best determine how to empower more informed decision-making with AI-enhanced systems. 

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3. Open source, modular, customizable, 3-D printed kinesthetic haptic devices

   https://doi.org/10.1109/WHC.2017.7989891  

   Martinez, Melisa Orta; Campion, Joseph; Gholami, Tara; Rittikaidachar, Michal K.; Barron, Aaron C.; Okamura, Allison M. (June 2017, IEEE World Haptics Conference)

   Open Source Hardware allows users to share, customize, and improve designs, thus enabling technological advancement through communities of practice. We propose open source hardware for educational haptics that permits researchers, educators, and students to share designs arising from their different perspectives, with the potential to expand educational applications. In this paper we present a family of open source kinesthetic haptic devices that build upon the design of a previous educational haptic device, Hapkit 3.0. First, we discuss methods for Hapkit personalization and customization that can be achieved by K-12 students and educators. Next, we describe two kinesthetic haptic device designs that evolved from the original Hapkit 3.0. One uses two standard Hapkits with additional components to form a Pantograph mechanism, and the other uses customized Hapkit elements along with a novel kinematic design to form a serial mechanism. These designs are modular; after building two Hapkits, a user acquires a small number of additional parts to transform them into a two-degree-of-freedom device. The Pantograph mechanism was used in an undergraduate class to teach robotics and haptics to both engineering and nonengineering students. Open source designs for all devices as well as tutorials for customization are available at http://hapkit.stanford.edu. 

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4. iVisit: Digital Interactive Construction Site Visits Using 360-Degree Panoramas and Virtual Humans

   https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784482865.117  

   Eiris, Ricardo; Wen, Jing; Gheisari, Masoud (November 2020, 2020 ASCE Construction Research Congress (CRC))

   null (Ed.)

   Site visits or field trips are an integral part of construction management education, providing students with experiential learning of jobsite conditions. However, these types of real-world opportunities are difficult to obtain within the current educational framework based on classroom instruction. To expose students to jobsite spatiotemporal contexts (spatial, temporal, or social situations), field trips must be organized at locations that are often inaccessible, dangerous, or expensive to reach. To address field trip barriers, this research proposes the use of iVisit—a proof-of-concept platform for guided interactive site visits that leverages 360-degree panoramas and virtual humans. In this paper, the technical requirements for the creation of digital site visit experiences and resulting educational platform are explained in detail. Additionally, a pilot study was conducted to assess the iVisit platform in terms of usability, presence, and student knowledge gains. A masonry materials’ site visit learning experience was designed and tested with 10 participants at introductory level construction courses. It was found that students perceived the iVisit guided tour as easy to use (SUS Usability Score – Mean = 86%; STD = 8.8%) and highly realistic (SUS Presence Score – Mean = 68.4%; STD = 14.4%). However, students answer approximately one-third of the presented knowledge questions correctly (Student Knowledge Score – Mean = 31.7%; STD = 25%). These outcomes in student knowledge gains were linked to low image quality in the 360-degree captures and augmented pictures within the digital site. Supporting feedback provided by the study participants suggested that future improvements to iVisit require higher image quality and some refinements to its user-interfaces to increase presence and knowledge gains. 

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5. Web-based Interactive Polyhedral Graphics Statics Platform

   CHAI, Hua; AKBARZADEH, Masoud (October 2021, International Association of Shell and Spatial Structures)

   This paper introduces a web-based interactive educational platform for 3D/polyhedral graphic statics (PGS) [1]. The Block Research Group (BRG) at ETH Zürich developed a dynamic learning and teaching platform for structural design. This tool is based on traditional graphic statics. It uses interactive 2D drawings to help designers and engineers with all skill levels to understand and utilize the methods [2]. However, polyhedral graphic statics is not easy to learn because of its characteristics in three-dimensional. All the existing computational design tools are heavily dependent on the modeling software such as Rhino or the Python-based computational framework like Compass [3]. In this research, we start with the procedural approach, developing libraries using JavaScript, Three.js, and WebGL to facilitate the construction by making it independent from any software. This framework is developed based on the mathematical and computational algorithms deriving the global equilibrium of the structure, optimizing the balanced relationship between the external magnitudes and the internal forces, visualizing the dynamic reciprocal polyhedral diagrams with corresponding topological data. This instant open-source application and the visualization interface provide a more operative platform for students, educators, practicers, and designers in an interactive manner, allowing them to learn not only the topological relationship but also to deepen their knowledge and understanding of structures in the steps for the construction of the form and force diagrams and analyze it. In the simplified single-node example, the multi-step geometric procedures intuitively illustrate 3D structural reciprocity concepts. With the intuitive control panel, the user can move the constraint point’s location through the inserted gumball function, the force direction of the form diagram will be dynamically changed from compression-only to tension and compression combined. Users can also explore and design innovative, efficient spatial structures with changeable boundary conditions and constraints through real-time manipulating both force distribution and geometric form, such as adding the number of supports or subdividing the global equilibrium in the force diagram. Eventually, there is an option to export the satisfying geometry as a suitable format to share with other fabrication tools. As the online educational environment with different types of geometric examples, it is valuable to use graphical approaches to teach the structural form in an exploratory manner. 

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