Connected Worlds

Currently operating at the New York Hall of Science, Connected Worlds is a 250m2 immersive digital exhibit that invites up to 50 simultaneous visitors into an open-ended, visitor-driven simulation of ecosystem interaction. The exhibit represents an ecosystem (as digital projections on exhibits wall) consisting of four plantable biomes, named Desert, Plains, Jungle, and Wetlands, and three sources of water in the form of reservoirs, mountain valley with an occasional stream and the 6-feet tall water fall (See image above). Visitors interact with the simulated environment by taking physical actions that are captured by the exhibit's system of 12 Kinect cameras and three infrared cameras that respond in immediate environment changes. The visitors can 1) raise their hands in front of the projected biomes to cause seeds to be planted at that physical location and 2) they can move the foam "logs" (detectable by IR camera) to divert water flow towards different biomes. Water flowing into a biome acts as source of water for the plants in the biome. When a biome has access to sufficient water reserves, the planted seeds grow and the biome flourishes to attract different animals. The plants in the biomes cause water from the biomes to evaporate and form clouds, which can return water to the ecosystem, thus emulating a real-world water cycle.

This work was part of my doctoral research which designed computational methods and tools to extract visitor interaction data, process it to distill conceptual and contextual information and present formative feedback for visitors interacting with the exhibit to understand complex systems concepts.