Holographic Computing

What does holographic computing look like?

This video includes a mix of student projects all loaded up together in a holographic space that we can walk around inside of. We can interact with holographic objects and interact with content that no typical school will be able to put in place; for example, in this video there is a real scale version of the Discovery space shuttle.

This isn't a great example of a true educational experience, but it does show a multi-student project existing in a physical location that includes interactive elements.

So, you can reach out and touch light? Yes. Yes you can.

In the video to the right there is an explanation of where we started out in the 2021-2022 school year. Students inherited a project from another student who had set up the base project for the HoloLens 2; it was distributed to the other students with his permission. ;-)

In the video you will see the Ingenuity Helicopter, the Perseverance Rover, and the XEMU, which is the next generation Artemis spacesuit, in my classroom. Made interactive, by kids.

Multi-User Experiences!

By far, our biggest success of this year was being able to get multi-user holographic experiences working. It took me four months to figure out how to make it all work, but now we have a multi-user experience that students can shape and step into. Being able to reach out and interact in the same space with holographic content is a game changer. Students have literally created Martian bases that they walked around together and planned future development for...in real time...with real interactive components.

Driveable Rovers

Two students on the project decided to create a user control system that would allow us to not only animate the rover models we downloaded from NASA, but they also adapted a user interface from the Mixed Reality Toolkit to create buttons to make the rover move its position forward and backward and rotate on command. They have since created a different control system using a joystick that they are refining to make the more familiar control system they reference in the video.

Real-Time Testing and Development

In this video the students are working together in real time to co-design a space without having to build the experience to the lens. The student on the right built a Mars garage for rovers, the student in the middle is putting it into the world and adapting the orientation based on the feedback from the student on the left who is standing in the experience seeing the changes in real-time. The student on the left, who is a junior, figured out how to speed up our development pipeline by making real-time holographic remoting successful after independently going through tutorials from Microsoft.

It is important to note that:

None of these students worked with the HoloLens or HoloLens 2
before this year.

Coolest Experience So Far:

I was in New Jersey presenting to administrators from across that state and called a student in my classroom while I was on stage. He put on his headset while we had headsets on in New Jersey and we collaboratively interacted with holographic objects in real time. Talk about a different kind of education where location is somewhat independent. We couldn't see each other, but we could all see everyone else's interactions in the experience the students made.

So what the heck is the difference between holographic computing and virtual reality?
Why does that difference matter for educational spaces?

The biggest difference between holographic computing and VR is that with holographic computing students aren't removed from the environment they live in. Holographic experiences have a powerful opportunity to transform learning environments in ways that are literally impossible without this kind of hardware.

Transforming learning spaces can be far more impactful than replacing and removing students from them,
especially when collaboration is desired.

What does the research say about this kind of technology from

case studies across various industries?

The research on these kinds of technology are becomming clearer. The ability to interact in a space with content that can interact with and be overlayed on the real world is transformational for our understanding of content as human beings. Being able to do so with other people who are either physically present or virtually present to enable collaboration is even more transformational.

What does this look like when professionals are making these experiences?

Our students will someday be those professionals...

BUT ONLY IF WE GIVE THEM OPPORTUNITIES
TO DEVELOP FOR AND EXPERIENCE THESE TECHNOLOGIES NOW.

Equally Important:

They WANT these opportunities ONCE they know they exist.