The EcoRaft Project

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The EcoRaft Project

• Uel J. McMahan III, Bill Tomlinson

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What is the project? In the EcoRaft Project,
tablet PCs act as virtual rafts in a sea of real
space that are maneuvered by participants to get
plants and animals from thriving virtual islands
to deforested ones. The islands are desktop PCs.
Interactive Education Paradigm A novel
orchestration of animation and networking
techniques has made the EcoRaft Project an
engaging model for enabling children to learn
about elements of restoration ecology.
Lush Forest
Deforested Landscape
Hummingbird in a Raft
Successful Restoration
The techniques include combining IrDA with TCP/IP
networking to allow tablet PCs to share
autonomous mobile code with desktop PCs, using
sound to maintain the illusion that objects are
transferred between islands and rafts, and
providing novel interactions between embodied
mobile agents and participants.
A Participant Moves Agents Between a Raft and an
Island
orchid.calit2.uci.edu/EcoRaft www.calit2.net