Augmented Reality Meets Tangible Media

Augmented reality is a technology that is poised to become a prominent part of our culture. Now available on all mobile platforms, there is significant opportunity to explore this technology from both the design and educational perspective. The multimedia integration course “Tangible Media / Physical Interface Design” added augmented reality to a multi-week design project building automata. At each of 3 stages students were challenged to design 1) using 3D computer modeling software, 2) design and build a physical model which integrated with a sensor or motorized component driven by the Arduino microprocessor and finally 3) develop an augmented reality animation which would be triggered by all or part of the physical automata. This paper presents the learning goals, challenges and results from this course.