Welcome to the MIT STEP's Handheld Augmented Reality Simulations Site

The MIT Teacher Education Program, in conjunction with The Education Arcade, has been working on creating "Augmented Reality" simulations to engage people in simulation games that combine real world experiences with additional information supplied to them by handheld computers.

Overview

The MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program has been creating "Augmented Reality" (AR) simulations to engage people in simulation games that combine real-world experiences with additional information supplied to them by handheld computers. AR simulations embed participants inside lifelike situations and help them understand the complex scientific and social dynamics underlying authentic problems in a variety of subject areas including the sciences (e.g., ecology, environmental science, geological sciences, forensics, and health sciences) as well as more diverse content areas including history, economics, local sociology, math and language arts.

Participants in these distributed simulations use location-aware handheld computers (Windows Mobile devices), allowing them to physically move throughout a real-world location (e.g., a college campus, nature center, zoo, museum, local community, etc.) while collecting simulated field data, interviewing virtual characters, and collaboratively investigating simulated scenarios.

The first of these games, Environmental Detectives (ED), was an outdoor game in which players using GPS guided handheld computers try to uncover the source of a toxic spill by interviewing virtual characters and conducting large scale simulated environmental measurements and analyzing data. Through Environmental Detectives and other AR games we explored the qualities that defined a core set of features required to create fun and effective location-based learning games. This research helped us to create our Outdoor Augmented Reality Toolkit, a drag and drop based environment for creating AR Games.

We have begun to explore the possibilities of this space with other great collaborators including The University of Wisconsin, Harvard University, The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, and others. Games have explored topics ranging from history to health and from chemistry to conservation. Some of our most recent games at MIT have included Mystery at MIT (a game about environmental health) and Timelab (a game about the local impact of global climate change).

This work has been generously funded by the National Science Foundation, The US Department of Education, and some of our partners, and developed by staff, undergraduates and graduate students in the MIT STEP program.

New

Build your own AR simulation with the STEP AR editor and Pocket PC client. The Beta version 5.2 of the AR toolkit is now available free of charge for educational, non-profit purposes. The .zip file (10 MB) contains software for your GPS-enabled Windows Mobile PDA, a Windows desktop AR Editor to create or modify AR games, and documentation. Early adopters can download the Outdoor AR Toolkit here.

Now Available from MIT Press (or Amazon) Augmented Learning Research and Design of Mobile Educational Games A new book (2008) by Prof. Eric Klopfer from MIT Press about the Scheller Teacher Education Program's research and development on mobile educational games, and where this form of game play is headed in the future.