External Installations

This is an incomplete and hopefully growing list of external users who built their own augmented reality sandboxes using our software, and based on our design.

Index

Bold Park Community School

 This sandbox was constructed by Rhys George, for Bold Park Community School, Perth, Australia.

Ithaca High School Robotics Team

 This sandbox was constructed by Ithaca High School's FIRST Robotics Team 639. It was unveiled during Ithaca High School's open house on 02/02/2013, and will be donated to a local science museum. There is a newspaper article about this AR sandbox in The Ithaca Journal, and there are many more pictures at the team's AR sandbox project site.

Catavento Cultural e Educacional

 This sandbox was constructed by Thais Ogeda et al., for the Catavento Cultural e Educacional science center, São Paulo, Brazil.

Florida Museum of Natural History

 This was a temporary installation for the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Florida's annual outreach event, titled "Can You Dig It?" at the Florida Museum of Natural History. The sandbox was built by Rachel Walters, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville. The event was attended by over 1600 guests.

Science Animation

 This sandbox was constructed for Science Animation Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, France. The following pictures from its première at a local science exhibit were provided by Lionel Delteil. More information about this exhibit can be found at the inmédiats "Living Lab" blog (in French).

Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center

 This is a (currently prototypical) sandbox installation at the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center, Philadelphia, PA, constructed by Matthew Fisher.

Here is a blog post describing Fairmount Water Works' installation in more detail: Augmented Reality Sandbox: Hands on Play meets High-tech Learning

MIT Museum, Science on the Street

Another evolving sandbox prototype, this one developed by the MIT Museum, and intended for the Cambridge Science Festival's "Science on the Street" outreach event. This sandbox is designed to be set up quickly from the back of a van. It was built by Jesse Billingham, who also provided the pictures below.

Geographic Information Network of Alaska
David Kroto of the Tyonek Native Corporation from Anchorage sculpts a waterway in the sand as members of the University of Alaska's Geographic Information Network of Alaska (GINA) exhibitor team demonstrate their Augmented-Reality Sandbox display during the 48th Annual Surveying and Mapping Conference Tuesday afternoon, March 25, 2014 at the Westmark Hotel. The sandbox uses a computer, Kinect 3D camera and digital projector to allow users to create topography models by shaping real sand, which is then augmented in real time by an elevation color map, topographic contour lines, and simulated water. Photo credit: Eric Engman, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
This sandbox prototype was constructed by Will Fisher and Greg Wirth, for the University of Alaska's Geographic Information Network of Alaska. It was unveiled to the public at the Alaska Conference on Surveying and Mapping on March 25th, 2014. The following article in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner provides more details: Augmented-reality sandbox brings topographical maps to life.

Here are another photo and a video, provided by Greg Wirth:
The AR Sandbox in action, from above.
Interview with Greg Wirth.

Somersworth High School

The picture to the left was provided by Scott Blackstone, who writes:
Somersworth High School in New Hampshire combined the physics and computer science classes to build an AR Sandbox. The sandbox has been enjoyed and stress tested by everyone from pre-schoolers in our day care center to seniors, faculty and friends and has always been a big hit. Physics Teacher Dr. Blackstone and Computer Science teacher Mr. Olsen would like to thank the University of New Hampshire, the MIT Museum, and the University of Florida, Gainsville, for help in debugging and calibration. We would encourage anyone who wants to build one to reach out to other builders as we have experienced nothing but encouragement and patient help. We are endeavoring to return the favor by helping a local Museum in NH build one for a display on watersheds.

British Geological Survey

 The British Geological Survey have an Augmented Reality Sandbox exhibit in their main reception, and shop, area at their Headquarters in Keyworth Nottingham. Primarily intended as an exhibit for public open days and school science events, visitors are welcome to drop in anytime during office opening hours Mon-Fri to have a play. Believed to be the first installation which employs a folded projection path (using a 1st surface mirror) combined with a central throw projector (Epson EB 4550). The mirror used is a vacuum coated type which costs a small fraction of the equivalent ground optical mirror and produces excellent distortion-free results. This more complex design was employed to cope with the limited ceiling clearance in the chosen display area.

Currently, the SARnbox installation runs on Fedora 19 with KDE desktop from an SSD drive. We found KDE had a very customisable interface which enabled us to configure the SARndbox app to run in a borderless full screen mode with no title bars or desktop clutter. Hardware-wise the Sandbox runs on a Dell T5610 using an Intel Core i7 with a Geforce 780GTX graphics card and 8Gb of RAM.

GameScienceCenter

This sandbox was built for the GSC GameScienceCenter in Berlin, Germany by Sjors Houkes, who also provided the photographs below. It was unveiled at the GameScienceCenter's grand opening in 2014.

Naturschutzzentrum Ökowerk Berlin

 This Augmented Reality Sandbox was built for the exhibition "Wasser Berlin" and will be permanently available at the Naturschutzzentrum Ökowerk Berlin. The photographs below, these technical drawings, and this flyer were provided by Dr. Benjamin Creutzfeldt, Senate Department for Urban Development and Environment of Berlin, Germany.

American Planning Association Conference, Seattle

 AR Sandbox built by the Seattle Design Nerds group for the American Planning Association (APA)'s conference in Seattle, WA from 04/18/2015 -- 04/22/2015 where it was seen by around 6,500 city planners. After the conference, this AR Sandbox is going to permanently move to the APA's head office, while the Design Nerds are planning to build another one to remain in Seattle.

Sacramento City College, Los Rios

 ARTIE, the "AR Topographic Isoline Experiment," is an AR Sandbox built by students at Sacramento City College, Los Rios, under the supervision of Dr. Kathryn Stanton. It is currently being used for a physical geology course and for outreach purposes.

The Scientwists, Echuca, Australia
AR Sandbox in The Scientwists science space in Echuca, Australia.

Elkhart Middle School
AR Sandbox built by Tracey Ballard for her 8th grade science class.

The Modeling and Educational Demonstrations Laboratory (MEDL), UC Los Angeles
AR Sandbox built by Gary Glesener for the Modeling and Educational Demonstrations Laboratory (MEDL) in UCLA's Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences. This sandbox is built so it can be transported to multiple classrooms as needed. MEDL is considering building another sandbox for a permanent display. Update: UCLA's AR Sandbox hit the big time on Tumblr.
Video on YouTube, recently re-uploaded by Nvidia to advertise the GeForce GPU used in UCLA's sandbox.

Newcastle University Department of Civil Engineering and Geosciences
AR Sandbox at Newcastle University's Department of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, here used to explain flooding to a BBC news crew.
Lego bricks are a natural addition to AR Sandboxes.

Penn High School, Mishawaka, Indiana

 AR Sandbox constructed by Mark Watts, Earth, Atmosphere, and Planetary Science: "Our AR sandbox was constructed to better illustrate geological formations and hydrologic behavior for students. We intend to collaborate with Notre Dame University in constructing another one for their outreach program."

Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District

 These two sandboxes were created by the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District in Lebanon, Ohio. The sand tables were produced in conjunction with the Cincinnati Museum Center’s exhibit design team and were made possible largely by donations and grant funding. One table is installed in a mobile trailer called the Thomas C. Spellmire Water Conservation Education Exhibit, and the other is on wheels and can be taken into schools and other facilities. They were unveiled during a ribbon cutting ceremony on June 20, 2015 and are being used to bring conservation education to classrooms, conferences, fairs and festivals.

Alness Academy, Scotland

 AR Sandbox created by the Geoscience STEM team at Alness Academy, Scotland: "It is being actively used across the curriculum and has been hugely popular amongst pupils and staff alike - creating a new teaching dimension and platform. It is being widely used in Geography across the course as well as in science for demonstrating floodplains. The sandbox was built for teaching and interacting with, across the school and was also a key part of the 2016 Waterworld Project, undertaken by the Geoscience club, in the run up to the celebration of engineering and science at Glasgow Science Centre, Scotland. Pupils, in conjunction with the craft and design department, made the physical box, that had to be easy to move whilst being able to meet the sandbox specifications. The software installation and modifications were done by another group of pupils, and took several months to have a fully working product. There were several challenges in both the software and the construction that had to be overcome. A high specification PC was also built by the team to run the rain and water simulations easily. The Celebration of engineering and science was a great success - with the team being named Club Of The Year 2016! We hope to develop the system more and add more features for the Big Bang fair 2017."

Other Sandboxes

 The following are links to other web pages, images, or videos of Augmented Reality Sandboxes apparently using our designs and software that I've come across, either via googling, or via links sent from third parties.
Built by the Minrva project, University of Illinois's Undergraduate Library.
Series of Augmented Reality Sandboxes built by the brmlab hackerspace prague.
First Augmented Reality Sandbox in Mongolia.
AR Sandbox at the British Geological Survey, Edinburgh regional headquarters, shown to the public during BGS Edinburgh's open day on September 28th, 2013.
AR Sandbox in the Museum of Future Government Services in Dubai. Slightly more information via Urban Codes.
Augmented Reality Sandbox built by James Van Tassell for Sanford's Pop-Up Science Art and Technology Museum, Sanford, Maine.
AR Sandbox at SUNY Geneseo
AR Sandbox installed at East Carolina University's geology department. Related article here: ECU Technician Constructs Reality Sandbox.
AR Sandbox at the Robots and Dinosaurs Hackerspace in Meadowbank, Sydney, Australia.
AR Sandbox at the Colégio Salesiano Santa Teresinha, São Paulo, Brazil.
AR Sandbox at DePauw University.
One of two AR Sandboxes built by an Advanced Engineering class at Appomattox Regional Governor's School for the Arts & Technology. The sandboxes are driven by Mac Minis, which is why there is no water simulation.
An AR Sandbox in South Africa.