Assignment 2 Report

NOTE: Please use scalpel image target from assignment ZIP on MyLo. Due to Itch.io image resolution and file size limit, the image had to be compressed and cropped.

Pitch

With society’s ever-growing support for environmental and financial responsibility, it is important to provide students with cheaper and sustainable options of education, while also using new and adaptive technologies. This AR program says goodbye to single use, expensive hospital equipment, and provides students and teachers alike with an interactive way to learn the basic associations of the medical industry!

Description

The application involves multiple image targets, which then have to be manipulated in 3D space to be next to the “matching” image, based on a preconceived association. This application provides the medical education industry with an affordable, eco-friendly way to learn associations and correct procedures, while still being highly interactive and engaging. It gives students a new, open-ended way of learning, even if in its current iteration it is just an association “game”. This is significant, as there has been a perceived and continual downwards trend of disengagement among students (Baron and Corbin, 2012) (Turner, 2014), and with engagement with material being an important factor in a students learning, these opinions are startling. Therefore, a more involving, interactive form of education is required, while still maintaining the standards of today’s societal climate. As stated above, the program at the current time is just a basic memory game, but by being an interactive, 3D memory game, it automatically makes the learning more stimulating, and thus more effective. As for the interface technology, AR seems like a very obvious fit. Firstly, students are more than likely to be on a budget, and expensive technology that is used for VR or XR are almost always far outside of that budget. Secondly, an AR application that can be used on a laptop or phone provides education access to almost everyone, as phones are seen as a standard in modern society. This means the application is not directly disturbed by economical, geographical, societal or even language barriers, as many other XR technologies are.

Interaction Design

The main reason that the interaction is needed in the application is, as mentioned above, engagement is a vitally important part of education, and by making the user pick up items and move them, they are engaged far more than they ever would be reading a textbook or using a conventional computer. Furthermore, the interaction relies solely on visual stimulation, and this makes the program accessible to a larger, more diverse audience. It also gives the user a 3D view of the object in question, whether it is a tool, disease, bacteria, or any other number of medical related paraphernalia. This helps students become familiarised in a 3D space, which allows them to be more prepared for real world situations. Far from the traditional keyboard and monitor, AR interactions allow students to be directly connected to their learning, opening up the door to new and exciting learning experiences. 

Storyboard

Technical Development

When developing this software, what was envisioned was not exactly what came to fruition. Firstly, I intended for more interactions, between 2 or more image targets, where certain combinations would create different reactions, such as combining the scalpel and a wound would make the models red, and play a sound. Due to my inexperience with Unity, this seemed a little out of reach once the assignment was started. I had trouble turning the models red or green, as it seemed they needed a mesh, and the ones I downloaded from online did not come with any sort of mesh attached. So instead, I chose to have the word “Correct!” show up when you do the one interaction. This is not perfect and definitely not what I envisioned, but it still provided feedback of the interaction to the user. Eventually, with more Unity experience, I would like to revisit or refine this assignment into something more exciting in terms of graphics and technicality. As it stands, there is only 1 interaction in the application, and this happens when the scalpel image target and the tumour image target are moved close together. As can be seen the word “Correct!” shows up above the scalpel image target.

 NOTE: Github Copilot and ChatGPT were not used in this assignment.

Bibliography

BARON, P. & CORBIN, L. 2012. Student engagement: Rhetoric and reality. Higher Education Research and Development, 31, 759-772.

Turner, L. (2014) Student Engagement. rep. Hobart, Tasmania, pp. 5–5. 

Scalpel Proper Grip (no date) University of Washington. University of Washington. Available at: https://sites.uw.edu/uwgensurgtechskills/instrument-handling-scalpels/ (Accessed: 20 August 2023). 

3-D Tumour Model (2013) Biospectrumasia. Singapore. Available at: https://www.biospectrumasia.com/news/26/536/nus-develops-3-d-tumor-model.html (Accessed: 20 August 2023). 

User Kastaniga. Cell Model (2009) TurboSquid, available at:   https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-max-mode-cell/463694

User BiOzZ. Scalpel (2011) TurboSquid, available at: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-3ds-model-blade-adjustable-bump/640236