| Project | Founding SciCentr: a multiuser, interactive 3D virtual science center |
| Contact | Margaret Corbit Cornell Theory Center |
| corbitm@tc.cornell.edu | |
| URL | http://www.scicentr.org |
| Project description | Just three years ago, virtual reality on the desktop was a dim fantasy. Today, anyone on the Internet can download a free 3D browser. The appeal of 3D mulituser environments is well known in gaming and entertainment. The teenaged and young adult audiences for this technology is growing exponentially. The Cornell Theory Center's exploration of this new medium is natural to the evolution of CTC's use of the Internet for research communication, training, and informal science education. CTC is in the early stages of developing a virtual science center, SciCentr, built by and for young adults and the young at heart. SciCentr will encompass hands-on exhibits, lab spaces, science fairs, and communication spaces. These will include interactive interfaces to simulations and visualizations created to communicate key concepts in science and technology to a general audience, for example a space based on Mars topographic data from the Soujourner rover (Cornell/NASA/USGS collaboration). Using Active Worlds technology, we hope to incorporate simulations with visualized results in a multiuser context. Imagine, for example, a singing fountain that responds to notes played by many users, sends them back a chord of the composite sounds and simultaneously provides a visualization of the waveform in a Web window. Cornell programmers are working with artists at Art Center College for Design in Pasadena, CA, to create this as a focal feature for an area centered on wave science. Exhibit content will be created by teams of students and professionals from a wide range of disciplines. At Cornell, SciCentr initially will involve students and faculty from the departments of Fine Arts, Communications, Electrical Eng., Computer Science, Plant Sciences, Astronomy, Geology, and Molecular Biology. These teams are directly involved in national and international collaborations with other institutions through our involvement with the Contact Consortium and Questacon, Australia's national science center. |