Natural Interaction
September 2003 — October 2006
Ideally, designers should be able to sketch, gesture, and do work on their computers as naturally as they
would interact with another human designer. Drawings and diagrams are common expressions of engineering ideas, but have been traditionally
static and only understood by human eyes. Natural Interaction enables a novel form of interaction with software, making it possible to
describe things by sketching, gesturing, and talking about them in a way that feels completely natural, yet have a computer understand
the messy freehand sketches, casual gestures, and fragmentary utterances that are part and parcel of such interaction. Once the sketch
is understood, the information it contains can be handed off to other applications for simulation, design checking, design completion,
or refinement.
As one example, a person can sketch a simple mechanical system—a collection of balls, springs, containers,
and inclined planes—and the computer can understand the drawing, “clean it up,” and animate it according to the laws of physics.
This application is now being distributed by Microsoft for Tablet PCs under the name “Physics Illustrator.”
Investigators:
Prof. Randall Davis, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Additional Information:
http://icampus.mit.edu/MagicPaper/
http://rationale.csail.mit.edu/index.shtml
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Web–Based Wireless Sensors for Education
January 2005 — December 2006
Curious students are often excited to tie theoretical knowledge acquired in the classroom to real
measurements in everyday life. Taking sensitive measurements outside of traditional research settings requires sophisticated,
yet low-cost, miniature sensors and software environments to support them. The iDAT project, which was designed with the hope
of developing 50 such wireless sensors, eventually acquired over 100 wireless sensors for use in student projects.
Beyond the development of sensors for student measurements, the iDAT project augmented the free-form
measurements that the wireless sensors allowed, with structured experiments designed to reveal specific physical principles and laws.
To ensure additional student control over variables, sophisticated output devices were added. The second phase of the project
culminated in the dissemination of the sensors to other institutions for evaluation. Eventually, these types of sensors will
provide low-cost instrumentation for student projects at schools around the world.
Investigators:
Prof. Ian Hunter, Director of MIT BioInstrumentation
Laboratory, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Barbara Hughey, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Additional Information:
http://icampus.mit.edu/projects/iDAT.shtml
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