Augmented Reality Storytelling Submerged. Dry Diving to a World War II Wreck at Ancient Phalasarna, Crete

Underwater heritage and archaeology is, in general, limited to the few who have permission, and the means to actually dive on location and experience the submarine sites. Dry dive technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) now offer unprecedented opportunity to change this situation. This paper explores the use of AR storytelling with regard to a World War II landing craft at Phalasarna, Greece. Tank Landing Craft A6 (TLC) was sunk by German aircraft while evacuating Allied troops from Crete in 1941. Its remains still lie just off the coast in a few metres of water. This project revolves around the development of a 3D–animation to make the site more accessible to those who cannot dive. By visually reconstructing the dramatic event of the craft’s final moments under German attack before it settled to the seabed, as well as the site’s present condition, visitors can experience and learn more about both the vessel itself and the historical context. The Indirect AR simulation contains two main modes: a dry dive reconstruction of the wreck as it looks today with detailed multimodal explanations based on historical and archaeological research, and an animation sequence that reconstructs the actual German attack on the ship. This article presents detailed descriptions of the site’s historical background, of the vessel and the design challenges involved in the production process of the app itself. Feedback provided by visitors who recently tested the AR simulation on location is also reported here.

From Bioinspired to Bioinformed: Benefits of Greater Engagement From Biologists

Bioinspiration and biomimetics is a rapidly growing field where insights from biology are used to solve current design challenges. Nature provides an abundance of inspiration to draw upon, yet biological information is under-exploited due to a concerning lack of engagement from biologists. To assess the extent of this problem, we surveyed the current state of the field using the Web of Science database and found that only 41% of publications on bioinspired or biomimetic research included an author affiliated with a biology-related department or organisation. In addition, most publications focus exclusively on a limited range of popular model species. Considering these findings, we highlight key reasons why greater engagement from biologists will enable new and significant insights from natural selection and the diversity of life. Likewise, biologists are missing unique opportunities to study biological phenomena from the perspective of other disciplines, particularly engineering. We discuss the importance of striving toward a bioinformed approach, as current limitations in the field can only be overcome with a greater understanding of the ecological and evolutionary contexts behind each bioinspired/biomimetic solution.

User experience and motivation with engineering design challenges in general chemistry laboratory

Our career-forward approach to general chemistry laboratory for engineers involves the use of design challenges (DCs), an innovation that employs authentic professional context and practice to transform traditional tasks into developmentally appropriate career experiences. These challenges are scaled-down engineering problems related to the US National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges that engage students in collaborative problem solving via the modeling process. With task features aligned with professional engineering practice, DCs are hypothesized to support student motivation for the task as well as for the profession. As an evaluation of our curriculum design process, we use expectancy–value theory to test our hypotheses by investigating the association between students’ task value beliefs and self-confidence with their user experience, gender and URM status. Using stepwise multiple regression analysis, the results reveal that students find value in completing a DC (F(5,2430) = 534.96, p < .001) and are self-confident (F(8,2427) = 154.86, p < .001) when they feel like an engineer, are satisfied, perceive collaboration, are provided help from a teaching assistant, and the tasks are not too difficult. We highlight that although female and URM students felt less self-confidence in completing a DC, these feelings were moderated by their perceptions of feeling like an engineer and collaboration in the learning process (F(10,2425) = 127.06, p < .001). When female students felt like they were engineers (gender x feel like an engineer), their self-confidence increased (β = .288) and when URM students perceived tasks as collaborative (URM status x collaboration), their self-confidence increased (β = .302). Given the lack of representation for certain groups in engineering, this study suggests that providing an opportunity for collaboration and promoting a sense of professional identity afford a more inclusive learning experience.

Re-vision, Re-tool, Re-spawn

Gameful design challenges instructors to rethink course design for today’s tech-saturated, pandemic-sequestered situation now that virtual is a crucial mode. We share two recent examples of gamification—curricular and co-curricular—demonstrating how gameful design yields whole-person, transformational learning. First, we describe our co-taught Bible and Classical Literature course, where hero-students journey into the dark, accomplish heroic tasks, earn badges, and engage desire-driven, side-quest learning. Second, we describe “Human Salvo: An Experiment with the Antidote to Zombification,” a virtual, Covid-inspired alternative to weekly in-person chapel offerings. Chapel-as-game responded to our shared experience of Fall 2020, fraught with four anxieties: pandemic/contagion, political tribes, economy, and racial (in)justice (the primary anxieties that characterize zombie genre as well). Examples offer assessable evidence of learning toward specified outcomes. Our aim is to spark creativity among librarians-as-teachers for re-visioning, re-tooling, and (perhaps) re-spawning as game-oriented instructors.

Viewing Gamification Design Limitations and Weaknesses through a Pandemic Lens

Design challenges and limitations of gamification were examined using the COVID-19 pandemic as a lens. Online or remote environments were also examined. These environments highlight the literature gap in evidence-based design recommendations and studies that isolate gamification from other pedagogical interventions or methodologies. The literature recognizes the differences between actual games and gamification. Gamification focuses and relies on entertainment to boost academic achievement. This focus on entertainment and its implications to motivation, both intrinsic and extrinsic, are examined. This reliance on entertainment creates unrealistic expectations. In fact, gamification expectations may be conflated with game expectations—especially in an educational setting.

Development of the Electroencephalograph-based Brain Computer Interface System

A practical BCI-based application design contains a variety of design stages are needed to be considered. The design challenges are majorly present in 3 major stages: brain signal acquisition, signal processing unit, and signal classification. Combinations of different approaches have to be employed to achieve the functional and accurate performance of the overall design. Those design choices, algorithms, and methodologies that are meant to solve design challenges presented in the previously mentioned three stages have become a hot subject of a number of studies. This paper aims at providing a thorough overview of existing methodologies for BCI-based application design, comparing their principles and performance and recommending suitable design choices that would yield an objective result for the application.