Nodes project /Tunisia eLearning Hackathon

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As the world need more technology to help students and teachers fulfill their objectives ,E-learning is essentials ,furthermore e-learning website and platforms are progressing very fast but they don't consider the importance of how student sees the information ,how he understand it and what is the differences between the pedagogical approaches,as some learn better by reading , other by visual interpretations , the need to centralize all the pedagogy into one effective system is important. ,with new technologies see the dawn ,like IOT and the virtual reality they are progressing and seem really in heat right now, we thought of them to fulfill our needs, so the main idea in our project is to make a virtual-real classroom ,where people can read, see and hear .

The real power of interactive technologies is that they let us learn in ways that aren’t otherwise possible or practical. - David Lassner. for that

What is Nodes project ?!

A new way of learning , an open source ,Hardware platform based on VR technology for everyone That make E-learning a living experience for all in very fun and astonishing style.As if he was in a real classroom ,with virtual reality technology,and through the Holograms for scientific experiences , project and can give a nice and fulfilling interpretations of experiences like chemical reactions and circuits manipulation for students and also help teachers and entity's that can't afford some expensive materials to at least give their students the opportunities to see those experiences .

The core idea of the project is to make the virtual technology accessible for everyone to help students ,instructors and even professional to understand more the facts.The project is spat into 4 parts which are merged to one main idea to make the science more interactive .

Virtual reality headset : One important way VR headsets can increase immersion is to increase the field of view . how wide the picture is. A 360-degree display would be too expensive and unnecessary .

Hologram :The traditional projector are not interactive but with the hologram, we can turn the displaying of information more interactive with 3D picture and dynamic view ,which helps teachers to explain more the facts .In additional the VR headset is only limited for one individual otherwise hologram will be a good choice in the class .
IOT : Blocks board is a platform of easy-to-use electronic building blocks that empower you to invent anything, from your own remote controlled car, to a smart home device. The blocks snap together with magnets, no soldering, no wiring, no programming needed.
Cross platform : its web application for technical(contributors ,makers ,teachers, and students) ,and nontechnical users(Artist ) to share and write their own tutorials and a store for the developers to create 3D applications for VR or 360 videos .Also ,to download the apk files to run the apps for the VR headset and download the 360° videos for the Hologram projector .

What we did ?!

Blocks board

We have used a hand made prototyping board based on Microchip pic18F4550 with Pinguino firmware ,the circuit was built before the contest ,but ,we have fixed some wires and problems that we have faced on the board .The other blocks are LED block, RGB LED block ,Relay block ,also another simple blocks to control things through IR remote using TSOP1738.
Here are the screenshots of one of the blocks with both boards Pinguino and Arduino .

Led in action

Two board and one block

2. VR Headset

We have tested a real VR headset (Oculus Rift) ,the experience was great ,but, even that the VR is not too much expensive ,the price still not accessible for everyone so we though making the google cardboard project which is very cheap and anyone can build it at home !! with a real good experience .
here are screenshots of the assembly process

3. Hologram 3D mobile projector

People think to create a hologram is really a difficult task but in fact, it's really an easy task as all you need is your i-pad and some plastic sheet Print out the template on a piece of paper

Print out the template on a piece of paper

Trace out the shape on the plastic sheet using a ruler and pen. For the trapezoid template, trace out four similar outlines on the plastic sheet. Now carefully cut out the outlines with a cutting blade and ruler. Try to achieve the cuts as precisely as possible for a perfect pyramid.and then you get this

[Here are our screenshot]

the pyramid is fixed on the tablet

And then we covered the system with the box to decrease the lights out and to get an HD picture :D !

and then all you need is to find a hologram video on youtube, for example, this one

We have provided educational videos such as Solar system ,real human Heart and some fish used for natural science .
Here are screenshots of the final results
Human Heart

Solar system

4. Web platform

Our web platform was the central nodes where you can get anything ,as teachers and the community can add tutorials and articles , lessons and 360° videos to help others learn and scalp there skills we needed a platform to centralise all of that, so we need a strong solid platform for all of that and how lucky we are to find an open source strong platform that can fully be customised for our needs with that we can work on the norms faster thanks to open source community . We wrote some articles to improve the power of the web community application .
Here are the screenshots
Homepage {As you can see the design is friendly and the web app is easy to use }

Create Tutorials page

Example of article

5. Nodes VR android application

The VR headset needs a 360-degree video to show the application with 3D interactive way ,and our idea was to show up what is going inside the human body using the VR feature ,another wise seeking for the other application we have created our app that facilitates the access to a bunch of educational videos .Nodes VR was live during the challenge and uploaded to playStore ,the key feature of the application that is a human-friendly interface ,which is easy and fast .

All the videos are interactive .

24 h of hacking NON-STOP !

The hackathon was a great moment to share knowledge and meets people ,the experience we got was astonishing with the new people we met ,the great network we forged and the idea sharing was really overwhelming .
After 24 h ,giving a pitch front of the judge to present our work .You can find out the ppt file from this link [click]