Related papers: How the Vikings Navigated With the Sun
Learning to navigate unknown environments from scratch is a challenging problem. This work presents a system that integrates world models with curiosity-driven exploration for autonomous navigation in new environments. We evaluate…
The aim of this paper is to encourage science educators and outreach groups to look appropriately at the Sun and consider it as an extraordinary pedagogical tool to teach science at all education stages, what we call here as the solar…
Strategies for finding one's way through an unfamiliar environment may be helped by computer generated 2D maps, 3D virtual environments, or other navigation aids. The relative effectiveness of 2D and 3D virtual navigation aids was…
Google Earth is a huge source of interesting illustrations of various natural phenomena. It can represent a valuable tool for science education, not only for teaching geography and geology, but also physics. Here we suggest that Google…
We describe in detail an advanced project devised for outstanding High School (or undergraduate) students with appropriate abilities in physical reasoning (rather than with a good standard preparation), centered around the well-known…
We report on the initial phase of an ongoing, multi-stage investigation of how to incorporate Virtual Reality (VR) technology in teaching introductory astronomy concepts. Our goal was to compare the efficacy of VR vs. conventional teaching…
The aggregate behaviors of users can collectively encode deep semantic information about the objects with which they interact. In this paper, we demonstrate novel ways in which the synthesis of these data can illuminate the terrain of…
Navigation is believed to be controlled by at least two partially dissociable systems in the brain. The cognitive map informs an organism of its location and bearing, updated by integrating vestibular self-motion or predicting distances to…
Working in complex industrial facilities requires spatial navigation skills that people build up with time and field experience. Training sessions consisting in guided tours help discover places but they are insufficient to become…
Teachers have tried to teach their students by introducing text books along with verbal instructions in traditional education system. However, teaching and learning methods could be changed for developing Information and Communication…
We introduce the south-pointing chariot, an intriguing mechanical device from ancient China. We use its ability to keep track of a global direction as it travels on an arbitrary path as a tool to explore the geometry of curved surfaces.…
Navigation assistance systems (NASs) aim to help visually impaired people (VIPs) navigate unfamiliar environments. Most of today's NASs support VIPs via turn-by-turn navigation, but a growing body of work highlights the importance of…
This activity has been developed as a resource for the "EU Space Awareness" educational programme. As part of the suite "Our Fragile Planet" together with the "Climate Box" it addresses aspects of weather phenomena, the Earth's climate and…
How do humans navigate to target objects in novel scenes? Do we use the semantic/functional priors we have built over years to efficiently search and navigate? For example, to search for mugs, we search cabinets near the coffee machine and…
The aim of visualization is to support people in dealing with large and complex information structures, to make these structures more comprehensible, facilitate exploration, and enable knowledge discovery. However, users often have problems…
Only a small percentage of blind and low-vision people use traditional mobility aids such as a cane or a guide dog. Various assistive technologies have been proposed to address the limitations of traditional mobility aids. These devices…
This article describes a wind tunnel's ease of construction and its uses as a visualization tool that integrates concepts at the primary and secondary levels. An Appendix contains detailed building instructions. A web site (under…
When searching for an object humans navigate through a scene using semantic information and spatial relationships. We look for an object using our knowledge of its attributes and relationships with other objects to infer the probable…
Two problems from the Victorian Age, the subdivision of light and the determination of the leakage point in an undersea telegraphic cable are discussed and suggested as a concrete illustrations of the relationships between textbook physics…
Navigation is one of the most heavily studied problems in robotics, and is conventionally approached as a geometric mapping and planning problem. However, real-world navigation presents a complex set of physical challenges that defies…