Yoonseo Jung reports on her course, Fundamentals of Augmented Reality, held online via Zoom sessions, at Stanford University. In her first week, Yoonseo met with her classmates which she describes as being “some of the brightest, most hard-working students I’ve ever met.” She really likes the teaching style of her AR instructor, Miguel Novelo, a new media artist, filmmaker, and lecturer from Campeche, Mexico, with a master’s degree in Fine Arts from Stanford. Yoonseo says that, “he has been the most caring instructor. He allows for plenty of engaging activities in a virtual setting, which has been a lot of fun.”
“Our class started with lectures about the basics of Augmented Reality (AR) to grasp a better understanding of what AR is and how it functions in our daily life. It was overwhelming for everyone in the class to completely comprehend what AR is, but in short, AR lets you deliver immersive, engaging experiences that seamlessly blend virtual objects with the real world. The fundamental components are scene, light, object, camera, and scripts (conditions, logic, interactivity),” Yoonseo reports.
“We discussed the differences between AR, VR (Virtual Reality), and MR (Mixed Reality). Some key difference among those three is that VR doesn’t show the user’s real-life surroundings. It’s all virtual, as the name implies. AR, on the other hand, mixes the user’s surroundings and the virtual world, enabling the user to see what is going on around them with some VR assets. Lastly, MR focuses on the interaction between virtual objects and real-world objects, sort of combining aspects of VR and AR. Understanding this, we were told, would be crucial to our future projects in the class,” Yoonseo adds.
“When we had an appropriate understanding of how AR functions, we dove into the more practical activities. We initially started by creating our very own prototypes in groups of 3-4 students. Our first idea was an app called “stAR” that could detect any constellations on a given night. You put your device up to the sky, and the app supposedly provides the basic information of that specific constellation you point it up to, such as when it usually occurs and where it’s best seen. Our second idea was a lego instruction helper. The camera first detects the lego kit instruction manual with the list of pieces. After clicking a piece identified in the manual, the AR shows where the piece is in the lego structure by highlighting/shading it. Upon its completion, the camera can detect errors and highlight them in red. After clicking a highlighted mistake, the AR will then show how to fix it,” Yoonseo explains.
Although she experienced time zone challenges with attending class from Seoul, South Korea, Yoonseo is enjoying the course.
“Although this week has already been quite adventurous, I’m already looking forward to next week. We will be discussing more in-depth how social media is involved with the aspects of AR, and will be creating our very own filters using pre-existing apps. I’m truly grateful to the Garwin Family Foundation for providing this wonderful opportunity to experience Augmented Reality,” Yoonseo says.
At the end of her second and final week at SSI, Yoonseo describes her experience as “thrilling, intriguing, and rigorous.” She learned about advanced techniques, new apps and was able to receive “hands-on” experience with some of the programs. The class learned about and used an app called TouchDesign; Visual Programming, a tool used for creative coding; and Shaders, a set of instructions that are executed all at once for every single pixel on the screen.
“We started the week by creating our own filters, and this was my favorite part of the entire course. I never realized how the process actually worked until I worked on it myself, but to my surprise, it was definitely simpler than I thought. If you use creativity, you’re 90% there! The program that we were taught to use was called “Spark AR.” With this software, we were able to easily access templates and access libraries, which ultimately allowed an engaging AR experience,” Yoonseo explains.
“The biggest part of this week was probably our final project. We had to create another prototype related to AR and assemble a presentation about our model. My classmates and I chose to create a prototype called “Guit-AR” (get it? Guitar but with AR). Since everyone in my group played some kind of instrument, we decided that a prototype related to music was quite appropriate. In summary, Guit-AR aimed to assist beginner guitar players in placing their fingers in the correct positions, as without the prototype, that could be quite challenging. This is especially helpful for self-learners,” Yoonseo reports.
In spite of several challenges and all nighters, Yoonseo felt her learning experience at SSI was well worth the effort.
“I owe immense thanks to my instructor, Miguel, for his lectures and guidance, and ultimately, to the GFF for allowing me such a wonderful experience these past two weeks. Thank you so much always for your wonderful support and guidance with whatever I do. I’m truly grateful to the GFF for everything,” Yoonseo says.
Excellent work, Yoonseo. We are very proud of you and wish you much success!
>> Read Yoonseo Jung’s final report (PDF file, 52 KB).
>> Learn about other students’ experiences in the GFF Scholarship Program.
