The GAP Project
Gaming Against Plagiarism

The GAP Project (Gaming Against Plagiarism) focuses on the issue of plagiarism within the educational realm. GAP aims to teach students through a series of mini-games that focus on identifying not only what can be considered misconduct, understanding the consequences associated with it, but also realizing how misconduct can and often does occur unintentionally.  A major goal of the GAP initiative is to better inform students on the many ways in which research infractions can take place and that ultimately it is the student’s job to make sure that they are versed on this topic so that unintentional violations do not occur.

HAP/NAN Project
Use of Haptics in a Virtual Reality Environment for Learning of Nanotechnology

HapNan is an innovative and exciting educational tool geared toward middle school students. It is a collaborative effort between the University of Florida (UF) Digital Worlds Institute and UF professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Nanotechnology expert, Dr. Curtis Taylor.  HapNan involves the merging of nanotechnology with haptics. The HapNan project incorporates the use of a haptic mouse and virtual reality computer program to create an interactive learning environment that has the potential to revolutionize the way that science is being taught within a classroom setting.  Students who are able to work with the HapNan technology will be able to explore many abstract scientific concepts in a whole new way, through sight and touch.

NETS
A Neuroprosthetic Training System (NETS): Using Virtual Reality to Treat Paralysis

We are taking a multidisciplinary approach that combines existing and emerging techniques and technologies from Virtual Reality (VR) with Brain-Machine Interfaces to develop Virtual World Environments (VWE) as a training medium to enhance task improvement, stimulate new brain function, and provide a seamless learning transfer from a VR to a real environment. The science developed in this project will lead to a Neuroprosthetic Training System (NETS) that uses Virtual Reality to Treat Paralysis. To create this novel neuroprosthetic rehabilitation system, this project assembles a multidisciplinary team and environment in 4 areas: interactive digital media, biomedical engineering, neuroscience, and rehabilitation.

MIP
Music Instinct Project (MIP)

The University of Florida’s WUFT was chosen as one of the ten PBS stations nationwide for the Music Instinct grant, working in partnership with the Digital Worlds Institute. Research shows that music has enormous potential to help explore the complexities of human brain function. For example, there’s a strong connection between the auditory and motor regions of the brain, and music seems to engage the motor system in a way that other modalities do not. People with motor disorders like Parkinson’s disease have improved their ability to walk while listening to a rhythm track, and stroke patients who have trouble with speech show signs of improvement when they receive music therapy. And there’s new evidence that music can actually change the physical structure of the brain – a fact that has critical implications for both education and medicine. One thing is clear, proven and agreed upon; music has a profound capacity to influence and alter the human experience.  Major funding for this program provided by the National Science Foundation.     

VLF
Virtual Learning Forest(VLF)

The target audience for Virtual Learning Forests will ultimately be undergraduate natural resource students at universities worldwide.  The immediate audience during the life of this project will be undergraduate forestry students in sampling, mensuration, and silviculture classes at the University of Florida (UF) and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).  These students will be involved with testing and evaluating the product during the development of the first phase of this product. The goal during the 24 month life of this project will be to develop a first (beta) version of a 3D Virtual Learning Forest in a virtual world environment (VWE) based on the longleaf pine ecosystem, and to measure how students react to it and how it impacts their learning experience.

RISK

Drug and alcohol use are consistently associated with the occurrence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV. Despite this link, interventions designed to reduce substance use are rarely implemented in clinical settings where the prevalence of STDs and HIV is high (e.g., STD clinics). Brief interventions have proven effective in reducing hazardous drinking and drug use; however they are rarely integrated into clinical practice due to barriers at individual and organizational levels. We proposed that the ideal intervention should incorporate the successful components of brief motivational interviewing and should make use of interactive digital media and game features to enhance interest and acceptability, and should be easily adaptable within clinical settings.  

VETS

Healing the Wounded Warrior: Virtual Environments for Therapeutic Solutions (VETS)

A staggering 31% of soldiers returning from active duty in Afghanistan or Iraq and seen in veterans administration medical centers between 2001-2005 were diagnosed with mental health or psychosocial conditions. Through a grant from the US Department of Commerce, Digital Worlds worked with the Center for the Arts in Healthcare (CAHRE) and the Malcolm Randall VA Medical Center to conceptualize and mobilize a major initiative to support returning Iraq war veterans through online virtual reality-based therapeutic, psychosocial, and vocational interventions.  The project focuses on therapeutic rehabilitation and re-integration of wounded warriors into their families, communities, and the workforce.

VWE
Virtual World Environments (VWE) Working Group

In the Spring of 2008 a university-wide working group was convened to study the potential uses of Virtual World Environments (VWEs) in research and education at the University of Florida. Active participants came from nearly three quarters of UF’s sixteen colleges and affiliated units. The group met three times over the course of the Spring semester at the Digital Worlds Institute’s Research, Education and Visualization Environment (REVE).

SciPath

A series of short videos featuring accomplished professors of various areas of science (and their current University students) were created to inform and motivate young students in elementary and middle school to take an interest in careers in science.

Children of a Common Mother

Thursday February 15, 2007 at 5:30 PM in the University of Florida Constans Theatre. Live performance by ethnic and indigenous artists located throughout the Americas.

In Common: TIME - Maximum Impact
Ingenuity Festival

Percussionists from across North America convened LIVE onstage (physically and virtually) to present In Common Time: MAXIMUM IMPACT. The event included CODEX Tympanos, DRUMMA and the World Premiere of SMOKE|WIRE|ROCK a new site-specific work created specially for the Ingenuity Festival.

HIST
Human Interactive Simulation and Training

The HIST system allowed larger numbers of medical students to interact with patient symptoms, both in the local classroom and at a distance. The system tracked each student’s reactions to dynamic medical situations, giving professors a useful tool to assess individual progress and understanding.

In Common SPACE

Choreographers located simultaneously at three divergent points across North America created a new “Distributed Collaboration” to demonstrate the potential of the high- speed Internet2 to bring audiences and performers together simultaneously across great distances.

ISAS
Integrated Situational Awareness System

The Integrated Situation Awareness System enhanced decision-making effectiveness when managing potentially life-threatening situations. Researchers at Digital Worlds designed a system that combined a variety of inputs, including live video feeds, federated databases, security systems, and satellite imagery, simultaneously, to augment the decision maker's situational awareness.

Netronome

ICT
In Common Time

Bridging five continents and cultures by creating an unprecedented real-time global collaboration for the world’s largest computer art and interactivity conference in Los Angeles, California on August 1-4, 2005, “In Common: TIME” featured performers ranging in age from 11 to 68, including musical artists from the five diverse world cultures.

REVE
Research, Education and Visualization Environment (REVE)

A flexible space for research and education, including a digital media environment with facilities for distributed collaboration and video conferencing.

Micro-Air-Vehicle Virtual Environment System
A Hardware-in-the-Loop Experiment and Simulation Facility for Vision-Based Control of Micro-Air-Vehicles (MAVs)

The Micro-Air-Vehicle (MAV) Virtual Environment system provided a synthetic environment in which hardware MAVs could be flight tested virtually. The project, headed by Dr. Andrew Kurdila of the UF Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, was funded by the United States Air Force.

MOSI Museum Biomedical Engineering Kiosk

A computer kiosk for the Museum of Science and Industry presenting the pioneering knee replacement research of UF's Dr. Fregly. Museum visitors learned how to collect data from various scientific machines, analyze the data using scientific visualization techniques, formulate an educated diagnosis of the patient's knee problem, and simulate surgical solutions.

Mask

A dance and visual art collaboration over the Internet2 connecting The University of Chile REUNA and Digital Worlds.

Biomedical Engineering Building Pre-Visualization

A virtual fly through animation of the proposed J. Crayton Pruitt Biomedical Engineering building.

Extending Virtual Heritage Beyond the Local Site

Built heritage (i.e. Architecture) is said to be one of the finest forms of human endeavor. Perhaps the idea of capturing time in a tangible form first prompted people to build monuments in a quest for immortality. Given the passage of time, however, there has been significant decay and loss of these historic structures.

College of Education Building Pre-Visualization

A virtual fly through of the proposed renovations to the College of Education building.

International Media Union

A 3D visualization for the College of Education of a new international media union to be built between their current home in Norman Hall and the DW REVE in the historic Norman Gym.

Aesthetic Computing 

Aesthetic Computing refers to the search for a new development of representation and notation, the exploration on the use of artistic methods and processes within common representations found in computing. A better way for people to better understand currently hard-to-follow structures for computing and mathematics.

AccessGrid

The AccessGrid supported large-scale distributed meetings, collaborative work sessions, seminars, lectures, tutorials and training. The Digital Worlds Institute constructed four AG nodes and was working to elevate the design and functionality to a new level not seen with any of its contemporary nodes installed worldwide.

Dancing Beyond Boundaries

"Dancing Beyond Boundaries" was an unprecedented distance collaboration between artists, engineers, computer scientists and video producers which premiered at the SuperComputing Global conference in Denver. The choreographer, dancers, animation artists, musicians, computer scientists, engineers and producers were all in different cities in North and South America as the piece was created, rehearsed and performed over the 4 days of the conference.