2022 Extended Reality (XR) Innovation Award Winners

The Johns Hopkins Engineering Center for Learning Design and Technology (CLDT) congratulates the inaugural winners of the Extended Reality (XR) Innovation Awards—the first at JHU to recognize the school’s investment in extended reality for learning and research. These new awards support projects connected to teaching and learning, and research in spatial computing, virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality.

Extended Reality (XR) Innovation Award Winners

Making Observations in the Clinic Through Virtual Reality

Eileen Haase, Brock Wester, Caitlin Torgerson, Arielle Drummond, Soumya Acharya, Jon Resar, Rodney Omron, Clifford Weiss, and Ashish Nimgaonkar

For biomedical engineers, hospital immersion is a huge component of observing and classifying clinical needs. But access to clinical settings and operating rooms is limited. To bring examining and operating procedures to every student, we propose using extended reality (XR), including augmented and virtual reality, to illustrate common bedside procedures, inspect biological systems, and analyze diagnostic tools. The goal is to combine anatomical XR with clinical immersion to observe the perspective of the doctor, patient, or explore the organ itself.

Gamifying Linear Algebra With AR and VR

Joseph Cutrone, Sergey Kushnarev

This project seeks to build three interactive AR mobile games to teach, practice, and engage with content from introductory linear algebra. The AR version will use GPS locations of specific iconic areas, images, or statues on the Homewood campus to apply linear algebra concepts to solve puzzles involving data analysis, modelling, and cryptography. The three interactives will be connected with a storyline to then provide the final clue once all individual puzzles are solved.

Cybersecurity Learning Through Extended Reality

David Concepcion, Nelson Sanchez

Cybersecurity needs involve complex systems—web-based, mobile, internet-of-things, cloud. Most IT systems with multiple layers and components are extremely complex making it challenging to apply security principles. We aim to implement progressive learning techniques, in collaboration with the APL XR team, to design, develop, and deploy a virtual learning environment prototype that provides an interactive 3D representation of the interfaces, components, actors, and data related to cybersecurity.

Extended Reality Training and Assessment System for Health Care

Ehsan Azimi, Chien-Ming Huang, Nassir Navab, Judy Huang

Due to working-hour restrictions, increasing costs, and ethical concerns regarding patient safety, clinical training opportunities are continuously decreasing. We propose an interactive ecosystem for training and assessment of clinical tasks in mixed reality, which consists of authoring the desired surgical task, immersive training and practice, assessment of the trainee, and sensory and behavioral analysis.

Congratulations to the winners on this impressive achievement.