Teaching physical computing with Augmented Reality
I believe AR has the power to redefine education. So, I developed Pi AR, an Augmented Reality experience for the Raspberry Pi.
For the last few years, I have been talking and teaching about Raspberry Pi at events like Maker Faires, SxSW, and Picademy. After working with several teachers, kids, and adults who were getting started with Raspberry Pi, I have found that many beginners have trouble building their first circuit without help.
Most tutorials provide a diagram like this Fritzing image below, which are very useful for experienced makers. However, someone who has never seen a breadboard before may not be able to make the components sitting in front of them look like the diagram.
As a developer of both hardware and software, I employ technology to solve real problems, like improving the experience of Raspberry Pi beginners. Augmented Reality, as it continues to gain traction and improve, has the power to change the way we learn. With this in mind, I developed Pi AR, an Augmented Reality experience for the Raspberry Pi.
Built with ARKit, Pi AR enables anyone with a compatible iOS device to place a Raspberry Pi in their own home and explore it in 3D. After placing your virtual Pi on a surface, the experience walks you through how to setup your Pi with all the necessary components.
After taking a tour around the Pi, the experience then teaches you how to build a simple circuit to blink an LED. As you tap the next button, the components drop into the breadboard in their correct location with information displayed above.
Pi AR enables users to walk around the circuit, move closer to it, and view it from any perspective, as if the breadboard were floating right in front of them. It has never been easier to get started with circuits.
In the future, I would like to add tutorials for more complex circuits, including some in the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s resources. With the recent announcement of ARKit 2, I added image tracking to Pi AR, where the virtual Pi attaches to the cover of the MagPi magazine.
Imagine following a tutorial in the MagPi, and holding your phone over the magazine reveals a virtual Pi with the correct circuit attached to the page. Awesome!
Pi AR is available today for free on the App Store.
