Program
STEP Student: Jazmine Carpenter
Jazmine Carpenter (18) is a native of Savannah, GA. As a child Jazmine was always fascinated by computers and attracted by the unique way they operate. After attending Ogelthorpe Academy Middle School, Jazmine soon graduated from Sol C. Johnson High school. Now she has followed her passion and recently enrolled at the Armstrong Atlantic University in order to obtain a Bachelor degree in Science of Information Technology. With the help of the STEP program, Jazmine has gotten a head start towards her goal of pursuing a carrier in Distributed Systems and Applications.
Study Program
We designed the "STEPs" such that at the end of the program our students will be able to develop a 3D application that involves haptic feedback. We choose as development platform for haptics the H3D API. The API is open source, cross platform, and haptic device independent. The graphic rendering of the objects in the virtual environment is based on the scene graphs created with X3D standard. The animation of objects and the events are supported using scripting in Python programming language. To guide the student we implemented a study program in four steps that are presented below.
1. Introduction to Haptics
In the first two weeks the student was presented theoretic notions regarding virtual environments, 3D computer graphics and the haptic technology. The student learned about different types of haptic devices and their properties. Experimenting with the haptic devices from our laboratory, the student gained a better understanding of the written study material. The student also learned about various domains of applicability and the importance of haptics. For a complete image on haptics the student was introduced to simple rendering algorithms for haptics and 3D rendering. After two weeks we assessed the student's knowledge with a writtent test.
2. Introduction to X3D
 Example1. A Table and Chairs |
In the third week the student learned to create a 3D scene using the X3D specifications. X3D files are XML-based and composed of multiple X3D nodes that together form the scene graph. The geometric primitives that were presented to the student and that were used to develop graphic scenes are: the sphere, the cylinder, the box, and the cone. In order to add textures, colors, or transparency to the graphical objects the student used nodes like Material and ImageTexture. The student learned how to place objects at different locations and with different orientations employing the attributes translation and rotation of the node Transform. |
 Example2. Rainbow Car |
Routing mechanism is employed for example to add movement to the geometric objects routing mechanism in association with OrientationInterpolator and PositionInterpolator. The student learned modalities to change objects color based on time patterns using the X3D nodes ColorInterpolar and Timer for routing. Below we present some of the models developed by the student. The first one is an example of how complex geometries can be created using the primitives. The second example demonstrates the use of a routing mechanism. The student modeled a car that is moving on a specified route, and changing the orientation as well as its color. |
3. Introduction to Python
In the fourth week the student started learning introductory notions about the interpreted language Python. The student learned about basic datatypes in Python, the local and global variables, and the method of representing literals. Next she learned to develop functions with arguments and return values, and the syntax of the main statements (if-else, while, and for statements) she was given the task of developing a small calculator program that take as input from the user two operands and an operator (+, = *, /) and returns the result of the operation. We also presented introductory notions about object oriented programming in Python: how to create a class, and an instance of a class, how to call methods of the class, etc.