What is EcoRaft?
The EcoRaft Project is an interactive educational environment designed to teach people about restoration ecology through a hands-on interface. The project integrates stationary monitors and mobile tablet PCs that allow participants to move species between virtual islands easily and fluidly. EcoRaft demonstrates the principle that it is easy to destroy an ecosystem - restoring it takes more work. With lifelike creatures, colorful visuals and a novel interface, EcoRaft showcases a merging of computing, arts, ecology, and education. A prototype of the project showed at SIGGRAPH 2005 in the Emerging Technologies program.
To see a video of the EcoRaft exhibit, click here.
Who is EcoRaft?
The project is a collaboration between Professors Bill Tomlinson and Lynn Carpenter at the University of California, Irvine. The technological platform on which it stands has been in development in various incarnations for several years; the EcoRaft direction began development in the spring of 2005. More information about them and their students who also work on the project can be found on the EcoRaft Group page.
The group also maintains a research blog.
Acknowledgments
The EcoRaft Group gratefully acknowledges the support and contributions of UC Irvine, the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, the ACE (Arts/Computation/Engineering) program, the Nicholas Foundation,Calit2, Emulex Corporation, the UCI Summer Undergraduate Research Program, and the Bren Collaborative Research Initiation Award.
Last updated: July 29, 2005