zSpace — appearing at the best of BETT 2024 this year — does what augmented reality should, only without the discomfort of a big and heavy headset. That makes AR accessible to more students and also means a more comfortable experience for longer-term use.
This system comprises the laptop, which features eye-detection cameras, a side-based camera setup, and a wired stylus pen device. All that combines to create an 3D augmented reality experience on the screen that feels as if the objects are floating in the air in front of you.
So why does that help? It means students can interact in a tactile way with 3D objects. For example, you can have a human heart floating in front of you and use the pen to remove walls and look inside, move the heart about as if it were in your hand, and zoom in and out to examine it more closely. Take that to robotics and engineering and you can dismantle or built robotics with each part taken into consideration.
As zSpace’s representative told Tech & Learning: “This is a comfortable way to experience augmented reality in the classroom. That’s both for the user, with digital tools, but also for the educator who no longer has to use physical examples — like an animal’s heart — to show students how these objects break down.”
This is a very intuitive AR system to use so it can be enjoyed by a wide range of student ages and abilities.