PrismAR Interactive

“Talent is equally distributed. Opportunity is not“ 

The opportunity gap in education refers to disparities in resources and experiences, particularly affecting marginalized students.

1. Situation in Chile

For every 7 students with scholastic talent, 6 won’t have the opportunity to develop it. So what will happen with the other areas? Like STEM.

The virtual Ideathon Girls in Stem Chile 2020, had only 45 participants out of the more than 2 million girls who could apply. Likewise, the territorial gap was maintained in the Chilean Informatics Olympiad 2021, which had 58 students, most of them from the Metropolitan region and male. 

The data is not just a matter of disinterest. There is a masculinization, a gender gap in STEM. According to studies, this is due to: At school age, lack of role models, low support from family and teachers, misperception of these careers.

2. Situation in United States

From 2014 to 2020, there was a decline of 1.3 million students in extracurricular participation in STEM. Most affected students were from low-income households, which already had the lowest representation in STEM areas, dropping from 4.6 million to 2.7 million. Even though these students accounted for only 38% of all participants in 2020, the 79% of attrition came from these families, 

• Boys (42% vs 36% girls) are more likely to have opportunities to participate in Technology and engineering afterschool programs.

• Only 2,100 out of 42,000 highschools offer the Advanced Placement test in computer science.

Factors contributing to this access to opportunity

Students are limited firstly because they don’t know that these opportunities exist and are available in their environment. 

According to a National Parent Teacher Association white paper from 2016, 46% of parents see themselves as the primary influencers of their child's interest in science, followed by teachers at 44%, but 31% lack confidence in their scientific knowledge to support hands-on activities.

In schools, this usually is due to funding their resources.  Several schools have limited exposure to STEM because it isn’t part of their curriculum or don't have challenging content and opportunities to dive deeply into STEM learning.

The costs of STEM programs outweigh non-STEM programs (57% of parents say after-school activities are too expensive), and there is a geographic gap to access and continue in them (53% are concerned about transportation). 

Consequences

Without knowledge of these experiences, it isn't possible to access them, this is aggravated for low-income students. That access continues until adulthood, the result is often different educational outcomes and unequal career opportunities, and so on, opportunities in general.

United Nations warns that failure to promote STEM education with a gender focus will exclude half of the world's talent. There is a risk of reversing women's progress in the labor market.

How many people are affected?

Worldwide, 4,200 million people search for events and news on the internet and 3,345 million people use the Internet to study or learn. While in Chile, more than 536.362 highschool students are affected.

PrismAR Interactive allows people to interact with educational three-dimensional “holograms” developed by optical illusions projected on top of their mobile phone, and provides the user with relevant academic and competitive opportunities, such as detailed scholarships and competitions organized by sponsors. To use this mobile application powered by artificial intelligence, you only need camera permissions and a piece of discarded plastic. Additionally, if you want to improve movement accuracy, you can order or implement your own Arduino components.

Main app functions :

Interactive 3D learning tool: The application allows the creation, reinvent and load of educational interactive 3D-models, these will be projected by means of a plastic template to be placed on the phone's screen. It will be possible to interact with the holographic projection through predetermined gestures from basic commands to rotate or enlarge, to interacting with other objects or buttons programmed in the application. 

How does it work?
A critical aspect of our product's accessibility and innovation lies in its “Hologram”, which is not a true hologram, it’s actually a Pepper's Ghost Illusion, when a real or recorded image is reflected in a transparent screen at a 45° angle, viewers see a reflected virtual image that seems to have depth and appear out of nowhere.

Opportunities’ featuring: Users can explore scholarships, courses and competitions, making it convenient for them to access and engage with opportunities chosen to the general or specific app public.

How will it work?
Integration of web scrapping to get real-time data for up-to-date information and opportunities to be stored at SQL. Along adaptive Learning Paths through AI-powered features, PrismAR Interactive will adapt to users' individual learning styles, so that anyone can learn targeting areas of competency, while anywhere.

Other services:

Opportunities Promotion: Dedicated section within the app that showcases various academic and competitive opportunities. 

Science Outreach Channel: Service to learn how to adapt scientific materials into holograms and to bring them to students. 

Precision Optimization Kit: Users have the option to either order a pre-made circuit directly from the company, or they can choose the components kit and access a free guide that provides step-by-step instructions on how to assemble and implement the circuit themselves.

Activities that may lead to new products & services:

• Integrate interactions through physical objects or templates made of paper. 
• Aim to empower girls facilitating their application to STEAM activities. 
• Analysis of data from user engangement and searches.
• Activities and acknowledges tracking for résumé and portfolio. 

Segment affected by the problem, will use the main functions of the application for educational purposes.

Occupation: 1st High School to 4th College year Interests: STEAM subjects, technology, hands-on learning experiences, educational apps, extracurricular activities related to academic and career advancement. Pain: Limited access to advanced or practical learning resources. Need: Access to affordable interactive and immersive learning experiences. Preferences: Desire for practical engagement and experimentation, prefer learning through visual and physical interactive mediums.

Segment that will motivate others to use the application.

Occupation: Parents & STEM Educators. Interests: Innovative teaching methods, STEAM education, promoting digital literacy. Pain: Lack of knowledge and resources for implementing interactive educational content. Need: Simplify the process of fostering interactive educational content. Preferences: Desire for technology that enhances teaching effectiveness and student engagement in STEAM subjects.

Segment that provides opportunities such as scholarships, programs, courses or competitions.

Description: Companies offering STEAM opportunities and/or digital literacy tools. Interests: Supporting educational initiatives, reaching underserved communities, promoting STEM education and career pathways, fostering innovation and creativity. Pain: Difficulty engaging target audiences in STEAM areas. Need: Facilitate access to STEM experiences for students. Preferences: Personalized and impactful promotion, partnerships enabling them to extend their reach and impact in the education sector.

Segment that will create interactive holograms.

Description: STEM advanced centers and Engineering Universities. Interests: Creating engaging learning content, promoting digital literacy, bridging the STEM gender gap, community scientific outreach, generating interest in their areas of work. Pain: Lack of resources for creating or implementing interactive educational content. Need: Platform to create scientific content and bring it to students. Preferences: Desire for accessible technology that enhances teaching effectiveness and student engagement.

PrismAR Impacts solves their problems by:

• Letting users control their learning journey. with a curriculum tailored to their  individual needs, starting from basic geometry up to advanced science.

• Making it simple for enterprises and users to work together and create interactive holograms.

• Using holographic experiments to connect what you learn in class with real-world situations.

• Providing and documenting opportunities to test yourself with advanced courses and competitions by sponsors. This opens up new educational paths that match YOUR interests and goals.

Benefits and impact:

Equal Opportunities For Education: Users can access educational experiences and opportunities without being tied to specific locations or equipment requirements, ensuring that education isn’t limited by economic constraints. 

Multi-Sensory Learning: Vsual and hands-on methods can enhance comprehension and engagement of information for neurodiverse learners, like those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). 

Hands-On Learning Opportunities: The app facilitates practical experimentation, especially valuable for those lacking access to advanced facilities or equipment 

Supportive Community: Facilitating collaborative content creation, users can share knowledge and ideas effortlessly. 

Career Opportunities: By featuring academic and competitive opportunities, the app opens doors to new career paths and educational avenues, aligning with users' interests and aspirations. 

Environmental Sustainability: Through the utilization and promotion of recycled plastic, PrismAR Interactive contributes to reducing plastic waste and minimizing the environmental impact of technological advancements.

PrismAR Interactive, works as an upgrade for the past project TAI oportunidades from 2021. Let's start by demostrating our proactiveness to carry out the old part of the solution by participating in competitions and receiving the following acknowledges:

• National School Digital Talent Award - Los Creadores 2021: Regional winners and finalists of the competition.

• Technovation Challenge 2021-2022: Finalists for the grand prize, representing Latin America and winners of the best technology award in the Senior category (students aged 16 to 18).

• Solve for Tomorrow Chile 2022 - Quarter Finalists

• InspiraTEC prize 2022 for women referents with STEM projects, in the young inspirational category by: Applying with the TAI oportunidades project due its social impact, and thanks to Diana's communication skills, motivation, credibility and social impact

Team Lead

Diana Alcota Varas, university student: She raised the idea of the problem based on her monetary and location limitation of not being from the central region of the country. She is in charge of all technical aspects of the project, from the research, business plan, programming, getting contacts and public speaking. She takes on this leader responsibility, because of her experience in creating technological and scientific research projects to be later disseminated. However, she is also a competitive programmer.

I've have always participated in free experiences,  mostly in online ones due to my location. I know reality of knowing a competition or program when you are no longer of age, or when they have already closed the registrations even if you follow them in their networks...
I used to get told there are technogical limits or that I simply couldn't partipate of something because it requires certain gatgets or avaiability to travel. In fact, 4 months ago with the school robotics team I created the last year, we were among the top 10 national pre-qualified by score to compete in nationals, but we withdrew due to travel costs.
I've lived the problem so much that I want to be the one to develop this necessary solution so that opportunities don't end up in the same bubble of people over and over again. Now... This happens with other areas as well! But STEM is the one that made me realize it, I'm are already inserted and I feel that is where everything should start from because of its big impact into society.

Problem validation 2021 (TAI oportunidades project)

A survey was conducted using google forms, which had a scope of 12 Chilean people, in addition to having the bias of people already inserted in the STEM world.

We remark the following questions and answers:

• All of our respondents consider it important to be aware of opportunities related to technology, learning and innovation. 
• 7/12 respondents believe that "not everyone has the opportunity to improve".
• Survey participants feel mostly constrained by their economic status and knowledge.
• Do you know ALL the opportunities you could apply for?  Only 1 respondent says she knows all the opportunities to which she can apply
• Do you feel that our app helps to spread and provide thenecessary knowledge to get the most out of technology? Most (10), validated our past prototype.
• Almost all respondents (11/12) answered that they would use the app.

Therefore... The problem and TAI oportunidades functions are validated.

CURRENT STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT

Due to time constraints, after designing the main screens, priority was given to verify the practical feasibility for the function “Interactive 3D learning tool”, thus achieving our 3 objectives using Python and Kivy. Create an image recognition code that detects your hands with a map of nodes, accessing their X and Y positions. This was developed using OpenCV and MediaPipe framework. Understand 3D transformations and create a cube that can rotate on its x,y,z axes. Considering that the optical illusion needs 4 objects, it was considered that after obtaining this code, it is possible to generate changes by means of mathematical formulas for each one of them and thus achieve the holographic effect.. Considering that the previous code was developed using python, due to problems with other platforms, an open source python code was sought. Create the envinronment to put together the previous steps. It is possible to create an app using Python, having customized its icon and loading image. Through Kivy you can place your own plastic template following this steps, to try separately our concept idea along testing the code.

Main results “Services Survey 2024 - PrismAR Interactive”

The instrument used to carry it out was a google forms, which was shared through the Moonshot Pirates Discord, Technovation Alumnae Linkedin group and Universidad Técnica Federico Santa Maria email channel. In total, 20 responses were received.

Overall, 18/20 testers are interested in downloading the app PrismAR Interactive and no one uses something similar as reason to not using the app. Additionally, 15 people signed up for beta testing. Finally, 100% of our respondents believe our services can reduce disparities in access to quality educational resources and experiences.

Awards & Acknowledges:

2nd Regional Place & Nati onal Semifinalist - Los Creadores: School Digital Talent Award (2023)
Obtained with the PrismAR Interactive project during its idea stage describing what it is, how it will work and who will benefit from this solution. Creativity, use of technology, impact and communication were evaluated through a video pitch on Youtube.

Winner “National Inspirational STEM Woman” - Transbank in Genias (2023)
Diana Belén Alcota Varas: “The innovator and founder of PrismAR Interactive is recognised for excelling in fields related to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and inspiring new generations to pursue careers in these disciplines.”

Cultural: We do not know all the opportunities in our country, so we must continue to investigate them before we can expand to other countries.

Software: So far, we've worked with free trial versions, open source programs and Canva Pro, for which we got free access thanks to Moonshot Pirates.However, due to the lack of a mentor, the progress has transitioned from wanting to use MIT App Inventor with Unity, getting technical limitations to develop as expected; Android Studio with OpenGL, having problems installing the latter and compiling code despite trying both Kotlin and Java. It has been difficult to find a software with the required characteristics needed to create the project and be compatible with the resources we have as a team. For example, to compile an android application from Kivy, we had to install a virtual machine and use Ubuntu.

Technical: We are having difficulty by connecting separately developed codes. On the other hand, there are concepts that we know will allow us to develop the functions that we expect, but we don't know how to implement the expected technologies SQL-based development and webscrapping through wget.

These are the barriers we face and hope to overcome by becoming a Solver and getting access to to the 9 month virtual support program. Specifically because we have the opportunity to learn through personalized mentoring, how to scale the project and develop it together with cutting-edge software in an optimal way for the project, without having to be constantly changing programming languages so that progress is lost.  Finally, as our own project seeks to have as clients people who belong to the Solve network, we hope to create a compelling pitch, which precisely demonstrates our leadership and scalability capabilities that we will enhance during the program.

To define them, we rely on the indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 global objectives established in 2015 to guide development efforts over 15 years, focusing on areas where we can have the greatest impact. 

During our first year, we aim to enhance the camera-only accuracy and the reliability of our app through community engagement by incentivizing users to train our AI-model with ultrasonic sensors’ data. This approach aligns with SDG 4 by promoting equal access to education and sustainable development (4.3.1), as well as with SDG 5 by empowering women through technology use (5.b). We plan to measure our impact by tracking the participation rate, ensuring that both men and women are equally involved. 

 Furthermore, in our long-term goals, we expect to see a positive impact on the environment resulting from recycled plastic use to interact with our app. Additionally, we aim to scale PrismAR capabilities to serve as a platform for fostering innovation and research by enabling users to test their ideas without significant financial investment. This aligns with SDG 9 by promoting innovation and research, and SDG 12 by encouraging waste reduction and recycling. Progress will be measured by tracking the national recycling rate and evaluating increased accessibility, particularly in underserved communities.

3 years