SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project project would develop an affordable data gathering technology that would for the first time enable two or three dimensional motion to be analyzed in real time in the classrooms of physical science, physics, and mathematics. This technology would be applicable to middle school through college teaching. It's unique features would be: real time 6OHz operation for immediate feedback; use of inexpensive, common video camera technology; three dimensional analysis capability; platform independence; affordability. The technology developed would consist of specialized circuitry and software to detect and track objects in the field of view of two video cameras simultaneously, and to compute the nature of the motion in three dimensions. It would also be useful in the study of two dimensional representations of three dimensional phenomena, visualization, and in the mathematics of detection and position analysis. The commercial potential of this innovation is sizable: The analysis of motion is a cornerstone in physics and physical science, taught in tens of thousands of classrooms each year. This potential market is already in place, using much older technologies. Through this innovation a significant benefit could be realized in teaching, and a substantial market reached.

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will complete the research and development to product of a low-cost tool for exploratory science and math learning, a three-dimensional motion detector. This device uses a passive optical detection scheme with two ordinary home video cameras as sensors. For at least 15 years, systems that capture and display motion in real-time have been used for studying the meaning of graphs and to investigate physical phenomena, and their educational effectiveness has been researched and documented. To date, all low-cost systems have been constrained to one dimension, and generally use ultrasonic echo location. This project will make 3D-motion detection affordable and competitive with one-dimensional systems when used with schools' existing video equipment. It offers great learning potential by allowing students to build a bridge from their universal 3D-world experience into mathematical space. The Phase II project proceeds along three fronts: refinement of the signal processing hardware, coding of the 'host' software for capture, display, and analysis of the 3D data, and the development and testing of educational activities. The software and activities are targeted for high school mathematics and physics. This small business proffers a hands-on exploratory system to allow students multiple views and ways of understanding the complex study of motion. Several of the largest national distributors of educational electronic laboratory equipment have demonstrated interest in selling and promoting the motion detector.