UncleStem's AR Sandbox Turns Kinetic Sand Into a Live Topographic Map
You probably know what a development sandbox is, but you’ve never seen one quite like UncleStem’s. After seeing a demonstration in which UCLA researchers used a depth-sensing camera and a digital projector to map real-time topographic data onto a physical box of sand, UncleStem decided to build a budget-friendly version of his own. When you pile up the sand, mountains form, and digging trenches creates rivers and lakes right before your eyes — no glasses or goggles needed.
Rather than relying on the expensive commercial depth cameras research projects use, the creator centered the build around a miniature Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensor capable of reading distance across an 8×8 matrix. By firing infrared light and measuring the return time, the sensor captures the contours of the sand surface in real time.
The depth sensor is mounted beneath the projector (📷: UncleStem)
To display the terrain, UncleStem picked up a tiny secondhand...
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