VRAC

VRAC COLLABORATION: HEAT ALERT APP TARGETS URBAN VULNERABILITY

Researchers at Iowa State, including contributors from VRAC, have piloted a mobile app that warns residents when indoor temperatures reach dangerous levels. The app is part of the NSF-funded CommHEAT project, which combines real-time sensor data and machine learning to predict heat emergencies in homes, especially in underserved urban areas.

VRAC researchers supported the app’s development through data modeling and interface design, helping ensure the tool is both accurate and accessible. The pilot study focused on Des Moines neighborhoods and aims to inform public health responses to extreme heat, now the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S.

🔗 Read the full article
https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/researchers-pilot-potentially-life-saving-heat-alert-app

NSF REU research project: A data-driven approach to designing a community-focused indoor heat emergency alert system for vulnerable residents

Short Title: CommHEAT

Faculty Mentor:Michael Dorneich ([email protected])
Graduate mentor:Tian Yao ([email protected])
REU Interns: Ruby Thomas, Chukwuma Maduwuba, and Angelica Brito Diaz

The CommHEAT project aims to tackle the severe but often overlooked danger of extreme heat, particularly in vulnerable communities. Extreme heat is hazardous for the elderly and low-income residents who are less likely to have centralized or adequate home cooling. As part of an NSF-funded project, we are developing physics-aware models to predict indoor heat at the street or house level beyond today’s city-wide heat indexes. However, communicating personalized and customized heat information alone is insufficient to change people’s behaviors. This research focuses on how to communicate community-focused indoor heat warnings to residents in such a way as to overcome barriers to action and change behaviors to mitigate heat emergencies. We will research how to best engage community residents through an app that gives residents the information they need to make better decisions. Additionally, the interactions may involve residents and their support networks, including family and caregivers, to help them take necessary actions to prevent heat-related emergencies. This research aims to improve the ability of vulnerable communities to respond effectively to heat emergencies and ensures that action can be taken to safeguard people’s health and well-being.

In this project, REU students would gain hands-on experience developing mobile applications focused on social good, specifically addressing the critical issue of extreme heat in vulnerable communities. The first task would be to understand the problem space and the types of solutions that exist today. The students can develop empathy and have a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by heat vulnerable populations through a user-centered design process. Based on that work, the team would explore the most effective way to present information that can change residents’ adaptive behaviors during heat events. Also, they will focus on creating a community support system to activate residents’ social networks. Technical challenges include translating data from computational models to a representation and interaction design effective for residents, how to activate social support networks, and how to use technology to impact resident behavior. Interns will create an app and deploy it to multiple mobile devices, and operating systems, including smartphones and tablets. Considerations must be made for different screen sizes and resolutions so the interface is effective for all users. The team would then implement a testable demonstration of their design. If time permits, a preliminary formative evaluation with users may be conducted. Finally, the 5-page research paper they write as part of the program would be further developed for publication

REU 2024 CommHEAT nosubs Project Title: A data-driven approach to designing a community-focused indoor heat emergency alert system for vulnerable residentsShort Title: CommHEATFacult...

XR-enabled STEM Curriculum for Teachers
Faculty: Eliot Winer, Kimberly Zarecor, Evrim Baran, Tom Daniels, and Merate Barakat
Graduate mentors: Jorge Yass, Hila Sabouni, Anjali Gali and Mustafa Kilinc
Title: XR-enabled STEM Curriculum for Teachers
Short title: STEM XR
REU Interns: Alee Winters, Andrea Torres, and Rodney Whitney

Summary

The overarching goal of the project will be to take a disciplinary curriculum taught in a classroom setting at the elementary, middle, or high school level and evaluate how different fundamental concepts from the curriculum can be “converted” from traditional in-class instruction to an XR environment to increase student’s engagement, knowledge transfer, and skill retention.

Detailed Description

Interns will facilitate discussions with students and teachers from local high schools to determine a list of candidate disciplinary curriculum that have challenges in student learning and engagement. Three to five example disciplines (e.g., STEM, engineering, architecture) will be recommended, and the interns will identify one to implement based on their research from literature and with students and teachers. Interns will conduct a comprehensive background investigation into the chosen discipline with regards to educator curriculum and accredited university admissions. This investigation will include collecting traditional classroom instruction materials for lesson(s) as well as student and teacher feedback. Interns will identify ways that the disciplinary curriculum lessons can be taught using extended reality (XR) technologies such as virtual and augmented reality. Text instruction and code cannot simply be shown on a user interface element in an XR environment. The primary research challenge will be utilizing 3D objects into an interactive 3D scene to teach concepts from the chosen discipline to excite students while also instructing them. Interns will create a Unity project with different scenes for each lesson and deploy the environment to multiple XR devices. Interns will then collect feedback from students and teachers about the XR-enabled STEM Curriculum.

REU 2024 - XR-enabled STEM Curriculum for Teachers Faculty: Eliot Winer, Kimberly Zarecor, Evrim Baran, Tom Daniels, and Merate BarakatGraduate mentors: Jorge Yass, Hila Sabouni, Anjali Gali and Mustafa Kilin...