Following a nationwide open call, The Verizon Foundation, in partnership with Verizon 5G Labs and NYC Media Lab, selected 10 university and nonprofit teams to participate in the Verizon 5G EdTech Challenge. This project was selected as the winner of the challenge.

I came up with the idea, and we did primary and secondary research, including the survey with the teachers and students. I participated in the design and helped with the final touch of the prototype.

While we were working on ARound project, we interviewed the teenagers with ASD and could learn that many high functioning ASD students experience hard time in social transitions. 50% students with autism had trouble obtaining and sustaining friendships, and they had difficulties participating in normal social events (Taylor, 2005). Not only the students, the teachers also have difficulty to help students with ASD.

• The problem that students have

  • Having difficulty with huge social transition

  • Need for the predictability challenges in understanding what activity will be coming next

  • Lack of the adequate environment and opportunity for repetitive learning

  The problem that teachers have

  • Lack of resources

  • Very different special needs

  • Lack of opportunity for repetitive learning

• A student who has high functioning ASD and who needs extra support with social interaction

• A student with special needs transitioning from elementary to middle school who struggles to deal with the change in social dynamic

There are already emerging focus on utilizing AR for children with special needs. Introducing novel technology can be highly motivating, engaging and creating a more in-depth learning experience for students with ASD. With mixed reality environment, we suppose that

• The students can practice social transition and interaction skills while bridging the real and digital world.

• Also, the learners can practice in a safe space created by the psychological distance, where it is okay to make mistakes.

• Learning can be repeated numerous times at the individual’s pace.

• We provide the tracking program for the teachers to help them record and track the student’s improvement.

As a solution to this problem, our team proposes to create a Hololens game to help students with autism improve their social skills. The basic idea is to have players read emotions and initiate conversation with virtual characters situated around a room. Students will be able to practice in a realistic, and fun environment that safe. And this learning content can be easily monitored and customizable by the teacher.

To elevate the generalization, we decided to switch the virtual model to the volumetric capture. We expect that the learners will engage in the experience by interacting with realistic volumetric capture characters.