Research and Development of Immersive Computational Thinking Tools using Virtual Reality, Natural Hazards Data, and Scientific Visualization to Engage K-12 Students in Scientific Computing and Engineering Education

The NHERI DesignSafe-CI Research Experience for Teachers (RET) supplement recruits two high school teachers to work alongside faculty, researchers, and staff of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin. Teachers participate in graduate-level research within the fields of computing and engineering with a particular emphasis on the intersection of natural hazards data, virtual reality, and scientific visualization. The research focus in 2019 was the use of NHERI data, A Frame and WebVR framework, and TACC visualization resources to create natural hazards design features in a virtual reality environment. Professional development and training from TACC supported research deliverables, including a lesson plan aligned with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) state standards, and a live demo to support TACC's education and outreach activities for K-12 and the general public. This poster will present the research process, highlighting TACC resources used, challenges and successes, and dissemination efforts.Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC

A natural history

A Natural History is an installation that creates the atmosphere of a miniature museum and has as its focus familial, autobiographical content. This “museum” appropriates its format from the ethnographic museum and cabinets of curiosities, which provide an institutional gaze and appeal to a sensibility of imagination and wonder. Major themes addressed include the public and private collection, art and science, and systems of ordering. Exploring these themes offers a means to visualize concepts of identity and memory. To make tangible that which is ephemeral, such as the past, identity and memory, I use objects, images and words as mimetic stand-ins and memory triggers. These form the contents and “collections” of the semi-fictional, autobiographical “museum”—A Natural History. The central collection of the exhibition, the Silhouettes, consists of a group of photographic silhouettes of family and loved ones. It is these individuals from whom I have collected, in addition to their images, the above-mentioned objects and words, which appear along side my own, throughout the installation. The objects— family heirlooms, photographs, baby teeth, hair clippings, etc.—are private souvenirs of great personal value. The words are memories handwritten on library cards, and stored in a library card catalog. Displayed within a public context, these personal items represent interior models of intimacy and illustrate the complexities that arise between the public and private collection. The thesis paper follows the format of the installation to provide the reader not only art historical background, conceptual intent, and influences upon the work, but to build a more complete sense of the specifics of the installation. A Natural History consists of five numbered, distinct “collections”—Silhouettes, Sampler, Card Catalog, Bloodlines, and Vitrines—and an accompanying catalogue A Key to A Natural History. ii The catalogue adopts the format of a museum catalogue, including didactic text, introduction, a floor plan, and descriptive illustrations to simulate an authentic museum experience. A chapter on the museum as muse and medium prefaces the chapters discussing the five collections of the installation. Each collection is addressed within the thesis paper individually, in their originally exhibited order, in accordance with how a viewer was intended to experience the installation

Assessment of Scheduling and Plan Execution of Apollo 14 Lunar Surface Operations

Although over forty years have passed since first landing on the Moon, there is not yet a comprehensive, quantitative assessment of Apollo extravehicular activities (EVAs). Quantitatively evaluating lunar EVAs will provide a better understanding of the challenges involved with surface operations. This first evaluation of a surface EVA centers on comparing the planned and the as-ran timeline, specifically collecting data on discrepancies between durations that were estimated versus executed. Differences were summarized by task categories in order to gain insight as to the type of surface operation activities that were most challenging. One Apollo 14 EVA was assessed utilizing the described methodology. Selected metrics and task categorizations were effective, and limitations to this process were identified

Integrating Human Performance Measures into Space Operations: Beyond Our Scheduling Capabilities?

Current planning and scheduling software tools for International Space Station (ISS) support different flight controller teams as they plan daily space operations. Planning and scheduling tools capabilities include integrating digitized ISS state inputs, evaluating their expected future states, and propagating them over time. Extensive, custom-made computational models of operations, of objectives, and of operational constraints help ISS flight controllers identify where scheduled events violate constraints. Based on the current capabilities of these tools, this paper proposes how human performance measures could be better integrated into planning and scheduling tools for space mission operations. Future integration of human performance measures could be applied to state inputs (in this case, the astronauts state) and to modeling human performance operational constraints & operational objectives (i.e., assigned activities) with parameters that are relevant to human performance measures. Gaps between the state-of-the-art for human performance modeling and planning tools for future exploration missions are identified

Level of Automation and Failure Frequency Effects on Simulated Lunar Lander Performance

A human-in-the-loop experiment was conducted at the NASA Ames Research Center Vertical Motion Simulator, where instrument-rated pilots completed a simulated terminal descent phase of a lunar landing. Ten pilots participated in a 2 x 2 mixed design experiment, with level of automation as the within-subjects factor and failure frequency as the between subjects factor. The two evaluated levels of automation were high (fully automated landing) and low (manual controlled landing). During test trials, participants were exposed to either a high number of failures (75% failure frequency) or low number of failures (25% failure frequency). In order to investigate the pilots' sensitivity to changes in levels of automation and failure frequency, the dependent measure selected for this experiment was accuracy of failure diagnosis, from which D Prime and Decision Criterion were derived. For each of the dependent measures, no significant difference was found for level of automation and no significant interaction was detected between level of automation and failure frequency. A significant effect was identified for failure frequency suggesting failure frequency has a significant effect on pilots' sensitivity to failure detection and diagnosis. Participants were more likely to correctly identify and diagnose failures if they experienced the higher levels of failures, regardless of level of automatio

Crew Autonomy Scheduling: Scheduling Performance Pilot Study

The purpose of this pilot study is to quantify crew performance in self-scheduling through Playbook, a mobile-based scheduling and planning tool. By investigating human performance within the task of self-scheduling, we can further develop countermeasures that can mitigate deficient scheduling performance, and evaluate changes as a result of these countermeasures. Moreover, this research can advise the development of standards and guidelines for autonomous crews in future missions. In human spaceflight today, the task of planning crew members schedules falls to Ops Planners. It takes many weeks to plan due to the complex impact each day-to-day activity can have on other activities, crew members, and resources. These impacts are measured as constraints, and these constraints can result in temporal, ordering, or resource requirements. As future spaceflight missions span longer distances and the latency of communication between the crew and Mission Control Center (MCC) increases, the need for crew members to work independently from MCC will also increase. This results in a need for crew members to be able to autonomously plan and adjust their own schedules

Human-Automation Allocations for Current Robotic Space Operations: Space Station Remote Manipulator System

NASAs Human Research Programs Risk of Inadequate Design of Human and Automation/Robotic Integration (HARI) delineates the uncertainty surrounding crew work with automation and robotics in spaceflight. HARI is concerned with detrimental effects of ineffective user interfaces, system designs and/or functional task allocation on crew performance, potentially compromising mission success and safety. This risk arises because of limited experience with complex automation and robotics in spaceflight. One key knowledge gap within the HARI risk is related to function allocation

Électroencéphalographie, fonctions sensori-motrices et profil cognitif associés au trouble de comportement en sommeil paradoxal

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Shadow TUAV Single Operator Consolidation : Display Assessment

Currently, Shadow UAV operations require two people: the Air Vehicle Operator (AVO) and the Mission Payload Operator (MPO). A previous workload study demonstrated that it is possible to combine these two positions such that one person can assume both roles (Appendix A). However, to achieve this consolidation, improved displays in terms of usability and increased automated functionality will be necessary to keep the workload of the single operator to acceptable levels. To demonstrate the types of changes that will need to occur for successful AVO and MPO consolidation, this report focuses on display and automation improvements in the following three areas: systems management, vehicle situation awareness, and payload operations. For each of these areas, a previous display has either been designed or improved upon, always applying human factors design principles. Each of these display redesigns exemplifies how operator workload can be decreased, as well as improve overall mission capability

Moving NASA Beyond Low Earth Orbit: Future Human-Automation-Robotic Integration Challenges

This presentation will provide an overview of current human spaceflight operations. It will also describe how future exploration missions will have to adapt and evolve in order to deal with more complex missions and communication latencies. Additionally, there are many implications regarding advanced automation and robotics, and this presentation will outline future human-automation-robotic integration challenges