All Creatures Great and Small

Abstract

The EmbodySuit augmented human system allows students to experience life from the perspectives of different organisms, by virtually and physically becoming birds, spiders, ants and even bacteria. Inspired by current advances in nanorobotics, Star Trek's holodeck and the Magic school bus, Embodysuit makes learning embodied and experiential. The student becomes a real organism, part of a real, natural ecosystem. The student's senses are adapted to those of the organism, and the student's actions map to the actions of an organism-sized robot inside a real environment. Our system is based on our projection of advances that will occur in the next 35 years in augmented reality, cybernetics and micro robotics. By about 2050 EmbodySuit type systems will be feasible to prototype, enabling us to address key research questions in classroom scientific inquiry; experiential and embodied learning; technology development; and design for 3D embodied cyber-systems.