EventScope: A Telescience Interface for Internet-Based Education

The goal of exploration through telerobotics is to broaden our understanding of the universe. Towards this goal, the EventScope project at Carnegie Mellon University merges educational software and a telescience / telerobotics mission interface for use within classroom settings to provide more direct connections to new information. Answering scientific questions requires mission interaction on a first-person level—for instance, a student can glean a wealth of information by remotely exploring the contours of a rock formation. Traditionally this interaction is limited to only a single user because a robot can be in only one place at one time. EventScope addresses this scalability problem by enabling dynamic interaction with mission information through tools that allow users to navigate independently of the spatio-temporal nature of a robotic expedition. Further, interface elements such as annotations and hotspots allow science educators and scientists to annotate representations of remote sites to convey their expert knowledge to students on a mass scale.