Interactions within Distributed Mixed Reality Collaborative Environments

Traditionally virtual worlds have been regarded as standalone entities. However, the world moves fast towards a mixed reality collective environment, joining virtual and real world by incorporating accessible ubiquitous computing for people. Mobile and wearable computers act as a door to connect people to virtuality, e.g. The use of fitness/activity trackers, which collect real world information helping users to complement reality with virtuality improving their health and fitness. A different example is the use of mobile devices to connect people that do not share the same physical location in a virtual way, thought phone calls, videoconferences, chat and social media applications. These examples show that currently we live in two realities, processing information of both worlds in real time. Our video submission presents a work-in-progress research prototype towards the creation of a Blended Reality Distributed System, complementing the paper [1] submitted to the main track of the conference. The test bed scenario proposed is a mixed reality collaborative laboratory activity, performed by learners within geographically dispersed locations. The goal of the activity is to construct a small robot emphasising computing fundamentals. The video is available at: http://youtu.be/akKPHnDY9bw.