The Elizabethtown College engineering department had recently unveiled new advanced holo-projection technology that will allow remote students to go to classes and be present on campus in order to still get the full campus experience.

One of the senior capstone project teams had been working on holo-projection technology in order to create a tool for interpreting and projecting avatar-simulated ASL communications before the pandemic started. When Etown students transitioned to remote learning last spring, the team decided to focus on creating a prototype of the holo-projection system.

Although the technology has only recently been launched, the department had been working on it for much longer. “The key technology for this system goes back 8 years,” engineering and physics professor Dr. Kurt DeGoede said. “A pair of computer engineering students developed a holographic enabled game board that could be used to emulate chess on a small 8” x 8” virtual chess board.”

The students’ holo-projection chess board utilized off-the-shelf hobbyist technology, and their game was a simplified version with only six pieces per player. After she graduated, one of the students decided to launch a small start-up company called E-nabled Technologies® to improve the technology, and she has sponsored several capstone project groups over the years to develop similar holo-projection technology.

“Currently the prototype is set up for one student use in our Esbenshade Design Lab,” DeGoede explained. “The remote learner views a camera view from the location of the projection. The student is wearing a set of 8 wireless 9-DoF sensors that measure the motion of head, torso, [delete Oxford comma] and arms. The camera view rotates with the motion of the head.”

Any remote student can use the technology, but the projection system must be set up in a particular classroom. With only one student being able to use the prototype at a time, a complete return to “normal” has not yet been achieved for all remote students. However, the students believe that holographic projection has so far created a more natural interaction between remote and on-campus students. The remote students can sign up to use the holo-projection seat on each class day by filling out a form on JayWeb.

“I really hope that all colleges will have tech like this soon,” junior engineering major Arielle Cox said. “Dormitories and travel won’t be needed anymore since students can holo in from all over the world.” The technology has been especially helpful to Cox since she is a remote student from out of state. 

Surprisingly, DeGoede reported that the technology works well most of the time. Of course, glitches and malfunctions still happen occasionally. Think of the problems you experience with Zoom meetings and ramped up a couple of orders of magnitude in terms of complexity. The most common malfunctions have been connection issues, choppy audio in person and remotely and delayed speech or movement of the hologram student.

DeGoede believes that advanced holo-projection technology will be used outside the classroom and even after the pandemic is over.

“I envision strong usage in remote business meetings,” he said. “I believe the days of flying around the world for in-person business meetings is over, and these technologies will make remote participation in such meetings more effective. I imagine companies setting up conference rooms with several holo projection seats positioned around the conference table.”

The engineering department hopes to improve the current prototype in order to have multiple students use it at once and to fix any malfunctions. Soon, hopefully, remote students will have a more normal campus experience.