AR Sandbox

2022 Kinect and projector on real sand Top grade

A sandbox where a Kinect measures the height of the sand and a projector paints a landscape onto it, with knobs for water level and seasons. Built with classmates for the school open house.

The sandbox with a projected landscape of mountains, grass and water

How it works

An Xbox 360 Kinect above the table measures the height of the sand, and a projector paints a landscape onto it based on that height: snow on the peaks, grass lower down and water in the holes. Two knobs on the side set the water level and the temperature, and the music changes with them.

The Kinect data goes through a small bridge program into Unity, which redraws the map twice a second.

The same sandbox with a different water level

Diagram of the table with the projector and IR camera above it

My part

I built the table with another group member and programmed the Arduino that reads the knobs. Unity cannot open a serial port by itself, so the Arduino values go through the same bridge program as the Kinect data. The table takes about 150 kg of sand, so it went through a few iterations before it could hold it.