Projects

Graduate Projects


The thesis revolves around designing and developing an educational platform to help both educators and students with the learning process. The purpose of the thesis is to increase educator’s interest towards using more technology in the classroom and make learning more engaging for students. Specifically, the system aims to motivate the usage of games in the classroom as either a learning activity or an evaluation tool. The thesis will look at four methods for achieving this: through co-creation, gamification, multimodality, and the STEAM framework. An architecture of the overall educational platform will be presented together with a conceptual map of the system’s design. The system is narrowed down to a proof of concept, which will be implemented and evaluated by qualified educators and by students. The results show that the overall architecture was welcomed by both the educators and students. The educators also responded that this approach would be successful with their younger students. Overall, the results gathered corroborate with the theoretical aspects researched, therefore it is possible to assume that the system is capable of impacting the educational scene and help educators decrease workload when working with daily quizzes.

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Bibtex reference format:

@techreport{Xtreport,
    author    = "Frederik V. B\ae rentsen and Andrea Keiser",
    title     = "Designing an advanced educational platform using co-creation and gamification",
    institution = "Aalborg University Copenhagen",
    year      = "2016",
    month    = "June",
}

This project revolves around recreating an outdoor environment as a 3D model, for this, a drone is used to capture images of a specific area. The focus of the project is to test three different reconstruction techniques, greedy triangulation, grid projection and poisson, implemented using the point cloud library (PCL) on three different sizedmmodels (large, medium and small). For the large object, a house is used, for the medium, a caponier at a museum, and for the small object the Stanford bunny is used. The reconstruction will be evaluated based on computational time, complexity, memory use and mesh accuracy. A use-case is made in collaboration with the museum Mosede Fort in Greve, Denmark and an interactive learning application is made using one of the reconstructed meshes. The application is tested at the museum and based on feedback from the test and the client, this feedback is used to create a list of improvements that could be considered for future expansion. The evaluation of the meshes shows that greedy triangulation is best for small and large objects whereas grid projection and greedy triangulation is equally good for medium sized objects.

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Bibtex reference format:

@techreport{Xtreport,
    author    = "Frederik V. B\ae rentsen and Andrea Keiser and Ann-Marie H. B. Bech",
    title     = "Mesh Reconstruction Using The Point Cloud Library",
    institution = "Aalborg University Copenhagen",
    year      = "2015",
    month    = "June",
}

Searching for an object in a set of distractors has been researched thoroughly, however all the current articles use simple lines or simple three-dimensional graphics for both target and distractors. This paper will research how advanced 3D graphics created in Autodesk Maya will affect the visual search task in a pip and pop similar experiment.
Two different experiments were made; one where participants were asked to search for a target object in a visual search setup using three different types of graphics, accompanied by sound, and one where participants used visual search to look for a target object using advanced graphics, both with and without sound. The first experiment shows that using different types of graphics does not change the pip and pop effect when 3D modelled objects are used. The second experiment confirms the assumption that the sound has a positive effect on the search time when applying auditory beep to the advanced 3D graphics compared to the lack of the auditory beep.

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Bibtex reference format:

@techreport{Xtreport,
    author    = "Frederik V. B\ae rentsen and Andrea Keiser and Ann-Marie H. B. Bech and Nicky M. Kj\ae rgaard",
    title     = "Pip and Pop 2.0",
    institution = "Aalborg University Copenhagen",
    year      = "2014",
    month    = "December",
}

* * *

Visual search tasks require a search for a target object within a cluttered, changing environment while being guided by an auditory beep. This research is based on a visual search task with 36 lines, 35 skewed and only one vertical, while the task consists of searching through this setup is combined with a brain recording technique. The EEG is implemented to show whether the task elicits an ERP when the target object is found. The ERP focus in this study is P300 and it is proposed that the participants will show a potential 300ms after the target was found. The results recorded do not show any clear P300 potential within 1000ms after the target stimuli, however some possible artefacts that could disrupt the results are presented. The paper ends with a short discussion on how EEG and brainwaves related interfaces can contribute to the Medialogy study.

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Bibtex reference format:

@techreport{Xtreport,
    author    = "Frederik V. B\ae rentsen and Andrea Keiser and Ann-Marie H. B. Bech and Nicky M. Kj\ae rgaard",
    title     = "Multimodal Perception and Cognition - Mini Project",
    institution = "Aalborg University Copenhagen",
    year      = "2014",
    month    = "December",
}

Undergraduate Projects


This project revolves around creating a better experience for the spectators in a competitive trading card game called Magic: the Gathering (MtG). The research investigates already existing spectating methods and how to improve them. Some of these spectating methods, which involve streaming a top down view of the game table, are mainly used for tournaments.
The survey conducted in the preliminary analysis had led to narrowing down the target group from highly experienced MtG players to beginners, who do not have much knowledge of the cards released however can play the game very well. With this information in mind, the research focused on creating a prototype that contains features to help beginners follow the game and keep them updated about basic information such as player life, dice rolls and keywords. The implementation phase required the usage of two computers connected to each other through networking, which exchanged data from a physical table of the players playing and a display showing the game to the spectators. The prototype was overall finished however; some features had not been implemented either due to financial reasons or time restraints.
With the consent of the Magic: the Gathering store Faraos Cigarer, the prototype was set up at that location and a test was conducted, which tests the difference in spectators experience between the experimental group, who use the prototype, and a control group who watch a top down stream of the game. The test concluded that there is an improvement in the spectators experience when watching a digitized version of a game of MtG.

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Bibtex reference format:

@techreport{Xtreport,
    author    = "Frederik V. B\ae rentsen and Andrea Keiser and Egle Slimaite and Mette H. Gere",
    title     = "Magic: the Spectating",
    institution = "Aalborg University Copenhagen",
    year      = "2014",
    month    = "June",
}

Many online chat users use emoticons everyday. But why are they using emoticons and how do they convey emotion. Some users use emoticons a lot while others don’t, what is the importance of emoticons in any online chat? The paper will do qualitative and quantitative research before analyzing the results and applying theory about facial expressions. It is possible to conclude that emotions and emoticons are connected. The importance of emoticons in online chat is to better convey emotions and the natural use of emoticons could be explained with Darwin’s general principles of expression.

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Bibtex reference format:

@techreport{Xtreport,
    author    = "Frederik V. B\ae rentsen",
    title     = "Emoticons in online chat",
    institution = "Aalborg University Copenhagen",
    year      = "2014",
    month    = "June",
}

This project revolves around perception of the spatial construction in movies and the changes occurring when a scene uses either continuity editing or discontinuity editing, in regards to keeping or crossing the 180 degree line. This was further investigated in order to be able to design the given scene to fit with both types of editing, while having a simple plot and animations.
The test was conducted as a between-group experiment to which convenience sampling was used, while the participants were assigned to each group randomly. The test suggests that there might not be any significant difference in how the viewer perceives the spatial construction of a scene when this is edited while keeping the 180 degree line (continuous editing) or crossing it (discontinuous editing).

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Bibtex reference format:

@techreport{Xtreport,
    author    = "Frederik V. B\ae rentsen and Andrea Keiser and Ann-Marie H. B. Bech and Katharina B. Mortensen and Nicky M. Kj\ae rgaard and Philip B. Brisson",
    title     = "Crossing the line",
    institution = "Aalborg University Copenhagen",
    year      = "2013",
    month    = "December",
}

This report is about augmenting static art through the implementation of sound interactivity, with the goal of making it more interesting of an experience. The report researches the various fields of art and sound interaction. Based on this research, a prototype sound-interactive artwork is designed and developed. This early prototype is then used for experiments, so as to obtain the point-of-view of the users, for improving the prototype. The completed prototype is then tested in a final experiment in contrast to a similar, but motionless artwork. The results from the final experiment are then analyzed. The results show that; though variation of test subjects is somewhat narrow, results show a clear indication of the interactive artwork being more interesting than the motionless artwork.

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Bibtex reference format:

@techreport{Xtreport,
    author    = "Frederik V. B\ae rentsen and Andrea Keiser and Martin H. Poulsen and Patrick L. Hald and Niclas B. Nielsen and Nicky Sabinsky",
    title     = "Audiolized Art",
    institution = "Aalborg University Copenhagen",
    year      = "2013",
    month    = "May",
}