Blog #2 Hands On Math

Paper title: 
Hands-On Math: A page-based multi-touch and pen desktop for technical work and problem solving

Paper Authors: 
Robert Zeleznik, Andrew Bragdon, Ferdi Adeputra, Hsu-Sheng Ko

Author Bios:
-Robert Zeleznik is the Director of Research at Brown University’s Computer Graphic Group.

-Andrew Bragdon is a second year PhD student at Brown University.

-Ferdi Adeputra studied Computer Science at Brown University and is now an analyst at Goldman Sachs.

-Hsu-Sheng Ko studied at Brown University.

Presentation Venue: 
This paper was presented at the UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23rd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology.


Summary:
Hands-On Math is a hybrid of a Computer Algebra System(CAS), and virtual paper. The authors wanted to combine a virtual paper system with the power of a standard CAS. To simplify the research and time involved only a high schools level of math was implemented. The authors main hypothesis was to see how the users efficiency improved using this system. To test the hypothesis the authors selected nine individuals to provide feedback on Hands-On Math for ways that they could improve it.

Hands-On Math attempts to incorporate CAS and touch surfaces to simulate paper. It runs on a Microsoft Surface and is equipped with an infrared light pen which is used to tell touch from pen input. Hands-On Math brings together the feeling and sharing ability of writing on a white-board, but at the same time preserving the pen/paper feeling.

This software relies heavily on gestures to do an assortment of functions. For example to create a new page one must use two fingers to swipe and create a new page. If one were only to use one finger it would simply scroll in the current area.

Discussion:
This technology is an attempt to bridge the gap between simple note taking and the powers of CAS. It will be a very powerful tool to both researchers and working people alike. You can use it to teach your children math, or build the next major city.The application of this software/hardware is amazing.

However as it always is with research there are some drawbacks. There is such a steep learning curve for this software because of the multitude of gestures that are involved. I think that in the future they should cut down the amount of gestures for beginners, and then allow users to enable more gestures as needed.