Handwaver: a gesture-based virtual mathematical making environment
We report on the design and development of HandWaver, a gesture-based mathematical making environment for use with immersive, room-scale virtual reality. A beta version of HandWaver was developed at the IMRE Lab at the University of Maine and released in the spring of 2017. Our goal in developing HandWaver was to harness the modes of representation and interaction available in virtual environments and use them to create experiences where learners use their hands to make and modify mathematical objects. In what follows, we describe the sandbox construction environment, an experience within HandWaver where learners construct geometric figures using a series of gesture-based operators, such as stretching figures to bring them up into higher dimensions, or revolving figures around axes that learners can position by dragging and locking. We describe plans for research and future development.