In my final work I deal with the topic of handicap, disability and otherness. Any otherness causes fear in society, fear of ignorance. Being healthy, "normal," means the assumption of a full-fledged life of modern man. A disabled person, whether physically or mentally, does not meet these priorities and ideas of normality. I try to point out the handicap positively, not to hide it. I also work on the qualities of beauty and ugliness because they are very similar to health and disability issues. My final work is focused on the affected bodies. The result is a set of exposed objects that, in conjunction with the installation, can act as luxury goods. The work consists of about fifteen hand-sewn gloves of various shapes and materials. They are very extraordinary objects that only "sit" for the chosen. The aim of the work is to contribute to works that seek to promote disability in art or culture.

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Augmented Reality is a technology where the user sees the environment mixed with a virtual reality containing things such as text, animations, pictures, and videos. Remote guidance is a sub-field of Augmented Reality where guidance is given remotely to identify and solve problems without being there in person. Using hands overlay, the guide can use his or her hand to point and show gestures in real-time. To do this one needs to track the hands and create a video stream that represents them. The video stream of the hands is then overlaid on top of the video from the individual getting help. A solution currently used in the industry is to use image segmentation, which is done by segmenting an image to foreground and background to decide what to include. This requires distinct differences between the pixels that should be included and the ones that should be discarded to work correctly. This thesis instead investigates a model-based approach to hand tracking, where one tracks points of interest on the hands to build a 3D model of them. A model-based solution is based on sensor data, meaning that it would not have the limitations that image segmentation has. A prototype is developed and integrated into the existing solution. The hand modeling is done in a Unity application and then transferred into the existing application. The results show that there is a clear but not too significant overhead, so it can run on a normal computer. The prototype works as a proof of concept and shows the potential of a model-based approach.

With the low enrollment in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields at the high school and college levels, administrators at the local school district have been struggling to improve elementary school students' performance in math and science. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the STEM program using hands-on instruction facilitated by professional development (PD) activities. Guided by Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky' constructivism theory, the qualitative program evaluation using the research questions examined the success of the STEM program using a hands-on instructional approach and the PD support that teachers need to be effective in the classroom. Through a purposeful homogenous sampling, 10 science and math teachers having the experience in using the hands-on instructional approach participated in the data collection. Data collected from the 6 interview respondents, a 4-member focus group respondents through semi-structured interviews, and Grade 5 students' science and math test scores were analyzed for assessing outcomes. Thematic coding, peer debriefing, and member checks were employed as methods to ensure the trustworthiness of interpretations. Two themes emerged indicating that hands-on pedagogy allowed students to become active learners and PD activities provided teachers with quality teaching skills. The program evaluation report recommends efforts to make PD necessary for kinesthetic learning as an integral component implementing a STEM program. Social change is promoted by helping teachers to use proper kinesthetic learning skills to translate STEM concepts into reality to increase student's performance

The present dissertation research examined the effects of applying the enhanced hands-on intervention to reveal and correct student misunderstandings of the concepts in engineering dynamics, especially particle dynamics. We involved 36 student volunteers for three different research topics. The student participants were divided into two groups in each research topic: enhanced hands-on intervention and pure textbook groups. An interview and intervention was conducted with each participant individually. The author introduced the “Think-Aloud” method with two kinds of interventions mentioned above. The participants were required to speak out their thought process loud as they worked on the two sets of assessment questions with intervention between them, and the entire process was audio and video recorded. The audio records were transcribed into text files and segmented with meaningful codes. In all of the codes, the relationship between misconceptions found and potential reasons for these misconceptions were revealed. The effects were assessed by qualitative and quantitative research methods. Statistical analysis of the coding results verified the efficacy of the coding process. The qualitative research focused on the reasoning progress of the participants and the quantitative research focused on the score increase rates and normalized learning gains of the participants in both intervention groups. It was found that the groups who utilized the enhanced hands-on intervention achieved a better performance than those who accepted only textbook interventions in score increase rates, normalized learning gains, and code reduction rates, for all three research topics. In addition, the enhanced hands-on intervention showed a higher effectiveness than the textbook intervention for lower-level concepts, but it was harder to correct those misconceptions related to applications with higher abstraction of the concept itself. From the results of the normalized learning gains, the enhanced hands-on intervention benefitted the top students more than the struggled students. The research results suggested that the enhanced hands-on intervention should be added to the current engineering curricula in order to help students to improve their academic performance.

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This study summarizes research conducted in a fourth grade classroom in a suburban elementary school in the fall of 2005. This study investigated the practice of using hands-on instructional strategies, enhanced with technology, to improve students' attitudes and performance in mathematics. The classroom teacher supplemented conventional mathematics instruction with hands-on activities. Attitudinal data were collected using a pre- and post anxiety survey as well as journal writing assignments and student interviews. Performance data was collected using evaluative assessments. Results of this study showed a positive change in students' attitude towards mathematics. Student performance gains were recorded and analyzed throughout the 12-week study. Twenty of the 26 students who participated in the study scored satisfactorily on all evaluative assessments. Data indicated little change was evident in student performance on assessments due to the high performing students who participated in the study.

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While some societies face problems of crime and gang violence and are looking into different solutions, very little research exists on what community and architectural design and building can contribute to the reconstruction of the social fabric. This text explores how various elements and factors of architecture can be applied to reduce crime and gang violence activity in a city. By studying several manifestos and classic writings, this study will inquire the moral factor within architecture, the use of local materials and vernacular techniques, the definition of an architectural program that heals and the use of the members of the community hands for the construction of a building, the feel belonging and the ownership of a piece of architecture. La Libertad, El Salvador has been used as the place to put this into practice, being in the top most violent cities in the nation. The initiative of the architect to use the cities resources, such as bamboo as material to boost the economy through the architecture is explored to measure the impact in numbers by reducing rates of crime and gang activity in the city. / Master of Architecture / El Puerto de La Libertad in El Salvador is one of the best destinations in Central America for surfing with its great swells of waves and beautiful beaches. But there is a consistent tone within the visitors and residents’ comments about the city: they don’t feel as safe as they want to. The issue of insecurity and gang violence steadily increased after the Civil War in El Salvador ended in 1992. So, there have been different nation and city plans to mitigate the problem since then, but none has really aimed to inclusivity, most of them have been focused on fighting it with violence. My thesis seeks answers within architecture to help alleviate gang violence in the city of Puerto, through the design and development of a city master plan that connects different facilities centered in the farming, harvesting and use of bamboo for construction, furniture making and crafting. This will allow a boost in the town’s economy and the reconstruction of the social fabric. Finally joining the beauty of the blue of the ocean and the sky, with local materials and the hands of the members of the community for the design — and potentially building— of the Surfing Youth Center.