ARCHES Walker

Challenges and Issues

ARCHES Walker has been developed in the framework of WP13, which aims at disseminating the knowledge of the project in the scientific community and investigates the possibility to use the results and tools for outreach, in particular towards higher education.
The goal of this activity is to create awareness among the general public about the research work performed in ARCHES and its implications for citizens. As well as raising the profile of ARCHES with the general public, outreach activities should also introduce students from schools and universities to science, research and innovation. These students should be encouraged and motivated to pursue careers in science.
Going back to ARCHES, the challenge for the outreach is to provide a global and attractive view on the Xray universe with an emphasis on some objects of interest.

The Target

The ARCHES Walker targets a wide audience. It is intended to be deployed in our institutions, in planetariums or in any education show (non restrictive list) . People interested in this product could also download the kit and run their own ARCHES Walker.

The concept

ARCHES Walker is based on the use of both a desktop/laptop on the display side to host Aladin and a mobile device (tablet or phablet) on the user side to interact with the first one through a user friendly multi touch interface. Aladin displays a selected area of the sky in a specified wavelength band. It relies on the facility of Aladin to browse the sky à la Google Earth. The dataset feeding Aladin can easily be stored locally while the coverage is limited to 3XMM. ARCHES Walker would give to a wide audience, the opportunity of take the control on a professional tool showing professional data. It will allow the user to drill within the EM spectrum and to get any extra information.The mobile device is available for the public and we think that this kind of interaction contributes to provide a user friendly area around the booth.