Get Ready for the Sandbox of the Future

Your kids’ sandbox looks like shit compared to this. The people at UC Davis have created a sandbox that lets you make topographical maps in real time, with the ability to fill in virtual water. Here’s how it’s done according to their YouTube page:

Video of a sandbox equipped with a Kinect 3D camera and a projector to project a real-time colored topographic map with contour lines onto the sand surface. The sandbox lets virtual water flow over the surface using a GPU-based simulation of the Saint-Venant set of shallow water equations.

Not sure what shallow water equations are, but dropping some acid and creating your own 3D maps in a sandbox sounds like an amazing time.