Starting Spring Semester 2006, the Carnegie Mellon University Human-Computer Interaction project team began work for its client, Pittsburgh Voyager. Pittsburgh Voyager is a non-profit educational organization that operates a river learning center for students, teachers and the community of Southwestern Pennsylvania. Voyager was founded in 1992 by a group of parents who wanted use Pittsburgh's rivers as an experiential classroom to get children excited about science, mathematics and learning.

Voyager Searchlight, a CMU MHCI project team, was tasked with the broad challenge of determining how technology could enhance the on-boat experience for all involved. As successful as the on-boat curriculum has been, it was clear that many of Voyager’s on and off-boat operations could benefit from the use of technology. To this extent, the challenge for the CMU team was to find ways to keep students engaged while keeping instructors at the forefront of the experience. The technology should be a byproduct that weaves itself invisibly into the on-boat experience for all involved.

A solution was developed that focuses on the management of teaching curriculum, and more importantly, Voyager instructors' interaction with students. The Engage Media Display empowers instructors with a central repository to organize all artifacts relevant to their teaching. The instructor interface is implemented on a Tablet PC wirelessly connected to large screen displays mounted throughout the boat. With a simple tap, an instructor can project image media in real time for students. The system goes beyond presentation and actually introduces the notion of instructor spaces that support content tailoring for teaching styles ranging from random access to structured, sequential presentation.

Voyager will receive a working system that can be used "out of box." With minimal setup time, our solution can be applied to a specific on-boat educational station, allowing instructors to immediately begin designing rich curriculum content.