Public Reaction to the Sandbox

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This weekend, we had the opportunity to show off our sandbox at a couple of open days at University of Liverpool. This gave us a chance to receive questions from students and parents about the project and gain a better understanding of what interested people about the project.

The most common questions were concerning the practical applications of the sandbox. People were interested in how the software could be used to simulate floods and landscape planning. There were also a lot of suggestions on how we could further develop the project for more uses. Some of the most interesting suggestions included adding biomes or giving the option to define regions by function, such as defining industrial land and residential areas.

Aside from questions about the applications of the project, there was also a lot of interest in the process. Everyone seemed either amazed or amused by our usage of an Xbox Kinect sensor and a lot of people wanted to know more about the software. We were asked questions about the programming language as well as the cost and timescale of the project.

Overall, the response was very positive and people seemed keen to find out more. Generally, people enjoyed that the project was educational, fun and innovative.

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