A time-traveling watch that lets you visit any moment in history

Immersive Media

You’ve chosen to imagine a watch that can whisk you into another time. You might want to learn more about immersive media, which makes faraway times and places feel closer. Just don’t lose your watch in the triassic period!

Fun Facts:

In the 1850s, stereoscopes made two photographs look like one 3D scene, letting people explore faraway places from home.
The View-Master debuted at the 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair and showed 3D pictures through a small viewer.
At the Levi and Catharine Coffin State Historic Site in Indiana, augmented reality lets visitors see buildings from the 1800s that have disappeared from the modern town.

Immersive Media

LISTEN

This scenario explores immersive media—technology that can make another place or reconstructed time feel close. Nineteenth-century stereoscopes brought three-dimensional views of distant places into people’s homes. Today, virtual reality can surround viewers with entire digital spaces. Future tools could make exploring another time feel even more real. Just don’t lose your watch in the triassic period!

Fun Facts:

Stereographs became popular in the 1800s. People collected 3D views of places they might never visit themselves.
The View-Master was introduced at the 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair. It was first intended as an educational device for adults before becoming a popular children’s toy.
A new VR project called PaleoScope lets people explore six different versions of Athens, stretching from 70 million years ago to the 1800s. One stop takes visitors all the way back to when dinosaurs lived.
A University of Rochester and University of Ghana project used billions of laser-scanned points to create a detailed virtual-reality reconstruction of Elmina Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Ghana.
In 2026, Boston’s Museum of Science presented Life Chronicles, an immersive virtual-reality journey through approximately 3.5 billion years of life on Earth, including ancient oceans, forests, and the age of dinosaurs.

Discussion Question:

If we could visit the past through super-realistic media, how could we tell what really happened and what someone added?

LISTEN

Physical Build:

Make your own time-travel watch from cardboard, paper, tape, and markers. Add a dial with several times or places you could visit. Pick one, then build a tiny scene showing what your portal would reveal. Try making another version of the same time or place to show how one destination can have many stories.

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Digital Build:

With an adult, ask ChatGPT:

“My time-travel watch just sent me somewhere in the past. Where did I land?”

Read the answer, then research what that place and time actually looked like. Draw your own portal view and decide what details you would change after your research.

or a magic notebook that brings whatever you draw to life?

Magic Notebook

Interactive Drawing

LISTEN

You’ve chosen to imagine a notebook where your drawings can respond and come alive. You might want to learn more about interactive drawing, where computers recognize and react to what we create. But be careful with the magic notebook—you’ll have to feed your notebook dog every day!

Fun Facts:

In 1963, Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad let people draw directly on a computer screen using a special light pen.
Google’s Quick, Draw! asks people to doodle while a computer tries to guess what they are drawing. More than 50 million doodles had been contributed by 2017.
Sketch Aquarium from teamLab lets kids draw and color a sea creature on real paper, scan it, and watch it come alive and swim inside a giant digital aquarium.

Interactive Drawing

LISTEN

This scenario explores interactive drawing, a foresight concept where our drawings become inputs. A computer can recognize our marks and respond to what we make. Early computer tools already let people change drawings right on a screen. Today, some tools guess doodles or turn drawing into 3D experiences. Future notebooks might respond to our sketches in even more surprising ways. But be careful with the magic notebook—you’ll have to feed your notebook dog every day!

Fun Facts:

Ivan Sutherland created Sketchpad at MIT in 1963. Instead of typing commands, users could draw, move, and change shapes directly on a screen with a light pen.
Google’s Quick, Draw! tries to recognize what someone is sketching. By 2017, players had contributed more than one billion doodles.
A 2024 MIT research project called Sketch2Prototype explored turning a hand-drawn sketch into different images and 3D prototypes.
Sketch Aquarium from teamLab lets kids draw and color a sea creature on real paper, scan it, and watch it come alive and swim inside a giant digital aquarium.
A 2026 interactive experience in Paris lets children color dinosaurs, scan them, and see their dinosaur animated at giant size across an immersive projection wall within seconds.

Discussion Question:

If a notebook could turn your drawings into real things, are there images it should refuse to create?

LISTEN

Physical Build:

Make a “magic notebook” with folded paper, cardboard, markers, and craft supplies. Draw an invention on one page, then build a small 3D version using recycled materials. Change your drawing after testing your model, then rebuild it—your notebook gets “smarter” whenever you improve an idea.

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Digital Build:

With an adult, ask ChatGPT:

“I drew a strange new creature. Ask me five questions to help bring it to life.”

Answer the questions, then use the description to redraw, build, or digitally create your creature. Compare the final version with your first sketch and decide which ideas came from you and which came from the tool.