MerBoard: A network of collaborative boards used in the Mars Explorer Rover mission

Jay Trimble, Roxana Wales, Rich Gossweiler, Alonso Vera, Ted Shab, Irene Tollinger, Preston Tollinger, Mike Matessa
The MERBoard papers describe the ongoing process by which a multidisciplinary group at NASA Ames Research Center (social science and computer science) is designing and implementing a large interactive worksurface called the MERBoard Collaborative Workspace. A MERBoard system involves several distributed, large, touch-enabled, plasma display systems with custom MERBoard software. A centralized server and database back the system. We are continually tuning MERBoard to support over two hundred scientists and engineers during the surface operations of the Mars Exploration Rover Missions. These scientists and engineers come from various disciplines and are working both in small and large groups over a span of space and time. We describe the multidisciplinary, human-centered process by which this MERBoard system is being deployed, the usage patterns and social interactions that we have observed, and issues we are currently facing.

Papers