The Virtual Water Table is an engaging exhibit that uses Augmented Reality (AR) to project digital contours and simulated flowing water onto a hands-on sandbox.

Touching the sand changes the simulated watersheds and facilitates conversation and discovery about how human actions affect our land and water.

Our Virtual Water Table is intended to enhance curricular connections to science and social studies at and beyond Milwaukee-area schools.

The exhibit’s home base is Reflo’s Gallery, 636 E. Keefe Ave., in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood.

Drop us a line to arrange a visit!

For a fee, Reflo can also mobilize a Virtual Water Table to visit your school, space, or event. The Virtual Water Table engaged thousands prior to the pandemic and we look forward to renewed engagement opportunities in 2023 and beyond.

In 2020, the Port Exploreum maritime museum in Port Washington, Wis. commissioned Reflo to build a deluxe version of the Virtual Water Table in 2021. With the Port Exploreum’s closing in 2022, Reflo purchased the Virtual Water Table Water Table we built so we could share it with you. The exhibit now enjoys a special dark room of its own inside a former vault.

The Virtual Water Table features the Augmented Reality Sandbox, but you just flip down a table lid to interact on a touch table showcasing the Milwaukee Community Map in Google Earth and the MKE Waterscape role-playing game.

Want to rent the mobile table? Want our experts to serve as docents for an amazing experience? In the greater Milwaukee, Wisconsin area? For info on how a table visit can support your class or event, please see the engagement menu or use the contact form.

Clarification: Despite the name, it does not simulate groundwater (water table) or water embedded in economic processes (virtual water). The Virtual Water Table is our name for this tablelike exhibit.

Please note: the Reflo office at 636 E. Keefe Ave. has steps and a stoop upon entry. Let us know if you are planning a visit and require accommodation.

Interested in the Virtual Water Table?

Engagement Menu

The Augmented Reality Sandbox was developed by the UC Davis W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES, http://www.keckcaves.org), supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL 1114663. For more information, please visit http://www.idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/SARndbox.