I built the physical sandbox but didn't touch a line of code, all that came right from UC Davis as Pavel mentioned.
I'll eventually get a full writeup but basically i used:
-original Xbox Kinect
-lots of zip ties
The box was 32"x18" to fit the 16:9 ratio of the projector. The mini-pc is sufficiently capable of driving the color and contour lines. In order to do water simulation i would have had to use a much bigger and more powerful PC with a GPU.
Also, big thanks to Mark who lugged it from portland to doe bay and back when i realized last minute i couldn't possibly fit it in my car.
-joe