Kingston University is set to open a new multi-disciplinary facility equipped with all the latest in virtual reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology for the use of its students.
The facility will be known as the Centre for Augmented and Virtual Reality Environments (CAVE). The new CAVE facility will be a complement to the University’s existing games lab. The objective is to create a state-of-the-art facility where students from different courses can learn together and collaborate on new projects.
Professor Vesna Brujic-Okretic, head of the School of Computer Science and Mathematics has said that VR and Ar go beyond games, noting the example of associate professor Vasileios Argyriou, who is using VR devices to test the cognitive ability of patients with Alzheimers. She said: “Having games programming students working with design students on various aspects of a project is exactly how the digital media industry works – it’s that level of inter-disciplinary work and the exchange of views that will broaden the horizons of each and every one of them and help make sure they are industry-ready.”
Some students have already benefited from Kingston University’s involvement with VR. Luke Parlin and Zack Bloundele successfully pitched a VR game to Sony, which is currently in development. Parlin was involved in the set-up of CAVE and said of the facility: “The technology is at the forefront of games design and development and for students to have access to that is amazing – it’s a major professional advantage and very few universities have these kinds of facilities.”
Dr Lucy Jones, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing, said: “We are very excited about the opportunities that the CAVE will offer for our staff and students. The launch showed how interested everybody was in the technology and how it could be used to significantly enhance research and teaching.”
The Pointmedia company in Norway are experimenting with new ways to teach children, including using mixed reality (MR) to help them learn more about the solar system.
Jo Jørgen Stordal a MR producer for Pointmedia is the major driving force behind the project, with the cooperation for Stig Halvorsen, who have together written a report containing guidelines on how to use MR to engage children with learning in a new way.
In this experimental science lesson, where children were given the opportunity to see the Solar System in a new way. The students had been studying space and the solar system for some weeks prior to the introduction of the HoloLens technology into the classroom. First, the children listed what they already knew about the solar system, which was written on a whiteboard. Then, some children were given the opportunity to use the HoloLens glasses, while the rest watched the AR projection using an interactive whiteboard.
Teacher Stig Halvorsen believed that his students were more involved with the lesson, and that is facilitated greater curiosity and active student participation. You can watch a video (with English subtitles) on the Mixed Reality experiment below.
Students working to become mechanics for Dassault Falcon business jets have begun using virtual reality (VR) to help with their training.
VR headsets can be used to view a mock-up of the types of aircraft the trainee mechanics will be working on, which are based on the original CAD drawings for a high degree of accuracy. The advantage of this is that multiple students can be trained simultaneously, when they would not all be able to fit into the tight confines of the aircraft in real life.
Also, as demonstrated by one of the trainers, it is also possible to demonstrate the inner workings of parts such as the inside of the aircraft wing, which would not usually be practical to demonstrate in reality, due to the size of the part and how difficult and time-consuming it is to assemble and disassemble.
The CAD-based mock-ups allow for the different components to be colour-coded for clearer identification during learning, but the system also has many high-quality HD photographs of the aircraft, allowing the students to see both the CAD mock-up and what it would look like in real life.
As seen in the below video of the Dassault VR mechanics (care of Aviation International News) It is also possible to isolate a particular system, such as the electrical system or engine system and show the entire aircraft, while highlighting just that system.
Dassault is not the first to use VR for training. The National Crime Scene Cleanup Association (NCSCA) are developing a system called ‘Safe Training VR’ to train on topics such as dealing with hazardous materials. Of course, VR is already being used extensively in the healthcare industry for various applications including training, such as the VR technology being used to train future dentists in Leeds, UK. Naval aviation is also discussing how to apply VR for training purposes.
You can watch a video on the training systems below, another example of how VR is changing the game for education in the school room and beyond. For more on VR in Education check out these VRFocus stories and features.
Lowe’s hardware stores are one of the most popular places for Americans to buy supplies to attend to do-it-yourself (DIY) projects, but Lowe’s research indicates many people do not know how to approach some more complex projects. Lowe’s is therefore using virtual reality (VR) to teach them how.
In the latest version of Lowe’s ‘Holoroom’ experience, customers at certain selected stores in Boston and Canada can go through the experience of learning how to go about a DIY project such a tiling a shower. The VR experience gives customers step-by-step instructions to complete every stage from mixing the mortal to laying the pattern, even providing haptic feedback for things such as the vibration of a drill through the controller to increase immersion.
“During the past three years, we have been exploring real-life applications of augmented and virtual reality experiences to directly help our customers solve everyday problems,” said Kyle Nel, executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, the company’s disruptive innovation hub. “Our experience has shown that customers are embracing AR/VR as part of their home improvement journey, and now, we are using immersive VR to help our customers learn the required skills to complete challenging home improvement projects.”
During the pilot scheme, Lowe’s will be gathering feedback on how the customers respond to this new method of training. Early indications are good, showing that it boosts customer confidence and enhances motivation to take on DIY projects.
“I’ve been in VR for a long time,” says Rob Catto. He tells me that back in 1993 he set up a fully immersive VR lab in the high school where he taught, so it’s not surprising that he believes Virtual Reality and teaching are natural bedfellows, nor that he ended up as the Director of Game Studies & Simulation at Full Sail University. “I actually came here to teach a course in VR, but then it sort of went to sleep, until about four years ago when it came back with a bang.”
Full Sail already had a strong Game Development program, he explains, but with the heightened interest and demand for talent from the industry it made sense to create a course geared specifically toward VR and AR. Their newly launched Simulation and Visualization Bachelor’s – which currently has around 30 registered students – is not for the faint-hearted though. It crams a 4-year multidisciplinary curriculum in 20 insanely intensive months.
During that time, the students hone their coding skills (focusing mainly in C Sharp and C++) and get comfortable using engines such as Unity and Unreal. But that’s only the beginning. The course includes a huge variety of modules such as Data Visualization and Modeling, Artificial Intelligence and Applied Human-Computer Interaction, Linear Algebra, Physics, Computer Networks, and even things like “Historical Archetypes and Mythology,” and “English Composition,” which hint that in order to create immersive experiences you should not only understand the technical side of Virtual Reality, but also get to grips with it as a storytelling medium.
Photos of Full Sail University in Orlando by Tom Atkinson at R3Digital.
With the increase in popularity of VR and demand for skills in the industry we are certain to see a lot more dedicated courses, as well as impressive content produced by students and alumni such as this cool Harry Potter-based AR project by 21-year-old Asad Malik from Bennington College in Nevada.
“As virtual reality moves more towards the mainstream through the development of new, more affordable consumer technologies, a way needs to be found for students to translate what they learn in academic situations into careers within the industry,” says Frankie Cavanagh, a lecturer at Northumbria University. He founded a company called Somniator last year with the aim not only of developing VR games, but to provide a bridge between higher education and the technology sector. Over 70 students from Newcastle University, Northumbria University and Gateshead College in the UK have been placed so far through the program, working on real games as part of their degrees and getting paid for additional work commissioned. This has already produced some impressive results, as can be seen from the early preview of their first VR release, Dimension Hunter.
But what should those shopping around for a VR degree course be looking for? State-of-the art facilities such as those offered at Full Sail’s “FabLab” or the University of Missouri’s iLab – which currently offers Virtual Reality-related modules as part of its IT program – are certainly desirable, but perhaps more important is an institution’s ability to support the student in building an extremely diverse and ever-evolving skillset, as well as encouraging a collaborative mentality.
Working with VR already translates into an extraordinarily diverse range of possible career paths, and those options are only going to become even broader as the industry matures in the next few years.
“Simulation is becoming a bigger part of almost any industry,” agrees Catto. “There’s urban simulation, military, medical, flight, disaster relief, and then gaming and other entertainment. At its heart, simulation is all about problem solving. Its applications extend to nearly every industry—from safer military training to more efficient medical procedures to better designed parking garages.”
One of the reasons Full Sail is located near downtown Orlando is because of its pedigree as “simulation capital of the world” referring to its tradition in providing R&D and talent for the theme park industry as well as the military and space programs. But for students to be able to solve the problems they will encounter in creating such complex simulations, they need to be taught to conceptualize, design, program and make their own stuff. Which makes for a very different sort of learning environment.
“We teach them things such as how to program electronic microcontrollers, then they will work with a solid modeling package in the digital fabrication course. They will use equipment such as the injection molder, a laser cutter, and the milling machine where they will make their own circuit board – which of course they will then program themselves,” explains Catto.
He shows me a 3D-printed box: “This will ultimately be a scent deliverer that will be controlled by a virtual environment. It is easy to focus on the visual aspect of VR, but it’s about much more than just putting on the headset, it’s about all the senses, and what we’re enabling here is rapid prototyping to deliver that.”
Next up he invites me to test-drive one of his own prototype projects – a machine that simulates the experience of Catto’s real-life hobby of powered paragliding. For those not familiar with this activity, it essentially involves a heady mix of flying and parachuting, with a propeller strapped to one’s back as you fly in a suspended harness connected to a wing resembling a parachute. It’s just as much crazy fun as it sounds – especially when you’re doing it in Virtual Reality and add some random missile shooting for extra kicks.
As my ride in the Virtual Foot Flyer proves, the point of all those hours spent learning and building is that they ultimately produce awesome experiences. Which is why they get students building stuff pretty much from the get-go, and the result of one of those assignments is moving hypnotically on the palm of Catto’s hand as we speak. It’s a miniature version of a Stewart platform, built from scratch. This is a robotic motion device that provides six degrees of freedom for any object resting on its surface – basically what flight simulators theme park rides sit on top of. Once they master that, students then have the chance to upscale their designs, so that one could recreate, for example, the Speeder Bike chase in Star Wars using a combination of VR, simulation mechanics, and custom-made printing and prototyping. You could even build a custom headset that looked like a biker scout helmet, why not? Well, Catto tells me with a grin, that’s actually something they’re working on at the moment. Perhaps next time I visit I could try that demo.
Two studies out of Brown University showed that gamers who played Halo: Reach consistently in moderation learn the fastest and highly skilled StarCraft II players used keyboard shortcuts habitually, even when unnecessary.
It remains to be seen just how large a part education will play in the VR industry, but there have been interesting developments recently. For example, an entire facility has been fitted out for AR and VR education in Oklahoma. The facility takes advantage of VR’s ability to immerse students in their education, excite them with interactive experiences they control, and also bring a curriculum to students not able to make it into the facility. There are also a collection of specific educational programs in the VR ecosystem and we chatted with the founder of Explain 3D about a new one that aims to bring encyclopedias to life.
Peter Tomasovic, founder of Explain 3D and Explain VR, discussed with us the inspiration behind the Explain platform and future plans.
“We asked ourselves how to create an educational aid that will bring you to space, to the forest, or wherever you want in a second without buying expensive solid educational aids,” he says about the development of Explain 3D.
Explain 3D is a system designed for teachers, parents, and students to learn how cars, plants, and many other things work. Tomasovic and his team wanted to get a wealth of information into many hands, which is why they created applications for tablets, smartphones, and desktop PCs. Once there were a few VR headset options, he decided it was a good time to develop a VR version of the app. As is, Explain VR includes over 50 different simulations and experiences and there are plans to add more over time.
“Our long-term goal is to create educational tool for schools,” he says. “This is not so easy because schools or educational institutions are sometimes very slow in adopting new technologies mostly due to finances, but we believe that VR in education has huge potential.”
Currently, the Explain VR team is looking for partners. They’ve even worked with schools from India and Africa and are considering designing it for their curriculum in the future.
Explain VR is currently available for Samsung Gear for $4.99 but can be download for free on iOS and android. An Oculus Rift version of the application is in development and will hopefully be live in 1-2 months.
This week on ResearchVR we dig deep into VR for sustainable development – meaning we are using virtual reality to help in solving global warming and consequences of the modern world’s rapid development.
Carina Mentrup is a winner of Hackvention 2016 Best Prototype Award. She is currently doing the masters in English and geography. For her thesis, she is working on a VR solution to improve education for sustainable development.
Episode Preview
Our guest this week is a perfect example of how amazing the VR community is these days. We met Carina for the first time at Hackvention 2016 in December when she only had an idea. By the end of the weekend-long hackathon, she had an application sufficient for testing with the target group.
I think we are all in this together, the local community. We all have responsibility, every one of us on this planet when we are here.
In this episode, we discussed things that are universal to anyone who makes a new application. We’ve started from easy things, like design questions: what is the best fidelity level in this particular case? What is the storytelling style? Who is the target group? More importantly, we’ve paid particular attention to the go-to-market strategy: how does Carina plan to convince people to use her VR app and how is she going to reach them? A crowdfunding campaign will start soon and you can register at the Save Planet A website to receive updates.
Titanic VR puts gamers in the role of a survivor onboard the ship prior to its sinking and aboard a submersible exploring the wreckage. The developers have turned to research books and thousands of pages documents to ensure realism.
Alvin Wang Graylin is the China President of Vive at HTC, and I had a chance to talk with him at CES this year about what’s happening in China. He provided me with a lot of cultural context, which includes support from the highest levels of Chinese Government to invest in companies working on emerging technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence. There were a flood of Chinese companies at CES showing VR headsets, peripherals, and 360 cameras. On average, the VR hardware from China tends to be no where near the quality of the major VR players of the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Sony PSVR, or Samsung GearVR, but there were some standout Chinese companies who are leading innovation in specific area. For example, some highlights from CES include TPCast’s wireless VR, Noitom’s hand-tracked gloves, and Insta360 with some of the cheapest 360 cameras with the best specs available right now.
After CES, I was convinced that if you want to understand what’s going to be happening in the overall VR ecosystem, then it’s worth looking to see what’s happening in China. The VR market in China is growing, and there is a lot more optimism for technological adoption and enthusiasm for having VR arcade experiences. Education in China is also very important with the one-child/two-child policy, and Graylin says that if VR can be proven to have a lot of educational impacts then the government will act to get VR headsets in every classroom. Once VR is in the classrooms, then it’ll help convince more parents to buy one for the home if they believe it’ll help their education.
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST
In an extensive round-up of Chinese-driven VR growth from Yoni Dayan, he mentions a moonshot project called Donghu VR Town, which is a proposed “city built in the south of the country, designed with virtual reality intertwined in every aspects from services, healthcare, education, to entertainment.” Here’s an untranslated promotional video that shows off what a VR-utopian city might look like:
China is a complicated topic and ecosystem, but after having a direct experience of the TPCast wireless VR, Noitom VR gloves, and the great-looking and high-res stereoscopy from a Insta360 camera at CES, then I think that it’s time to really look to China as a leader in innovation. If China really does go all-in on VR and AI and continues to investing large sums of money, then that type of institutional support is going to leap-frog China as one of the leading innovators in the world. I’ve already have started to see this at CES this year and at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence where there was a very healthy representation from China, and the thing to watch over the next couple of years is any big educational infrastucture investments by the Chinese government as well as the evolving digital out-of-home entertainment hardware ecosystem.
