VR Education Holdings, the group best known for the Apollo 11 VR and the Titanic VR experiences also released a proprietary virtual reality (VR) education platform at the end of 2018 called ENGAGE. Today, the company has announced that the platform has been selected by Facebook for its Oculus Independent Software Vendors (ISV) programme.
Working with enterprise developers and software companies, the Oculus ISV programme looks to accelerate customer adoption of VR solutions built for Oculus enterprise products. In conjunction with Oculus for Business, during 2020 VR Education Holdings expects to make ENGAGE available to Oculus enterprise clients via a special portal, accessing its specialised training and education solutions.
“It is fantastic to be chosen by Facebook to help accelerate the wider adoption of VR globally. Oculus has an amazing technology platform and ENGAGE is leading the way when it comes to distance learning and remote team collaboration. I see an extremely bright future for this technology with the release of high-end mobile devices, such as the Oculus Quest and the HTC Vive Focus, as well as the release of 5G high-speed mobile internet,” said David Whelan, CEO of VR Education in a statement.
“Business and enterprise will only adopt new technology when they see compelling advantages to doing so and ENGAGE is being developed to meet these business needs providing virtual meeting rooms and training scenarios which save customers time and money. To date, adoption of VR/AR has been steady, however with Facebook, HTC, O2, Deutsche Telekom and many others all now working towards the growth of 5G and AR/VR, we believe that will see an acceleration of adoption over the next 18 to 24 months,” Whelan adds.
ENGAGE was developed to overcome certain limitations of online courses and traditional learning methods, allowing users to collaborate on tasks remotely, create new content and learn in VR. Since the official launch last year the ENGAGE team has gone on to secure various commercial deals in the US and Korea with educational institutions. There are also negotiations still ongoing with several large multinationals to provide enterprise solutions to their workers.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of the latest advancements in educational VR, reporting back with further updates.
VR Education Holdings PLC is well known for its in-depth, factual virtual reality (VR) pieces such as Apollo 11 VR, Titanic VR and 1943: Berlin Blitz. Today, the studio has announced its next VR project, Raid on the Ruhr, another WWII experience which is set to arrive later this month.
Raid on the Ruhr is an educational title based on the famous Dambusters mission of May 1943. For this mission, a team of bomber and night fighter veterans were assembled under a new squadron, codenamed Squadron ‘X’, to deliver the now infamous ‘bouncing bomb, the brainchild of inventor Barnes Wallis.
As for the VR experience itself, you’ll be able to fly a Lancaster bomber on its journey from the UK to the industrial heartland of Germany, the Ruhr valley, and drop the deadly payload.
“Following on from our highly popular and award-winning experiences Apollo 11 VR, Titanic VR and 1943: Berlin Blitz, we are delighted to announce the release date of our next title, Raid on the Ruhr,” said David Whelan, CEO of VR Education in a statement. “Building on our previous research with the BBC while creating the Berlin Blitz experience, we have created this new title from the ground up providing users with more control as they fly the Lancaster to its target and drop the famous bouncing bomb on the Möhne and Edersee Dams.
“This title adds to our back catalogue of immersive experiences and provides more assets and content for our ENGAGE platform where educators and corporate trainers can create their own learning content.”
The company launched the first version of its educational platform ENGAGE at the end of 2018, designed to overcome certain aspects of online courses and traditional learning methods.
VR Education’s Raid on the Ruhr will be available from 29th March 2019, supporting Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality devices. For further updates from the studio, keep reading VRFocus.
Thanks to its IPO in March which raised £6 million GBP, VR Education Holdings not only managed to fund projects like Titanic VR, but also further develop its proprietary VR education platform, ENGAGE. Today, the company has announced the launch of version 1.0 for commercial use.
This initial release of ENGAGE supports HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality headsets with devices such as the Oculus Go, Vive Focus and Google DayDream to be added in the new year.
In development since 2015, ENGAGE has been designed to overcome certain aspects of online courses and traditional learning methods. The platform allows for virtual face-to-face education and training in a variety of environments regardless of the geographical location of the user, with one of its key components being the ability for educators and trainers to use the software to create their own VR lessons and presentations.
“The full release of ENGAGE is a transformational moment in our corporate history and is the result of many years of hard work, cutting-edge research and innovation,” said David Whelan, CEO of VR Education in a statement. “People today all over the world say let’s SKYPE when talking about online communications and meetings. In the future we want people to say let’s ENGAGE and enter VR to communicate in a more natural way.”
VR Education has already partnered with Nokia Corporation and Shenandoah University, with them testing the pre-release versions of the ENGAGE platform before signing up to commercial agreements. Intel is currently promoting the ENGAGE platform throughout the US as part of the Tech Learning Lab initiative which will be touring Europe and the UK soon.
“Although significant revenues are not expected to be generated from the ENGAGE platform until general adoption of VR and AR increases over the next two to three years, I am nonetheless delighted that both Nokia and Shenandoah University have signed commercial agreements. Being aligned to global leaders like these institutions demonstrates the potential and need for the platform,” Whelan adds.
And thanks to partnerships with the BBC, the University of Bristol, the University of Oxford and the University of New Haven, the content VR Education has helped create will immediately be available on the platform.
You can check out VR Education’s VR projects at home by downloading Titanic VRor Apollo 11 VR HD. For any further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Titanic VR (2018) is an immersive educational interactive story and game that takes you to the depths of the final resting place of the RMS Titanic, where you explore the 1912 shipwreck, its history, and experience over 6 hours of story-driven gameplay. The game, which first launched on PC VR headsets, is landing on PSVR November 22nd.
Titanic VR was created by Immersive VR Education, the same minds behind the well-received educational VR experiences Apollo 11 VR (2016) and the 1943: Berlin Blitz (2018).
Image courtesy Immersive VR Education
Here’s Immersive VR Educations’s description of Titanic VR:
Diving to the bottom of the North Atlantic, you take on the role of Dr. Ethan Lynch, Associate Professor of Maritime Archaeology at the fictional University of Nova Scotia. With funding from a mysterious investor, Dr. Lynch and his PhD Candidate Jean Robinson have set out aboard a research vessel to dive the wreck of Titanic and answer questions that have remained submerged for a century. This game allows you to explore the shipwreck inside and out and recover items and complete missions such as recovery of a downed ROV, Documentary Film Making and the creation of a photomosaic.
Besides making the trip aboard a submarine, the experience lets players observe key historical events through the eyes of a survivor onboard lifeboat 6.
Image courtesy Immersive VR Education
Immersive VR Education says its gone to the lengths to make it “a historically accurate recreation of events, based on eye-witness testimony and substantial research. Players will leave with a deeper understanding of this historic and tragic event.”
Focused on creating highly immersive, educational experiences, VR Education has released two core products onto the consumer market, Apollo 11 VR and most recently Titanic VR for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. A PlayStation VR version has also been in the works, with the studio confirming a release date today.
Rather than being a purely educational, where you can learn about the ship and its ill-fated voyage, VR Education has created a much more engaging, interactive experience with a single-player story-driven campaign.
The narrative is set in the near future but explores a more-intact 1985 model of the wreck. Players take on the role of Dr Ethan Lynch, Associate Professor of Maritime Archaeology at the fictional University of Nova Scotia. With funding from a mysterious investor, Dr Lynch and his PhD Candidate Jean Robinson have set out aboard a research vessel to dive the wreck and answer questions that have remained submerged for a century.
In the campaign players can navigate around and inside the wreck using their submersible and ROV, completing bonus missions such as rescuing a lost ROV, creating a photo mosaic, placing research equipment, and working with a world-famous Director. Additionally, players will need to clean and preserve recovered artefacts, upgrade the ROV, and learn all there is to know about this infamous wreck.
The PlayStation VR version will arrive next week, on Thursday, 22nd November, featuring the same content as the PC edition. As was the case with the launch of the Apollo 11 VR, the studio is expecting the PlayStation VR version to generate a significant percentage of Titanic VR’s sales.
“As previously announced, the PlayStation onboarding process for Titanic VR took longer than we originally expected, however, we are pleased to have received this confirmation from them,” said David Whelan, CEO of VR Education in a statement. “Importantly, the release will occur in the current financial year and will allow Titanic VR to have exposure on this major platform over the Christmas trading period. We will update the market in January 2019 as to the impact that this will have had on our FY-2018 revenues.”
VRFocus will continue its coverage of VR Education and its projects, reporting back with further announcements.
Im Zuge des Oculus-Education-Programms rollt das Unternehmen weitere VR-Systeme über edukative Einrichtungen aus. Bereits im Juni 2017 wurden dank des Pilotprogramms Rift-Brillen mitsamt High-End-PCs in 90 kalifornischen Bibliotheken installiert. Nun gehen die Verantwortlichen einen Schritt weiter und bringen mit einer Vielzahl von Oculus-Rift- und Oculus-Go-VR-Brillen den Zugang zur Virtual Reality in ausgewählte Lokalitäten in Taiwan, Japan und Seattle. Zusätzlich veröffentlichen die Entwickler/innen drei neue kostenlose VR-Erfahrungen zur edukativen Weiterbildung im Oculus Store.
Oculus Education – VR-Hard- und -Software für Bibliotheken, Schulen und Museen
Oculus rollt eine weitere Welle an VR-Brillen und PCs über ausgewählte Standorte in Seattle, Japan und Taiwan aus, um noch mehr Wissenssuchenden den Zugang in die virtuellen Welten zu gewähren. So sollen weitere Bibliotheken, Schulen und Museen in allen drei Gebieten mit den neusten Oculus-Brillen ausgestattet werden. Dazu zählen die Oculus Rift und Oculus Go.
Entsprechend sorgen die Verantwortlichen für eine Verbreitung von VR-Lernmethoden in verschiedenen öffentlichen Schulen in Seattle. Allen voran die Ballard High School sowie die Franklin High School, welche bereits in naher Zukunft spezielle VR-Erfahrungen und -Apps in den Unterricht integrieren möchten.
Demnach soll die VR-Technologie ins Klassenzimmer einziehen und direkten Einfluss auf die didaktischen Methoden im Lernprozess nehmen. Neben den bereitgestellten VR-Lernprogrammen sollen die Schüler/innen selbst tätig werden und im Verlauf des Schuljahres ihre eigene VR-Erfahrung entwickeln.
Image courtesy: Yale Center for Health & Learning Games
In Asien wählt man eine andere Variante. Im japanischen Programm soll die Virtual Reality für eine tiefere Verbindung zwischen Lehrenden und Lernenden sorgen. So sollen innerhalb der virtuellen Umgebungen Lernprozesse stattfinden, bevorzugt für Schüler/innen und Lehrer/innen, die aufgrund der hohen Distanz weite Wege in ihre nächste Schule auf sich nehmen müssen.
Taiwan dagegen sorgt dank einer Kooperation mit der Taiwan Internet and E-Commerce Association für die Verbreitung der VR-Brillen in diversen edukativen Einrichtungen. Darunter zahlreiche Museen und Bibliotheken. So soll jede Einrichtung je nach Schwerpunkt andere VR-Erfahrungen anbieten, welche das individuelle Angebot unterstreichen und verbessern.
Oculus Education – Drei neue edukative VR-Erfahrungen veröffentlicht
Zusätzlich veröffentlicht Oculus drei neue akademische VR-Erfahrungen für jedermann rund um die Themen Wissenschaft, Kultur und Geschichte. Dazu zählen die Titel Breaking Boundaries in Science, Titanic VR und Hoover Dam: IndustrialVR.
Breaking Boundaries in Science stellt bekannte Forscherinnen in den Mittelpunkt und lässt ihre bahnbrechenden Errungenschaften für die Menschheit näher unter die Lupe nehmen. So werden die Lebensgeschichte, Arbeiten und Forschungsumgebungen der Jane Goodall, Marie Curie und Grace Hopper vorgestellt.
Titanic VR lässt die Nutzer/innen auf beeindruckende Weise den tragischen Untergang des bekannten Kreuzfahrtschiffs nacherleben.
Hoover Dam: IndustrialVR ermöglicht dagegen eine dokumentarische Reise über den gigantischen Staudamm am Colorado River.
Die VR-Erfahrungen sind kostenlos im Oculus Store (1 | 2 | 3) für Oculus Rift bzw. Oculus Go erhältlich.
Ever since virtual reality (VR) reappeared several years ago as a viable technology for videogame entertainment developers have been experimenting with many more use cases. One of which is education, providing a unique portal into various fields for students. Today, Oculus has announced the launch of a new initiative, Oculus Education, starting with pilot programs in three locations: Taiwan, Japan, and Seattle.
To begin with the programmes will focus on training teachers, bringing VR headsets into schools, libraries, and museums, to showcase how VR can be used for learning and collaboration. Each of the three locations will focus on a different programme covering various needs within education.
For example, in Taiwan both Oculus Rift and Oculus Go headsets will be donated to the Taiwan Internet and E-Commerce Association (TiEA). These will then be redistributed to the following libraries and museums across Taiwan: American Innovation Center, Kaohsiung Main Public Library Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, National Central Library, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, National Museum of Natural Science, National Taiwan Museum, New Taipei City Library (Main Library), Social Innovation Lab, Taipei Public Library (Main Library), and Taroko National Park Headquarters.
While in Seattle Oculus has partnered with Seattle Public Schools in a bid to develop and pilot a VR creation course between Ballard High School and Franklin High School. Students will spend the year creating educational VR content that can be used in the classroom. Additionally, Oculus is collaborating with Seattle’s Technology Access Foundation (TAF) to explore the best ways to train educators in the use of VR in the classroom.
In Japan, the programme will be focused on how VR can be used for distance learning as well as educational applications for high school students.
It’s not just schools, libraries, and museums where you can learn in VR, home users can also make use of educational content. Today, Oculus has launched three experiences to do just that: Breaking Boundaries in Science, Titanic VR and Hoover Dam: IndustrialVR, all of which can be found on the Oculus Store now. For any further Oculus updates, keep reading VRFocus.
When you say the word Titanic you can’t help but think Celine Dion, drawings of French girls and steamy windows. That’s a bit wrong, isn’t it? 1,503 people died when the ‘unsinkable’ vessel hit the ocean bed in 1912, nearly three-quarters of all passengers aboard, and yet time and Hollywood have weathered the impact those numbers should make. There’s a challenge for the so-called VR empathy machine if I’ve ever heard one.
The second project from Immersive VR Education, Titanic VR goes about restoring the human factor of the disaster in two fascinating ways. Though held back by some expected flaws, it’s one of the best examples of VR edutainment yet, turning what could easily be a mundane history lesson into an engaging and even emotional interactive experience.
Immersive really thought outside the box here. Instead of the obvious virtual tour of an authentically-digitized shipwreck, the developer has thinly disguised its virtual preservation inside a story-driven campaign. In the main part of the game you play as Dr. Ethan Lynch, a researcher that takes regular dives out to the wreck in a trusty one-man submarine to complete tasks for clients, chief of which is a woman writing a biography for one of her relatives who died in the incident. Five to ten-minute missions see you explore different parts of the ship, often in search of more clues that piece together the fateful events of that day.
It’s a winning approach that largely keeps your attention and intrigue throughout. Like Immersive’s own Apollo 11 experience or Curiscope’s Operation Apex before it, Titanic VR knows that gamers want to play games and builds its message around that, though it also falls into some of the same pitfalls that any developer is at risk of.
In between levels you’ll visit your research lab where you’ll report your findings and also preserve any artifacts you’ve brought back home with you. It’s the last thing I expected to be doing in a game about the Titanic, but I found myself surprisingly enamored by the clinical tasks of washing and freeze-drying anything from journals to pocket watches. There’s a newfound appreciation to be gained not just for the history but the real work that’s going into maintaining it, though it’s let down slightly by the unbearably cheesy voice acting and more redundant tasks like adding new upgrades to your underwater drone.
Exploration, meanwhile, is an initially fascinating experience that suffers somewhat from diminished returns. Whilst early excursions into the ship’s interior are often eye-opening, later levels come up with silly tasks like providing the lighting for a film director as he gloats about his award-winning work in a not-too-subtle dig at James Cameron. You can see why the developers would think this a refreshing palette-cleanser, but it drags on and the educational element is largely forgotten about for a bit. The same goes for an exhaustive chase through the wreck that has you follow a rare type of fish. It’s a decent attempt to mix things up but it goes on for far too long and leaves you frustrated.
Titanic VR is at its best when it’s got education at the heart. The journey to the wreck is filled in with gripping accounts from survivors taken from interviews over the past 100 years, for example, and inspecting rooms like a parcel office in great detail manages to completely lose you in the moment. The dialogue, meanwhile, seamlessly weaves in important facts without overselling them. The unavoidable mundanity of traipsing from rusted metal room to rusted metal room does eventually start to set in, though fun visual details like pulsating jellyfish and tiny crabs always give you something new to delight over.
Another big addition to the full version of the game is a short segment that travels back in time to the day of the crash itself. Though it’s missing the interactivity of the main portion of the game, it’s still one of Titanic VR’s most powerful elements. Based upon eye-witness accounts, you find yourself seated on one of the first lifeboats to leave the vessel as it begins to sink. Simply sitting there as part of the huddle of women and children so suddenly separated from their husbands, sons and siblings is distressing enough but there are several moments that really hit home. It’s a distinctly personal experience that brings the suffering closer than comfort would like, though it also spares you some of the truly gruesome details as you watch the behemoth disappear from afar. It’s a missed opportunity not to see more of the ship’s interior, too.
Perhaps Titanic’s biggest flaw is the somewhat muted presentation which, although serviceable, fails to match the ambitions of the content itself. This was a Kickstarter-funded project and thus Immersive’s resources surely only stretched so far, but the lack of certain sound effects and the somewhat rudimentary appearance of other characters limit the impact the experience can make at times.
Final Score:7/10 – Good
As an entire package, Titanic VR is a thoughtful, engaging piece of VR edutainment with some great ideas and surprisingly powerful moments. Immersive VR clearly understands that, for a game to educate, it has to first be held to the same standards that we put upon any other experience and it meets many of those expectations with ease. Ultimately its muted presentation and padded-out campaign hold it back from true greatness, but it’s another crucial step for one of VR’s most important developers that suggests they’ll definitely get there one day.
Grab your lifejackets; we’re finally jumping aboard the Titanic in VR this week. Or, if education isn’t your thing, there’s also the chance to blow some stuff up in an intriguing new free to play title. Either way, it’s not the most abundant week for releases, but you should definitely try one of these two out.
Vroom Kaboom, from Ratloop Games
Price: $19.99 or Free-to-Play (Rift, Vive)
This is a little different. Vroom Kaboom is a vehicular combat game in which you summon cars, motorbikes and more from a selection of cards and then send them to do battle against the enemy’s base. VR support is entirely optional but it comes with motion controller support and actually looks like a fair bit of fun.
A Leonardo DiCaprio-free retelling of the sinking of the Titanic. You may have visited this app earlier in the year as an Early Access game in which you could explore the vessel’s wreck below the sea. Now though it has a full story mode which puts you on board the ship as it sinks. We’re very excited to try this one out.
Just hold on a little longer, Jack; Titantic VR pulls into port very soon.
The latest project from Apollo 11 VR developer, Immersive VR Education, Titanic has actually been in Early Access since the end of last year but the full version of the app is finally arriving on August 16th on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. The long-promised PSVR version will take a little longer, the developer explained on Twitter, but is currently undergoing Sony’s QA process. The game can be played without a VR headset, too. Catch the teaser trailer for the piece below.
The experience both places you aboard the legendary vessel, a passenger liner that sank over 100 years ago now after striking an iceberg during its maiden voyage and allows you to investigate the wreck it left behind. While the ship itself has been digitally recreated with painstaking detail, this isn’t a simple VR travel app. Instead, there’s a full story-driven experience here in which you play as a doctor exploring the wreck at the bottom of the ocean.
In another section of the package named Lifeboat 6 (which is being added for the full launch), you’ll travel back in time to relive the tragic events of the ship’s sinking first-hand. In this animated sequence, you’ll follow the Matthew family as they attempt to escape the doomed vessel. The piece has been created based upon eye-witness accounts. Overall, Immersive VR says there should be around six hours of content to explore here.
Sadly, we cannot confirm that Leonardo DiCaprio will be making a guest appearance in the app.
