![]() ![]() ![]() “One of the challenges we have overall in oceanography, across the board, is it is really challenging to have people understand the size and breadth of the ocean and the impact that the ocean has on life on Earth, he said. He says virtual reality could be a powerful way to reach people. Sarason’s job and passion is to get other people excited about oceans. “I had never thought of using a virtual world as a way to do that kind of outreach,” he said. It made him look at virtual reality in a new way. Sarason said the students did a great job of tying the different pieces together. “So I got online and started watching and I was blown away." It seemed like a really intriguing project,” he said. I'll hang out and watch and give feedback on what it looks like and whether it could be useful. "I thought, sure, that sounds interesting. They observed marine creatures and fixed the leak on an underwater pipeline.Ĭhristian Sarason, the executive director of OceanGate Foundation, a non-profit partner of OceanGate, was invited to observe the presentation. Sarason wasn’t involved in the students’ initial work and didn’t know what to expect. They explored shipwrecks and undersea volcanoes. “Our original submersible was nothing but an oval wooden shape, but it truly helped us to plan our concept from sticky notes to ‘reality,’” Barkovics saidįor the final project, the students took their audience on an expedition in the virtual Cyclops. Those classes taught him how to carefully reflect on ideas before starting design work, and then, after the design is finished, to include time for careful analysis and reworking.įor the OceanGate project, that meant the team started by building simple objects, just to see how they appeared in the virtual underwater environment. The knowledge the students already had from their time in the iSchool also helped them pull the project together.īarkovics said two classes were particularly helpful: Design Thinking and User Experience / Information Architecture. They tend to form little micro companies.” “They have to think of all the elements: Design, marketing, script, filming, uploading. “When they take on a customer like this, they have to think holistically,” he said. He says the collaborative, immersive abilities of VR make it easy for teams to create a project quickly.Īdditionally, by working with a real-world customer, students gained valuable skills, Hinrichs said. Hinrichs was impressed, but not surprised, by how quickly the students brought the project together. The project was well received by OceanGate and fellow students. In about two weeks, the students had created a virtual submersible that could navigate the virtual oceans, making a user feel like they were exploring Puget Sound. The students then created a 3-D model of the sub using Maya, 3-D animation software, and exported it into Second Life. The students visited Cyclops and documented it carefully. Mano Barkovicsīarkovics and his team wanted to see what they could do with a VR submersible. To conclude the class, students tackle a real-world project. Barkovics and his team found a particularly intriguing challenge with OceanGate, a company based in Everett, Washington, that has created a small ocean submersible called Cyclops. He enjoyed it so much, and has such an aptitude for the skills needed, that he now helps teach the VR class as a teaching assistant to Hinrichs. “It gave me a passion that has turned into a hobby and into my life’s work.” “I learned how much I loved VR in that class,” Barkovics said. The class is conducted entirely in the virtual world, using the Second Life platform. That all changed with a class at the University of Washington’s iSchool and a project to create a virtual reality underwater submersible.īarkovics, who intends to major in Informatics, took INFO 466 with Lecturer Ran Hinrichs. He thought it was interesting, sure, but didn’t believe in its ability to truly immerse a person in a virtual world. A little more than a year ago, Mano Barkovics didn’t know much about virtual reality. ![]()
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