Prototyping and Experimenting Phase.

After communicating with a group of professionals from the field of technology and more specifically Virtual Reality we started a thinking process of what our prototype should be, what it should look like. So, we met up, like we always do, to present our ideas and further discuss the subject.

The truth is that it was a conversation with tension and a lot of disagreements. We had a bunch of ideas that we kept rejecting, one after the other. Of course, there were moments that we saw a dead-end and needed some coffee-breaks to get through it and start over, generating new proposals for our final result. It was exceptionally hard to find balance between making something original and innovative and not having to spend a lot of money on it, since we are just students.

After a lot of heated talking, we thought that it could be a great idea to approach our idea by utilizing a new technology which hasn’t been in the market for more than a decade. 3-D printing. What we had in mind was to design how we visualised V-Room in our heads and send the designs to a 3-D printer store. This way we could show an upper view of V-Room in class and explain to the audience by point-showing in the printed box-room what F.D.R had in mind. The idea seemed decent to all of us so Danae, the gifted one in drawing and sketching, started to design the room with our guidance. But still, we were not pleased. We furiously scratched that plan off and we sinked again in a realm of idea seeking meditation.

Some days went by and nothing was good enough for us to progress. And then it just came to me. In order to effectively pitch our idea we had to shoot as close as possible. So my proposal was to exploit Google Street View’s 360 degrees photo making and enhancing it with the very simple cardboard technology that would give the impression of Virtual Reality. We did a lot of research on how to build the cardboard device and where to find the right lenses that would enhance our 360 photo. When all this was eventually done we found a place that we considered that was close enough to what we considered V-Room to be. After a lot of failing attempts we finally achieved it.

Our prototype was ready.