The sweet spot for Virtual Reality & NOC Beijing
Ni hao! If you dug this post up, I’m sure you’ve been looking everywhere for all the information about NOC in Beijing, or Beijing in general. Well in this article, I’m going to be sharing something a little bit different from what you have been used to hearing and reading. Yeaa there has always been the “wanting to be independent”, “China is the next superpower”, “I wanna go on exchange” and all…. but one of the main reason for coming to China for NOC was because of Virtual Reality (VR).
Basically, VR is about you putting on a headset and being transported to another world, ANY world. Most of you would have seen/tried it as consumers but few would have thought about how you can actually make money from this. From hardware to applications, here’s a quick intro to the VR businesses and opportunities: https://www.cnet.com/special-reports/vr101/ Would be good if you take a quick look (5–10mins read) for some background.
Okay next up is my profile, how I came to work on VR and what I got out of my one year VR project back in Singapore because that one year had somehow become indispensable knowledge, that aided my internship in Beijing.
Name: Bryan Wong
Major/ Year: Mechanical Engineering/ 3
Likes (in China): 饺子 (dumplings), vinegar and chilli
Dislikes (in China): Squatting toilets
So my first VR project was one I took with Design Centric Program (DCP) in NUS. DCP is an engine program which is basically like TR4049 (an entrepreneurship module that every NOC newbie must take), but with new projects introduced every semester as we repeat the cycle of trying to make a business out of an engineering innovation. And last year I chose to work on the project “Virtual Reality in hand gestures (?)” I forgot the initial name since we changed it in the end but it was on VR and facilitated by an experienced VR industry expert who later converted to our full time prof.
“HandsOn Fire” was the punny name of our final product. As you can see, technical aspect was quite shabby but we had a pretty solid case. The idea, in summary, was that first responders to fires are often civilians, not firefighters. Yet, civilians’ trainings are unrealistic and out of context as they often train, with/without real fire, outside of their workplace at a regional SCDF headquarter. As a result, people are often lost when a real fire happens at their workplace. But then you can’t really do much cause you can’t possibly start a fire in the building and have them rehearse…. OR CAN YOU?? This is where VR comes in. This is where it shines.
We tried several methods to scan the environment and replicate it virtually. We put the fire at their desk, in their rooms, in their building and have them carry out the emergency procedures, step by step, exactly as they would if it happened for real. All these without having to start an actual fire, no time wasted gathering and moving people, manpower needed as trainers and so on. Of course, there were many problems too as you can imagine. But you could, for the first time, rehearse a fire drill in your burning office realistically without actually lighting it up.
1) High immersiveness that convinces me I am there
2) High interactivity that convinces me I exist there
3) There in a world where nothing is impossible
I wanted to talk about my DCP project because I wanted to show how these 3 core features have been brought out. 1 year working on this, I understand these as the basic form of VR. If an application, be it for training/game/art etc, can effectively and appropriately draw out these 3 characteristics for its use, it would be a great VR app in my opinion.
So with it being the next big thing (multi-BILLION market and rising exponentially) and China being one of the biggest players for VR, your boy set off to Beijing for 6 months last December. And this finally brings me to my NOC internship.
Seems pretty cool right? Over here at 巧克互动 (KuQuABC), our flagship product is a VR English education course designed for local Chinese kids. The idea is pretty straight forward; use VR to provide a better environment for kids to learn English. Sounds great. I mean at the top of your head you’d probably go:
“mmm ya VR, cool novel effects that attract kids, games, get their attention, get them to enjoy, they speak up, practice their English while having fun, bibbidi bobbidi boo”
But when you go deeper you see exactly how complex it is. Now I can’t say too much about what the company is currently doing but we can start breaking down the stuffs from what is publicly available.
The market for children’s English learning is huge, HUGE. The amount of money you spend on your kid’s education have become the new indicator for social standing. There are literally hundreds of these English training institutions so it’s extremely competitive. Generally, I think we are heading in the right direction to break in. The most popular training centres now are like VIPKid where they source for caucasian teachers overseas, connect them to a local Chinese kid, one on one, webcam and teach with presentation slides. Using VR for English education is definitely something new and could potentially be extremely effective. But to ensure a competitive edge over its competitors, all 3 components of KuQuABC must be studied carefully AND tightly in relation to one another.
Chinese kids
The characteristic of a general Chinese kid taking English as second language (ESL) is that they’re better at vocabulary and memorising than applying. Schools focuses heavily on sentence structure; whether its past perfect tense or present tense or plural, which honestly people who speak English don’t even remember. There isn’t much talking and the freedom to express freely. They get by everyday without having to use it, there is no platform for them to practice it daily. The company is well aware of this so the main aims have always been to get them to speak up and enjoy learning so they will want to return.
English education
Caucasians are highly regarded in this area (you can easily figure out why). So the company’s working with Bill Mayes, a high profile English educator here who has published books used in schools, to do up the English content. So you’d think we have the content figured out.
Virtual Reality
This is the sticky part of the whole idea. Because it is a relatively new tech (at least to the general public) and most of the company’s ranks come from traditional classroom educator background, there has been a poor link between what VR can do and the other 2 in the equation. How might we knead and morph the form of VR to apply it to this specific case, with these circumstances and characteristics? How might we fit it into that sweet spot in this whole mess? Answering this has basically been, in the macro scope, what I’ve been helping with in the company.
From my understanding, I have broken the essence of VR down into 3 main features. There may be others or these 3 features might not matter at all. But I hope I have provided you with enough info to give it some thought for yourself. Some of the big questions you can ask yourself are
· How do you get the kids to want to speak up in the VR simulation?
· Can you teach the language solely in VR?
· What is the best way to learn a language now? Can we try to replicate or make it even better than that?
· What are the pros and cons of this idea compared to traditional classroom teaching?
· You can use controllers too and how do they come into play?
· How to balance the fun and the learning?
And so on………..
While its potential is near limitless, without a deep understanding of its capabilities, we would only create a mediocre product. It is this fitting and matching that continues to make the whole application of VR interesting for me. Before I go back to SG, I hope I can perfect this equation for them. Until then, there is still much to learn! Thank you for reading and I hope you got something out of this!!
