Look in the Lab — April 2020 Newsletter
Just over a month ago, we were preparing our working from home spaces, for classes on Zoom (or in virtual reality!), and for the uncertainty that was to come with COVID-19. A lot has happened to our nation over the past month. In this month’s newsletter, you’ll read stories surrounding innovation, creativity, and determination during difficult times. Before we get to those, we just want to say we hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy!
The Latest
Social VR for the classroom? Visualizing data with the Magic Leap?
Read the latest below!
The Virtual Classroom
In the words of Steven King, “space matters.” We need places to gather, collaborate, and create. Tools like Zoom and Slack have been useful during these times of remote class and work, but they don’t reap the same benefits as gathering in a classroom or in our space on Franklin St.
So, Steven had an idea. What if his MEJO 588 Emerging Technologies class could use social VR to resemble the classroom environment? It took 28 Oculus Go headsets, testing two social VR platforms (Mozilla Hubs and AltSpace VR), and a week of trial and error, but his “what if” question was made into a reality. And it was a huge success. Below is the message Steven gave his students on the “first day of virtual class.”
Curious to conduct your summer classes or next staff meeting in a virtual space? Read Steven King’s VR Classroom series here.
The Media and the Virtual Classroom
The story of teaching in virtual reality was shared on our campus, in the Triangle, throughout North Carolina, and beyond! Here are a few highlights:
- UNC’s The Well published a great piece on remote learning strategies from professors at UNC.
- The News & Observer covered Steven’s virtual classroom as it was starting to unfold late March.
- WUNC also produced a great story about teachers across the state of North Carolina who are innovating for remote learning environments.
- The Daily Tar Heel wrote about the virtual classroom and talked to a few MEJO 588 students who are a part of this experience.
Be sure to follow our social media @ReeseInnovate for more updates on this experiment!
Staff Spotlight: Alexis Barnes (Creative Content Producer)
“She knows so much about a ton of different topics and skills, and her knowledge allows her to work with both the creative and technical teams and help each of them understand the other.” — Lab Fellow, Madelyn Welch about Alexis Barnes
She’s detail-oriented and incredibly skilled. She’s a mentor to many. And she’s a passionate about her two dogs, Luna and Jax. Alexis Barnes was featured in this article on UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media’s website. Read all about how she joined the Lab and what her favorite projects have been!
RIL Celebrates Accessible Technology
Throughout April, we’ve been spotlighting incredible technology that has improved accessibility around communication, vision, mobility, and creation. Check out our Instagram Story highlights to learn about these incredible inventions. We also wrote a story about UNC graduate student, Meagan Hove, and her work around accessibility and technology. How can we use technology to teach empathy and inform our decisions around accessibility? Meagan’s final project in MEJO 588 is trying to answer that question using virtual reality — Click here to read more and experience her project in VR!
What’s Possible with the Magic Leap?
Imagine you’re in a business meeting and your team is discussing data from a recent report. What if you could take two data points and move them along a graph to get a better understanding of the report? Well, this is possible with the Magic Leap.
Brian Batista (Videographer) and Husam Shaik (Developer) have been working hard on this data visualization project using the Magic Leap. See our latest YouTube video to learn all about their work!
AWS C++ Unreal Tutorial
Daniel Sanchez, VR Developer, has been working on building out VR classroom experiences, from Cameroon VR to an upcoming project called Endurance VR. What makes these experiences so valuable is the ability to see real-time decisions from students while they are engaging in the VR experience. There were challenges to figuring out this reporting feature, especially since the available tutorials were sparse. So, Daniel created his own for developers to use — check it out here!
Behind the Tutorial
By Daniel Sanchez, VR Developer
At the Reese Innovation Lab, we use the Unreal game engine to create our VR experiences. Our VR experiences are used as a component of a larger lesson plan that is designed to engage students in new ways. One of the biggest challenges we have faced is extracting the data about the students’ decisions from the VR experience and presenting it back to the instructor. This data is extremely important for the instructor to understand how the students engaged with the experience, and it helps the instructor lead a thoughtful class discussion once the experience has ended.
To overcome this challenge, we integrated AWS (Amazon Web Services) into Unreal, which has provided us with efficient tools for extracting and presenting our data to instructors. When we first began looking into using AWS, we realized that there was no simple way of connecting it to Unreal, so we decided to create our own set of tools that would allow developers to quickly add AWS to their Unreal projects. We have decided to open source our tools in the hope that it helps other members of the Unreal community succeed and create their experience!
