Ever since our class last semester got to skype in with the guy who did photogrammetry, I've been thinking about a million different applications that that tech could have. When it came time to work on my final project, I wanted try my hand at using it. A little bit of Background on me. I'm a Boy Scout certified ecology/conservation director during my summers. One of the largest parts of my job at my camp is teaching about the flora through their leaves. My most valuable teaching tool is passing...

  At the start of this project I set out to create a virtual reality map of the summer camp I work with 3D scans of leaves and explainers scattered throughout to help VRnauts learn about trees. It was ambitious and, as I quickly found out, impossible to do without an actual structure scanner or internet access. I scrapped the location and decided instead to set my project in Thornden park, much closer to the innovation lab and wifi. My project had four stages after the change of scenery: collecting...

My Pitch: Create a Virtual Reality version of a Sandwich Shop which uses 3D objects as symbols for the problems that plague the fast food industry.VR Pitch The purpose is to allow VRnauts to understand the issues first hand. Problems like a lack of sick days will be illustrated with a sneezing employee, poor wages and limited upward mobility will be demonstrated with an actual poverty line, and work place hazards will range from crowds to hot ovens.  

  This one went very smoothly. I continue to not be able to get a screen capture program to work on my computer, however, so this is sadly my third video made with an iphone. Good news is it has disco.

Linked above is my Unity Project, 2016: A Ben Odyssey based very loosely on the first monolith scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Every step of the process was plagued by janky-ness from an accidental move of the scene folder into the scene folder creating an infinite number of scene folders impossible to delete on my desktop to VLC media player not being able to record my screen leading to the iphone produced masterpiece seen above. So. Much. Googling. Did I mention that it tried to build a demo real instead of...

Late Saturday, a friend of mine and I visited the Kimmel dining area. We played a game where we tried to guess how drunk various students were around Kimmel. My mind got moving, this is fun to watch in real life, I bet it would be fun in VR too. The Idea: Have a VR camera act as a silent friend as a they go about their Saturday night in a group, drinking around Syracuse. The idea would be to recreate the feeling of being out with friends. In my...

A long time ago, my family purchased a new refrigerator. There was, of course, a box, and I made that box into a spaceship, because that is what you are obliged to do with a refrigerator box. I spent many hours exploring and building imaginary worlds. On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to try out Samsung Gear VR, the Oculus Rift, and many different programs on Google Cardboard. One that stuck out was an interplanetary explorer. "Finally," I thought. "A large multi-national corporation is doing my imagining for me." The...