Booth Id:
CS021
Category:
Embedded Systems
Year:
2014
Finalist Names:
McClure, Nicholas (School: Mount Vernon High School)
Abstract:
For as long as human’s have been alive, there has always been the desire to live in the imagination; A place where anything can happen, be it standing on top of the tallest building in the world to overcome your fear of heights, or seating yourself in the world’s fastest F1 car on the famous Silverstone race track to train yourself for the upcoming Grand Prix World Championship. This is where true virtual reality comes into play. Since 3D environments have been around, there have always been people trying to create new innovations to allow users to transport themselves into new worlds. They’ve always been somewhat gimmicky and the technology hasn’t quite been there to actually create a believable experience. Because of technology’s amazingly rapid development over the past few years, computing power is getting smaller, more powerful and precise, and screen technologies are rapidly advancing; allowing virtual reality to finally come to fruition.
Problem: Fear; an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is threatening, dangerous, or likely to cause pain or death.
Solution: Expose the user to their fear/weakness in a believable virtual world until they are trained to no longer fear, or have turned their weakness into a strength. This can be applied to virtually anything, such as:
- Car Permit License Training for Teens
- Surgical/Medical Field
- Aviation Training
- Emergency Response Training
- Psychotherapy
In this case, the most affordable solution to emulating one of the following is to create a full motion car simulator alongside a Virtual Reality headset and a full 7.1 surround sound headset. Doing so will be able to convey the overall idea of what Virtual Reality can be used for and how believable it truly is.