Written+Report--April+21,+2011


 * Animorphosis: A Virtual Reality Exhibit--Written Report**

With the help of the 4D experience, virtual reality images, and a take-home gift, visitors will learn about the importance of the environment and the critical balance to sustain it. When they interact with our exhibit in a fun and creative way, they will feel that helping the environment is no short from amazing and definitely not a chore. Our exhibit is very open concept, giving the visitor ample room to express their creativity in problem solving. Architectural wise, there will be a walkway and a dome. The walkway, as the name suggests, will lead to the game area. The walls of this walkway will be projected with healthy and endangered habitats to set a mood for the visitor as to what the exhibit may be about. The dome-like game area will be where the visitor puts on virtual reality goggles. Instead of a boring TV where the participant just stands and plays, by using these goggles, the user can instantly feel like they are part of the specific habitat. There will be a padded railing encircling the visitor so he or she will not walk into the walls of the dome or if a certain image or movement startles the visitor. Around the outside of this railing, but inside the dome, the parent or guest who wishes to not play but watch, can stand in this area and look at a screen in a small section of the dome wall. This screen depicts exactly what the visitor playing in the exhibit sees. The entire dome will have the similar feature as a two-way mirror, where the visitor on the inside cannot see through the dome walls, but visitors passing by outside of the exhibit can observe what the visitor inside is doing and perhaps spark their curiosities. Once the visitor enters the dome, they will put on a set of virtual reality goggles. This will trigger a short activity where the sensors can calibrate themselves to the unique size and movements of the visitor. Once the calibration is completed, several option buttons will be projected on the inside of the goggles depicting a choice of four environments- the Rainforest, the Savannah, the Arctic, and the Ocean. Once chosen, another set of options will appear allowing the visitors to choose the animal they wish to become within this environment. For instance, if the visitor chose the Rainforest environment and the Jaguar as their animal, they would be immersed within the dense canopy and humid setting of Earth’s rainforests as seen through the eyes of the Jaguar. The 4D aspect will reinforce the idea that the visitor is 'transported' into the scenario as the situation will become much more realistic, and invoke much more emotion. Psychologically speaking, when the visitor experiences the scenario in all or most of the 5 senses, the experience is much closer to real life, and the brain will interpret these multiple sensory signals and augment the illusion of being in that reality created at the exhibit. This will make the experience more authentic as the visitor can feel the cool ground beneath their feet, hear the sound of other animals in the distance, smell the fresh, moist air and feel the hot, humid atmosphere. This will be made possible through the use of sound systems, fans, and air dispersing devices. From this point, the visitor will briefly be able to explore this area as untouched by human influence before another set of options appear, asking the visitors to choose an issue of endangerment. This may include poaching, human development, deforestation or pollution. Once an option is selected, the visitor will witness time-elapsed footage of the environment they just experienced, deteriorating as a result of the issue chosen. If human development was selected, the visitor would witness the lush rainforest disintegrating as trees disappeared and as they are replaced by towns, factories buildings, and farms. Through the eyes of the Jaguar, the visitor would be immersed into this changed environment and bombarded by a new set of sensations. They may see flat farmland or huge factories, hear the noise of people shouting and machines running, and smell the stench of chemicals and smoke. The visitor must explore this environment with the simple goal of finding their way home (to the animal’s den, nest, family etc.). In this quest, the visitor will only be aided by a small map display showing 2 dots (one to show their own position and the other to show home) projected in the corner of the screen. As the visitor explores, they will encounter several obstacles such as lack of food, lack of shelter, disorientation, mine shafts, or poisoning, that relate to their issue. The 4D aspect will also complement this experience. For example, if the visitor drew near an area of construction they would feel a rumbling under their feet and smell dust and dirt. The visitor must find out how to avoid/ overcome these obstacles in order to achieve the ultimate goal—their way home. Should the visitor fail to overcome these obstacles, the virtual reality will end and the visitor must start over. If the visitor is unable to complete the task, the scenario will end after an allotted period of time and the visitor must restart.  We want the visitors to fully engage in our exhibit and experience the ill-effects of environmental degradation on animals in a closer manner with the ultimate goal of building their commitment to save the environment and enhance their participation in conservation efforts. We aim to keep things simple, using 4D stimulation and virtual reality to simulate an endangered environment. At the same time, it will promote the desire to achieve natural balance and sustainability. The first-person experience gained from this interaction is intended to motivate visitors to readily take responsibility at an individual level that could eventually lead to revolutionary transformations in the field of wildlife in the near future. The visitors can exercise their problem solving skills, and perhaps test out how new ideas can help the endangered environment they chose. Our game will work through the use of multiple Xbox kinect motion sensors and virtual reality goggles. Multiple kinects will be attached to the walls around the participant to capture their movements from all angles to obtain the best virtual image of them so that the game can be as realistic as possible. This is done through the use of the kinect’s hardware and software that constantly send out infrared signals to scan the area (like sonar). This will create constant pictures of the scene so that it can create a depth video to capture the motion during game play. The processor uses these movements and translates them to work with the game that is being played and what is required of the game. Using the gyroscope present in the kinect, the movements and direction changes that the participant partakes in will show up in the glasses. This will allow for the most realistic game and with the use of the 4D elements which we wish to incorporate the virtually reality will feel and be seen as reality. The smartphone component of this project consists of two parts. The first part is an app which the user can easily download. This app will essentially have an animal, that of one’s choosing, which lives on the home page of the smartphone. In most android smartphones, the home page can be populated with “widgets” – most of which are calendars, clocks, etc – but we want to take this idea further and populate the home screen of the user with an animal which sleeps, needs to be fed and looked after, reacts to touch, makes noises (sound can be disabled) and its habitat will need to be looked after as well. Giving the user the option to have this animal on the front page and not as a game or app will remind them of the lessons in environmental stewardship learnt from this exhibit experience. In addition, we wanted to use the gyroscope functionality of new smartphones such as the iPhone 4 to recreate the experience of the exhibits through their smartphones. The visitor could download a walkthrough of the environment in first person – this is very similar to the Google Street-view technology, but more intuitive in that you could physically walk around with the smart phone in a space and see on the screen what you would see if you were walking around in the virtual space. We want the visitors to realize that immediate efforts must be made to save the habitats that hold great potential for recovery. Thus, we want everyone to come together as a team to contribute in conservation approaches that will ensure a brighter, better and safer future for wildlife all around the world. Although, our exhibit focuses on a few specific issues concerning habitat endangerment, these are the little steps that bring about the greatest changes. 