Virtual World Brief

“The incredible thing about the [VR/AR] technology is that you feel like you’re actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it’s different from anything they’ve ever experienced in their lives.” Mark Zuckerberg. There is a broad shift coming in how we interact with technology. With Meta, Zuckerberg, is hoping to develop the Metaverse that includes persistent virtual worlds that perpetually exist. This is to include augmented reality that combines aspects of the digital and physical world. Virtual reality will be able to transform abstract concepts into something more concrete—transporting students into transformative moments in history, or introduce them to other places in the world, to mountain summits, or coral reefs or other communities of people, or even galaxies, or taking them inside microscopic environments to see how atoms are built. Teams of engineers are working globally to develop this cutting-edge technology that will bring us these new experiences. The design process is complex and requires creativity, communication, and critical thinking skills. This lesson will introduce them to the design process by having them experience the Oculus Quest 2 Virtual Reality headset, brainstorm ways to make the experience better, and then create a design brief to acquaint them with the design process.