Application 1: Anne Frank House

Once I sorted my things out, I was able to enter my first VR application: Anne Frank House. I played the story mode since I couldn't click on the other one, and entered the house of Anne frank. The colors were washed out, so it looks like I was transported to the past. I was impressed with how quick the images load, and turning spinning the room was super fun. When I click on a quotation mark ", I was surprised to hear sound coming from the back of the headset. It was not as loud as I would've liked it to be (I was too overwhelmed with what was going on to find a volume setting.. if there was one), but makes me feel like I was in a museum. Since this was my first application, I tried to move closer to open a bookcase, but I realized I could just look down and click on the footsteps to move around. But something I don't really like is again, the 20-30 inch radius of the VR because if we move past that, we'll start to glitch back to reality.. It's good, but as a first time player, that's something that I noticed is a limitation.

My fellow ITAP apprentice was saying "be careful!" constantly because I was trying to move too much... Overall, the design of the game is super realistic (low expectations from me because I'm not familiar with this type of technology), and the story helped me learn a bit more about Anne Frank's history. I'm not sure how useful this application would be to make it an actual course or for a research project, but it'll need a lot more development. Single uses are fine though, like students can have one day to explore the historical place to get a better feel of what Anne Frank went through.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Application 2: 3D Organon VR Anatomy

We all want to use VR for learning, and the anatomy application was first on the list, so of course I had to check it out. When I first opened the application, it was very straightforward and simple: we could choose to take a quiz or just general learning. I didn't want to stress myself out so I decided to look at how our body structure is. When we first enter the learning mode, I saw a skeletal structure of a human. As I point my controller around, the names of individual bones popped up, which was pretty cool. I explore a few other systems such as the muscles and nerves, and it was pretty neat to move closer and see the structure of our body or where they are placed. I don't have any major complaints about this application, I think it fulfills what a basic learning app needs to have, except for the fact that it could have a feature that allows us to listen to a lecture explaining the details of each body part? That might be helpful.

Honestly, you can't really go wrong with this if you're using it for learning, so if it's possible, I think students can use this VR app to help them study courses that requires them to learn about the human anatomy. I don't really think you can use this for a research unless the app develops itself more and become a type of interactive model or simulator (like PhET but VR version!)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Application 3: Ghost Giant

For this last application, I just want to say: the lobby is so pretty. Just a black space with glowing blue lights... anyways. I'm not sure why it took me so long to navigate, but I really couldn't find a way to start the application, so I never got the chance to play the game. Thus, I decided to go onto the internet to see what the game is about, and realized that this game will require a lot of motions. I have motion sickness and a super high glass prescription, so I knew this was a bad combination. I ended up just looking at the design of the lobby in great details, and for some reason I realized I didn't have the ghost hands that we were supposed to have when we're playing this set, so maybe I was holding the VR controllers incorrectly? But aside from my personal issues with motion sickness, I have no major complaints about the game visuals.

I can't really see this game being applicable in any courses that I know at DePauw, but I guess you can use it for inspiration for art-related courses or research projects of VR development...

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Final Thoughts:

This was a very cool experience for me, and I would like to spend some more time exploring VR and what it has to offer. Honestly speaking, I think most of the applications here are for us to enjoy and play with our friend, but not a lot of them can be used for learning as far as the ones I've seen/explored through.