Post date: Sep 11, 2011 4:59:19 PM

VR Geeks Newsletter - 01

Welcome to the first VR Geeks newsletter !

The VR Geeks is a non-for-profit association of Virtual Reality enthusiasts (professionals and amateurs), whose goal is just to have fun with VR.

A consequence is that we’re looking for cheap ways to do VR.

The VR Geeks association is part the French VR association AFRV.

A lot has happened since one year, so here’s a review !

Association

The association has been created in February 2011, and the board was elected :

- David Rauline : Secretary

- Geoffrey Subileau : Treasury

- Sébastien Kuntz : President

The association now has more than 60 members and 4 honorary members :

- Jaron Lanier: VR Pioneer, “found(er) VPL Research, Inc., the first company to sell VR goggles and gloves” (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaron_Lanier )

- Carolina Cruz-Neira: VR Pioneer, co-creator of the first CAVE

- Christophe Chartier, CEO Immersion SAS

- Didier Bouchon, video game pioneer

The mailing-list now has 145 members.

You can also follow us on our Facebook page.

Activities

Our main activity during this year has been to meet-up regularly (in bars and in Le Cube, digital technology center) and share knowledge.

Visit

We have visited the VR center of the Mines-ParisTech robotic center :

Creations

VR Kits

We created two Do-It-Yourself VR kits and a set of specifications to try to be able to share our applications with different hardware.

One kit is based on a HMD and costs 500€ :

The other kit is based on a 3D projector and costs 1000€ :

Games

We have created two games :

- VR Escape : a dark “escape-room”. The game was created in 48h during the Global Game Jam

- VR Sadistic : An original game by game designer Tahir Vico (and us), where the goal is to escape from a giant cube-shaped puzzle :

Events

We have been invited to Laval Virtual, the main VR tradeshow in Europe.

We had a booth and also presented a poster at the VRIC conference. Here’s a full review.

We were also invited to the Past Games’ Rebirth retro-gaming event :

Then we were invited to Intel’s Geek So In event :

And finally we gave a presentation at the Web3D conference during the Art Show organized by La Bibliothèque Francophone des Metaverses :

Press

We got quite a good media coverage :

What’s next ?

We have lots of plans for this year: visit more VR centers, create more applications, train our members on VR tools, take part in events … This is going to be an exciting year !

We’re looking for hardware to be able to create more applications, so if you have spare hardware that you don’t use anymore, or if you’re a company and you’re willing to sponsor us, let us know !

How to become a member ?

You can freely join the mailing-list.

You can support us by becoming a member. Membership costs 10€. You will receive an official “VR Geek” badge. Simply send us an email stating that you want to become a member and we will send the full instructions to you!