300 Hour Experience

For my 300 Hour experience, I completed two summers as a Virtual Reality (VR) Development Intern at BAE Systems. At BAE, the team that I was a part of worked to leverage the emerging technology behind VR to better perform our role as a Systems Integrator serving clients in the Defense Industry. More specifically, I designed and developed immersive VR scenes for clients. I collaborated with clients and other teams to understand their specific needs and requirements and translate those into compelling and interactive VR experiences. My day-to-day tasks included creating 3D models and textures, coding interactive elements, and integrating various software and hardware components to ensure a seamless and immersive VR experience.

 This experience allowed my to flex my innovator's muscles. The team that I joined had been formed less than a year prior, so during my onboarding process, I was learning to use this new technology alongside the five other members of my team. As we were all exploring this new technology, I had a lot of input into developing standardized processes that our team would use as we continued to develop as well as how we would approach our tasks. Additionally, our team was given a lot of leeway to explore new usecases for our technology. This past summer, I took the lead on developing a demo for one potential usecase that our team was exploring. I was able to tackle a completely novel problem and innovate to create a solution. I also was able to present this to both internal and external stakeholders. 

I learned a lot from this experience. I learned how important it is to take calculated risks. As an innovator, everything you do is risky. You are charting unknown territory and at any moment all your hard work could fall apart. However, there is great upside to innovation. You have the potential to disrupt a whole market and become a leader in the space you are innovating in. You are able to explore untapped opportunities. Above all else, you are able to learn from your failures. But just because you learn a lot from failure does not mean it should be your goal. Just because you have to take risks as an innovator does not mean you should take stupid risks. When I was exploring new usecases for VR technology at BAE, I was constantly taking risks. I was chasing leads that I did not know whether would pan out. I was risking my time. Yet, these were not bad risks to take. Each lead that I chased down I pursued because I had reason to believe that they would create value for myself and my coworkers. 

Applying this lesson to launching a startup, we can see that it is imperative that you evaluate your opportunities before you pursue them. Starting a business is a risky venture, and often times you are risking more than your time. If you take investments, you are risking other people's money. In order to justify these risks, the entrepreneur has to have good reason. Various investigations into customer behavior habits, product demand, and market must be undertaken to ensure that the risks are minimal.

While the work I performed the past two summers is classified, below you can find unclassified examples of VR scenes that I developed to show external stakeholders.