One of the biggest complaints about online classes is the lack of interaction and immersion. There have been a few attempts to create remote interactive classrooms, including a study in the game Second Life, as well as various video streaming solutions, but we don't feel these are really sufficient to create a truly interactive and immersive experience - one that can impact people's learning in ways watching a video or reading chat messages can't. Using a combination of virtual and augmented reality technologies, we believe we can create an environment where a student can effortlessly interact with a live classroom as though they were really there.
Our large-scale vision was to create a virtual recreation of CSU Monterey Bay's Business and Information Technology (or BIT) building, and allow a remote student to interact with a class as though they were a part of it. Ultimately, a student would be able to hear the instructor talk and see them move around the room, and would be able to be called upon to answer a question by speaking or by writing an answer on the board just like any other student would. Students would also be able to chat with each other inside the environment, and would be able to get general responses to common questions from professor "bots" when their real-life counterparts are unavailable.
Progress
Remote students are able to use virtual reality headsets alongside Leap Motion depth cameras to physically write on a shared virtual whiteboard that they, as well as the rest of the real class, can see. They are able to hear the instructor and see their relative movements, gestures, and even mouth movements thanks to a kinect camera and microphone in the classroom. The instructor can then see a reverse-kinematic animation of the remote student as they write on the board, and hear them if they answer a question.
How It Works
We had a large headstart with this project due to the fact that a 3D model of our Computer Science building was already created prior to it's construction. I sourced that model, importing it into unity and making my own touch-ups, lighting, and corrections. The teacher and student models were sourced from students taking a separate character design class, and the whiteboard was achieved by accessing a collaborative whiteboard site through a web browser plugin for Unity. The Leap Motion camera then allowed me to use the user's hand as a roundabout "mouse" for the browser.
Fun Fact: There was a pretty heated debate about whether or not there should be an 'e' after the VR in UniVRsity. I argued that putting the 'e' there made it read like "Uni-vereh-sity", but the professor had his way at the time, saying it was more clever that we were just switching the two letters around. This is my site, though, and for the sake of readability I'm sticking to my version.
