UCSD Virtual Reality Club Partnership
In the last year, the neuroscience and AP World History classes partnered with the Virtual Reality (VR) Club at the University of California, San Diego, proving VR is not just for gaming. The partnership provided opportunities for two students, Eric Cohen ’17 and Nikko Sambold ’18, to join the student organization at UC San Diego and partake in a special project, coding a program in cooperation with the San Diego Museum of Air and Space. Eric and Nikko are now helping to create a game within a virtual museum complete with life-sized replicas of planes that are controlled to maneuver in desired locations.
The club mainly consists of college students, but when Eric met VR Club President Connor Smith in neuroscience class, he mentioned his interest and was invited to the next meeting. Nikko, who was also intrigued and joined him, is now planning to form an LJCDS VR Club during flex time next year.
“Without Connor’s outreach, I definitely would never have done anything close to this,” says Eric. “I don’t even think I’d start developing on the VR headset. I use Oculus (a VR headset) at my house, but I don’t think I would become a developer if it weren’t for this club. I plan to start a VR club next year at the University of Washington.”
Upper School Science Department Chair Susan Domanico, Ph.D., has two neuroscience classes that have benefited from experiencing VR when the UCSD VR Club brought two HTC Vive headsets and gave demos of both standard industry VR experiences, such as Google Earth, as well as a Sensory demo. The Sensory project was developed by the VR Club during the UCSD 36-hour Hackathon, which won two awards at a Stanford competition.
Sensory is a VR experience that allows users to experiment with different disorders, including visual, cognitive or auditory disorders. After users select a specific impairment, they are subjected to what someone with that disorder may experience and can learn more about the disorder. Examples of disorders include achromatopsia, a rare form of complete colorblindness, and prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces. Users can combine these effects, view their surroundings from new perspectives, and educate themselves on how various disorders work.
“The benefit to students is multifold: building excitement by getting their hands on a new technology that’s growing and will continue to grow, and allowing those students who are interested in building software to learn coding and see how it can be used in education,” says Dr. Domanico. “It’s not just a game, it’s a tool to learn things in a way that can’t be done in the classroom.”
LJCDS has been fortunate for many other opportunities to partner with our neighbors at UC San Diego this year, including:
- Alan Daly, Ph.D., Amanda Datnow, Ph.D., and Beth Simon, of the Department of Education Studies spoke with faculty/staff on the role of social networks and relationships in bringing effective educational reform.
- Upper School students visited the Center for Cyber-Archaeology & Sustainability (CCAS) at UC San Diego Qualcomm Institute.
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and professor Kara Bagot, M.D., and Director of the Division of Chair of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Jay Giedd, M.D. visited the neuroscience and AP Psychology classes to discuss adolescent brain development and addiction.
- Dr. Bagot also spoke with faculty/staff on brain development and addiction as part of the faculty/staff speaker series
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858-453-3440
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La Jolla, CA 92037
858-453-3440
© 2024 La Jolla Country Day School
Privacy Policy
COVID-19 Prevention Plan
