Hugo Swart’s Post

Here it is! A video from our 2nd annual Mindblast XR Hackathon where middle school students created amazing VR projects centered around social justice. Huge shout out to all the students that participated, the judges, hosts, and community leaders, volunteers, and board members that supported this event. Check out their innovative solutions to some of today's most pressing issues! 🚀 #MindblastXR #SocialJusticeInVR #YouthInTech

🚀 I’ll be attending the upcoming MIT Reality Hack from January 25-29 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA! Kicking off 2024 couldn't be more exciting. This year's theme, "Connection," especially resonates with me. In my view, 'Connection' is what transforms our daily routines into extraordinary experiences. It's the magic that turns daily, mundane experiences into something rich and meaningful. This theme hits close to home; my partner is 3,500 miles away, and our interactions are often limited to what fits within a screen. A gourmet meal loses its savor when I can't share it with them, but when we're together, even simple chores like house cleaning become moments of joy. It's about finding delight in the everyday, simply because we're sharing it with others. Thus, I’m super stoked to spend several days learning, collaborating, and building fun XR projects that can potentially have a real impact with other passionate hackers. 🔥 I've already had some fantastic conversations, and I can’t wait to meet more people. So, if you're attending the Reality Hack or will be in Boston during that time, please let me know! 🤗 #XR #Design #MIT #RealityHack #Tech #Meta #Quest #Bezi #ar #augmentedreality #vr #virtualreality #mr #mixedreality #xrcommunity #xrdesign #mitrealityhack

Embarking on a Virtual Reality Adventure with Brokli Quest 🤖🎮 Excited to share that our team—Mary Diamandi, Anisa Kouka, Eirinaios Odysseas Gardelakos, and Gerasimos Konidaris—from the Information and Communication Technologies, University of Athens has developed an immersive VR game, “Brokli Quest,” as part of our Interactive Systems course. This game is not just about entertainment. It’s an innovative journey into the intricate world of neural networks. In “Brokli Quest,” players step into the shoes of a scientist tasked with fixing a lovable red robot named Brokli. The game challenges players to dive deep into Brokli’s neural network, combating corrupted data with swords and reclaiming stolen nodes from mischievous ghosts. What sets our game apart is the educational twist—players learn about data preprocessing and the building blocks of neural networks in a fun, engaging way. We’ve poured our passion for game design and educational technology into this project, and we’re excited to see players learn and have fun simultaneously. Ready to join the adventure? Click on the website https://lnkd.in/dNpa_TS9 to learn more about the game and download it! Grab your VR headset and download Brokli Quest now! #VirtualReality #GameDevelopment #Unity #EducationTechnology #BrokliQuest #NeuralNetworks

[👾 Bending player's physical room into a virtual alien world with MR] In this insightful talk from 2024 GDC, the developers of First Encounters share how they mix realities in their Meta Quest 3 game. First Encounters is a MR (mixed reality) game that blends player's physical room into a virtual world. It allows players the opportunity to interact with game characters and items overlayed on their physical play space, such as their room. To begin, players first shoot holes into their physical walls with virtual guns, which leads them to a cosmic world overlayed beyond their walls. Next, players encounter cute aliens that abide by real-world physics (e.g. appear on top of their furniture, or roll on the floor) in their physical room, and interact with them. 3 main pillars for MR game design are utilized to blend realities: 1. Suspend the player's disbelief: every part of the experience must feel physically grounded, such as having alien movements adhere to real-world physics. 2. Blend the player's physical and virtual worlds: make every element of the game world feel like they are part of the player's physical space. 3. Each reveal builds on the last: make every set piece, mechanic and event introduced to the player be novel and thematically cohesive to contribute to player immersion. I can see why First Encounters is a successfuly MR game. It allows players to punch virtual holes in their walls and let cute aliens into their homes, which not only expands on the limited physical space that players have for their play area by opening it up to cosmic space animations, but also creates fun interactions grounded to real-world physics that make them believable. Have you played an MR game before? What are your thoughts? - Link: https://lnkd.in/g5PxCFjZ - #MR #mixedreality #GDC2024 #gamesdev #developer #games #industry #Meta #Quest3 #Metaverse #videogames #scifi #userresearch #userexperience #UX #tech #HCI

What's the Buzz About This 3D Smoke Alarm? 🚨🧐 Something intriguing is brewing at XpertVR, and it involves a 3D smoke alarm. Yep, you read that right! Crafted meticulously by our talented team member, Christopher Rosati, this isn't just any ordinary smoke alarm. But what could it be for? That's the million-dollar question! I'm curious to hear your guesses. What do you think we're developing next? Is it a new type of safety training simulation? An innovative educational tool? Or perhaps something entirely unexpected? This 3D model is just a piece of a larger puzzle we're piecing together at XpertVR. The possibilities are as limitless as our imagination and trust me; we're not short on that! Drop your guesses in the comments! What do you think this 3D smoke alarm is a part of? Let's see who gets closest to unveiling our next big project! #XpertVR #InnovationInAction #3DSmokeAlarm #MysteryReveal #GuessTheProject Kidde Kidde Fire Systems John McBeth Jamie Kovacs 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 Aman Kainth

On Saturday, we met up with all the practices from our Dutch pilot using Therapy withVR! Before Saturday we'd only met 2 out of 6 of these great speech therapists in person! Thanks so much to StotterFonds and Demosthenes for organizing a great event and thanks again to StotterFonds for funding this pilot! More to come soon! #SpeechTherapy #SpeechLanguagePathology #SpeechPathology #SpeechTherapyIdeas #SpeechTherapyMaterials

A new VEX PD+ Insight explores ways of integrating art and computer science topics in your classroom through VEXcode VR activities! These activities help to bridge the gap for students who love art but are nervous about coding, or vice versa - blending the two topics to accommodate and strengthen both skillsets! Read more here: https://buff.ly/48VI3KP

Meta developed nine virtual reality checks (VRC) for accessibility. I am very excited about Accessibility Virtual Reality (A11yVR) session because it explores five of the VRCs using open source. A lot of virtual reality isn't accessible. These three fellowship projects with XR Access and Equal Entry show that this doesn't have to be the case. VR companies need to bake accessibility into their processes. And it'll be much easier and expand their reach. Do it now before competitors think about it. #Accessibility #VirtualReality #VR #XR

It's the most wonderful time of the year! We've got some BIG updates coming to Therapy withVR later this month! Some of them have been in the works for a while! This month! #SpeechTherapy #SpeechLanguagePathology #SpeechPathology #SpeechTherapyIdeas #SpeechTherapyMaterials

Imagine walking into your local convenience store only to find the usual checkout person had been replaced by a remote-controlled robot operated in VR by a human being located hundreds of miles away. Science-fiction, right? Perhaps not. Video source: Telexistence , VRScout , Ronald van Loon -------------------------------- Want to share your company's tech on Wevolver? Wevolver is a platform used by millions of engineers to stay up to date about the latest technologies. Learn how you can share your company's technology with Wevolver's community and reach a global audience of engineers: https://lnkd.in/gRbyf-yn