Drop the Base is an immersive educational VR application designed to teach basic physics formulas to middle and high school students in an engaging and interactive way.
Developed in just 30 hours for the Virtual Fantasy Limited Time challenge at Laval Virtual in 2017 (Laval, France), the app won first prize for its utility in education and fun user experience. It is a collaborative application that uses both a VR headset and an android tablet.
In the app’s first section, students are transported to a VR classroom where they can experience real-time simulations of fundamental physics equations (e.g., heat equation to melt ice or Maxwell’s magnetic field to move objects). The teacher can use the android tablet to display equations on the board of the VR classroom and adjust parameters to demonstrate their consequences on objects in the student’s environment in real-time.
In the second part of the app, students must apply the lessons they’ve learned in the classroom to escape three different rooms. By using the right equations with the right parameters, students can solve puzzles and progress through the game.
Video of app:
Tiffany Luong
My research is focused on studying user experience using objective indicators (e.g., physiological signals) in VR to understand human cognition and improve human-computer interaction.