Big data analytics junior Adam Abrams-Flohr used physics and math to create the orbital trajectories of the planets in the solar system in his virtual reality project.
By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau
Ground control: We’ve landed on Earth.
We see something in the distance – a creature of some kind. Approaching. Stand by.
Creature confirmed. It appears to be a dinosaur.
Ground control, we are OUT of here. Backing away …
Users can visit the moon, Earth and various planets in this project by Abrams-Flohr, Omar Elsayd and Andrew Millam.
Planet Earth, time of the dinosaurs, complete with a few soccer balls nearby just for fun, is one of the stops on the solar system-themed virtual reality project of Grand Canyon University juniors Adam Abrams-Flohr, Omar Elsayd and Andrew Millam. The idea is this: You’re a great adventurer planet- and moon-hopping your way through the universe, picking up a soccer ball or a moon rock here and there as you hurl yourself from place to place via a blue smoke portal.
The solar system project was just one of a multitude of student projects on display Wednesday during a virtual reality mini showcase for Dr. Isac Artzi’s junior-level CST-320 class, or as students like to call it, the virtual reality class.
Pre-COVID-19, the VR showcase was a regular end-of-semester event, but it hasn’t happened over the past year and a half.
“I wanted to renew the tradition,” said Artzi, as professors, campus leaders and students milled about a second-floor classroom in the Technology Building, popping in and out of a gaggle of virtual reality headsets to immerse themselves in the various worlds and games created by the students.
Evan Kliewer, Drake Anderson and Lucio Infante created a VR world where pizza actually does grow on trees.
Once the headsets are on, you can “walk” through a virtual park, approach dinosaurs with a push of a button, admire a place where pizza DOES grow on trees, and experience a fun spooky beach carnival, as is the case in the student projects.
“We started with a lot of ideas. Originally, we wanted to do kind of a room full of breakable objects where you just go in and you smash everything. But we kind of thought that we could do more with this than just that — more than just, you know, wanton violence, even though, who doesn’t like a little bit of wanton violence?” Abrams-Flohr said …….
Source: https://news.gcu.edu/2021/12/showcase-orbits-around-students-virtual-reality-projects/