Girls' Day 2016 at the HCI group

28 April 2016, by Julian Fietkau

At the Girls' Day 2016 a group of 12 girls between in the 7th and 8th grade had the chance to make some experiences with virtual reality in the HCI laboratory. After a short interactive introduction in Unity 5 they created their own island within a wide ocean. Concepts like manipulation of the terrain with brushes in order to change the shape and texture of parts of the island were applied. They learned how to place grass, trees and other objects like huts easily with the help of the Unity editor. It took only short time until volcanoes with lava texture or mountains and lakes were created by the girls.

Our approach was to use a prepared scene and building blocks on a higher level of abstraction in order to make the first steps with Unity more easy. In the second phase of the project the girls had time to explore their island with the head-mounted display Oculus Rift DK II. They had overwhelming experiences by running through their own island in a first person view. Altogether, we all had a lot of fun by exploring the virtual reality. The girls had the chance to have hands-on experience with very new technology and we research assistants had the chance to explain things of our workaday life to potential young academics. We are looking forward to the next year!