Oculus Rift

I am passionate about taking new challenges head on. When it came time for my capstone in college, I wanted to find a challenge that explored user experience beyond what has already been established. VR was just coming into the market and was the 'wild west.' Myself and my teammate applied for a grant and were able to acquire one of the first Oculus Rift Development kits. We took the Oculus and hacked it together with the Leap Motion to track users hand gestures in a virtual environment. We created an environment in which users could explore scaling, grabbing, throwing, dragging, deleting, and various other interactions. The intention was to study what type of gestures translated from devices into the virtual space where the user lacks haptic feedback. The best part of this project was that I had no prior experience in virtual reality, game engines, or the Leap Motion device. I put my entire graduation at risk to try my hand at a near market. Our study was a huge success and was featured in our local newspaper. The Apple Vision Pro is a great example of the path our research explored and how ahead of the time it was.