Virtual Reality Experience

The past Monday, our AP English Class went to the newly opened Oak Park and River Forest High School "MakerSpace". The MakerSpace area allows students to get a "hands-on" experience working with various materials such as blocks, K'NEX toys, and Spheros. Our class experienced some of the wonders of Virtual Reality and 360 degree YouTube videos and helped us to get a better overall sense of the struggles that the main characters in Exit West face.

The main characters in the book, Saeed and Nadia are attempting to escape and survive through a Civil War in their country. While they have managed to escape, their living conditions aren't what most people would call 'sufficient' and they are always on the lookout for a surprise attack. They are refugees throughout the book. Therefore, to get a better sense of the pain and suffering they are going through, we watched a series of virtual reality videos that allow us to look around and get a better vantage point of the surrounding area. I initially liked this idea of these types of videos. However, personally, I think that virtual reality industry is far from perfect at this point in time.

The videos we watched were empowering, and you could definitely get a sense of what the people were going through. However, while you could get a sense of what was going on, The Google Cardboard used to experience these virtual reality videos were flimsy at best. Not only did the videos struggle to load, but my iPhone became very hot, and due to the physics of the videos, I had a headache ten minutes into the video. Thankfully, you are able to watch these videos without a headset and can move around them simply using a mouse. I navigated the videos without a headset and I was still able to get the full experience. I like the idea of these lifelike videos, and I think I see a future with them, but they do need to get better. Additionally, while we able to see what they refugees were going through and their environment, we weren't necessarily able to see or experience how they felt. I hope that someday, we can experience that and truly get an immersive experience that other people have.