It all began with witnessing the successful landing of the Perseverance Rover.
I wanted to see the rover at scale in VR, and especially if it could be situated in a Mars landscape, one that looks as close to the actual landing site as possible. There didn’t seem to be a place to do that in VRChat, so my team and I decided to build one!
My contributions (NASA Perseverance): Project lead, level design, asset optimization, lighting, maintenance updates.
My contributions (James Webb): Solo developer, level design, asset optimization, lighting, maintenance updates.
Space Science in Context
NASA Perseverance Rover on Mars and the James Webb Space Telescope are interactive, immersive virtual reality (VR) worlds hosted within VRChat, a multiplayer, social VR platform populated with user-created worlds and avatars. Our VR space worlds are designed to leverage the affordances of virtual reality to create an immersive experience of being on Mars with the Perseverance Rover or on the space telescope at Lagrange Point 2. We used interactivity, environment, and audio design elements to increase immersion and support learning about these NASA missions. Our poster will share insights from these designs.
This video poster was created for Space Science in Context - an amazing conference that you can find here: https://spacescienceincontext.com/ If you'd like to see the 2023 content, you can still post-register on the site to gain access.
Here’s a video showing off the drivable rover update, and my VRChat camera drone piloting skills! You can visit here! https://vrchat.com/home/launch?worldId=wrld_9be42be4-117c-4c44-b94c-bd8230d03ad1
The next world I decided to put together is a place where you can visit the James Webb Telescope at L2. See the Space science in Context presentation (at the top of this page) for a brief tour. You can visit the James Webb here: https://vrchat.com/home/world/wrld_305db057-ef3a-4663-a4ec-6f33e18b9359
