Cybernautics

Ive always been excited by the inner-workings of technology. When I was young, I would disassemble remote control cars in my driveway. Wheels and battery cartridges would be strewn about on the pavement as I played with the motors and became familiar with the flow of the circuits. I also loved to play video games and would gravitate towards anythin... g that required imaginative play. The fantasies of a child dont have to be based in reality. Technology seemed to have the potential to overcome the limits of what we consider to be reality. My first introduction to virtual reality, as Im sure many will relate to, was the holodeck on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The holodeck promised complete sensory immersion in a computer generated environment. I can proudly say that I was six years old when I designed my first virtual reality device. It was 2004, and my dad told me about this new game console that was just revealed by Nintendo called the Revolution. Two years later, it would be released as the Nintendo Wii. The implications of this new device stunned me. Suddenly the science fiction of the holodeck was grounded in the potential of my lifetime. Filled with inspiration, many ideas came to me about how I might design a VR chamber. I ran to the computer and drew the blueprints in Microsoft Paint. My idea was a chamber the size of a room with an adaptive omnidirectional floor, a web of harnesses to simulate weightlessness, powerful fans and speakers in every wall, a full body haptic suit, and goggles with screens right over the persons eyes. I couldnt understand how someone could possibly focus their vision with the screen being so close to their face, but I figured this was something that could be figured out someday. As VR development progressed, I was excited when I found out about Oculus when it was still in its crowdfunding stage back in 2012. I obtained the Oculus Developer Kit 2, and attempted to learn how to develop for it. Unfortunately, I was out of my depth at this early stage. While I was unable to ...Read More