VR School

Overview

“VR School” is an immersive educational platform compatible with a range of VR headsets, including Oculus Quest 1 & 2, HP, HTC, and others. It allows teachers and students to interact in a virtual classroom environment with features like voice chat, custom avatars, and a networked whiteboard.

Technologies & Tools

1. 1. Game Engine: Unity
Networking: Photon PUN 2, Photon Voice
Development Tools: Blender (for custom avatars), VR SDKs (Oculus)
Languages: C#
Platforms: VR (Oculus Quest, HP, HTC), Android

Challenges & Solutions

Challenges: Building a seamless voice chat system with automatic detection. Designing custom avatars for the teacher while keeping a simpler representation for students to reduce network load. Ensuring compatibility across multiple VR devices and platforms (VR headsets and Android phones).

Solutions: Integrated Photon Voice to power real-time voice chat with auto-detection, ensuring clear and efficient communication. Created distinct avatars: full-body teacher avatars (male/female) for networked environments and simplified student avatars (head and hands only) to optimize performance. Developed a custom VR rig with custom VR hands, tailored to work seamlessly with Photon PUN 2 for smooth interactions.

Key Features & Highlights

Cross-Platform Compatibility: VR School works across multiple VR headsets (Oculus, HP, HTC) and allows students to join via Android devices, making the platform accessible to all users.

Voice Chat with Auto-Detection: Teachers and students can communicate using a robust voice chat system powered by Photon Voice, which automatically detects and adjusts the audio.

Custom Avatars: Teachers are represented with full-body avatars (male or female), while students are represented by simplified models (head and hands) to maintain smooth performance in networked sessions.

Networked Whiteboard: Teachers can control the whiteboard, including adjusting its position in the virtual space, and share it with all students.
Slide Uploads: Teachers can upload presentation slides directly from their device (Oculus Quest) and view them in VR, enhancing the learning experience.

Results & Impact

Outcome: VR School successfully created an engaging, interactive classroom environment where teachers and students could collaborate virtually. The inclusion of voice chat, custom avatars, and whiteboard interactivity provided a near-real classroom experience, significantly enhancing student participation and teacher control.

Impact: This project set a new standard for educational VR applications by providing cross-platform support, making it accessible to both VR and mobile users. The ability to upload and view slides in real-time gave educators more flexibility in lesson planning and delivery, improving the overall learning experience.