VRHack

Context & challenge:

The first Virtual Reality Hackathon is part of the Neuroergonomics Conference Munich in September 2021.
Virtual Reality (VR) has the ability to immerse us into alternative worlds and to create experiences we would likely never encounter in everyday life. Although the idea of VR goes back into the early 20st century, especially in recent years, VR has become more affordable and sophisticated than ever before. With the release of modern Head-Mounted-Displays (HMDs), VR is increasingly used by consumers for gaming, sport, education or entertainment. In combination with motion tracking, HMDs let us naturalistically perceive and interact with virtual worlds, creating the illusion of being in the virtual place.

VR has been promised as an empathy machine, able to e.g., let healthy people experience what it is like to live with disabilities. However, many people with physical impairments are often unable to experience VR without assistance and some are not even able to make head or body movement, required to experience immersive VR.

The goal of the weekend-long hackathon is to bring scientists and professionals with various backgrounds together to develop new interfaces with neuroscientific methods to increase the accessibility of VR for disabled people.

Hardware:

During the event, you will be able to work with hardware such as Oculus Quest 2, Mentalab and other cool stuff.