VR camp a hit with kids
Aug. 4—Participants in the VR camp at Odessa College got a first-hand taste of what it takes to assemble a virtual reality headset.
The Virtual Reality Camp was one of many held this summer at OC. There were five youngsters in attendance Thursday in the Fab Lab.
"Today, we're assembling a cardboard VR headset to be used with a mobile device," Assistant Fab Lab Director and camp instructor Danielle Collins said. "It's based off kind of like the early Google Cardboard when they came out with that design. ... We are also building our own VR games and doing coding and some 3D visuals and stuff like that so that they can actually download an app and test it through the headset."
The campers can take the VR headsets home and Collins said they operate with other VR apps.
Collins said this is a new camp this year.
"We've been doing research and getting supplies and that stuff since the spring, so it's kind of like a work in progress. The idea originated because the kids asked for a camp ...," Collins said.
She noted that VR is a big interest right now. The camp's age range is 12 to 16.
"I think they've really enjoyed it. We've been working on the computer for the past three days and they've been building their own games and actually going through coding, animations and camera transitions and just like full game mechanics. It's pretty cool," Collins said.
David Benitez, a 16-year-old junior at Montessori Mastery School of Odessa, said he signed up for the camp mostly out of interest in 3D things.
"I've been ... trying to learn that for a while. And I just have to have the ... motivation or drive to continue it. It can be really rewarding, but it can be really confusing at times as well," Benitez said.
He has enjoyed the VR camp a lot and had participated in the Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs camp a couple of weeks ago.
"... I had tons of fun there and I had already signed up for this camp before in like late June alongside the NBT camp. So I was just really excited," Benitez said.
Fab Lab Director Adriana Moreno said the camps have been "really great" this year.
"We've launched two new camp types, including the VR camp and our space camp that we did in a partnership with Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs. They're an organization that supports students entering, or getting interested in the manufacturing and entrepreneurship fields," Moreno said.
Other camps were held again with new project types.
Planning for next year needs to start "almost right away," Moreno said.
"Especially because we want to really capture our notes and our feedback to ourselves on anything that we might change. ...," she added.
Creating the camps and making sure the youngsters are engaged takes a lot of planning as does acquiring the materials.
"We also create our account like our entire Fab Lab calendar. We schedule pretty far out and so we want to go ahead and log our dates down as soon as we get a chance," Moreno said.
She added that she always likes to remind people that the Fab Lab is open to the public.
"The summer camps are just one of the many options that we have for people coming to us and being able to use this technology and learn with us. So they are always welcome to come by, check this place out. It's a really unique resource that we have here in the Permian Basin," Moreno said.
