To qualify for a goody bag at this FETC® session, education leaders who stopped by the “AR MR VR Experience Sandbox” at the Expo Hall needed to complete a to-do list of the various stations there. Each station had a special mission, and completing them earned the victor a stamp. Here are the five stations that participants needed to visit to get their goody bag.
Station 1: Minecraft Earth
Getting a stamp at this station required advancing to level two in this augmented reality game called Minecraft Earth. This involved collecting items and building a space as players do in the original Minecraft video game. But in this spinoff, users look through their phone and drop items in front of them that “appear” in the real world on their screens.
Station 2: Explore Interactive
Cards with various images were laid out at this station. To begin, each participant held an iPad above the cards that told them about the horrible exploits of Dr. Stonebreaker. Foiling his first plot earned the participant a stamp. To start, users needed to create more light to read an important message. This required feeding more power to a floating lightbulb on the screen. First, each user had to position a battery card next to the floating light by moving the actual card next to the animated bulb on their screen. Next, they had to use their knowledge of electricity to figure out how to power the floating lightbulb with their battery card.
Station 3: VR Headsets
Participants who put one of the available headsets over their eyes could choose from a variety of games to play. One game transported users into a room that they needed to escape from. Each player could grab flashlights, flick switches, move objects and move around using the hand-held device given to them. Exploring one experience was enough to earn a stamp.
Station 4: 360 Cameras
The goal at this station was to capture a 360-degree picture and video using one of the available cameras. But these devices could do more than just create 360-degree pictures or videos of the Expo Hall. The representative showed participants that other environments could also be uploaded to these devices so students could “see” and even “hear” places that they wouldn’t be able to visit, such as the Louvre in France.
Station 5: Merge + Cospaces
Here, representatives gave attendees a physical cube to hold in one hand. In the other, users held their phone up to the cube and then, using their thumb, “built” a scene. To earn a stamp, this scene needed to show their New Year’s resolution. Attendees first had to scan one of the QR codes on the table, which unlocked certain objects to “place” on the cube in front of them. After dropping objects on one side of the cube facing the phone, each user moved the cube around in their hand until a surface not covered in objects appeared on the screen.
And, yes. We forgot to get our goody bag.
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