Schedule of Events

How can you communicate complex ideas over non-verbal channels? Our team of interdisciplinary scholars is exploring this question using cutting edge virtual reality technology. Via the Oculus Rift, we will immerse the user in an environment where they are surrounded by an artificial language. Users will be forced to interact with the environment nonverbally and attempt to communicate through a language barrier. Using virtual reality we will place the user in an environment where they are surrounded by English words but scrambled in such a way that they are nonsensical.  In this way we will build a simulated world where the user will experience not understanding the English language. The goal of the user will be to complete a simple task such as ordering food through basic gestures. Initial art concepts and story boarding will be created in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. These conceptual pieces will organize the branches in which the simulation will operate. The brunt of the coding for this project will be written in the Unity Game Engine where the game as well as most of its components will be created and scripted. The faux-English language will be written in java so that it still makes sense grammatically despite being a pseudo-random assortment of words. Lastly, assets will be designed in Autodesk Maya, with sound mixed in Logic Pro.