Visit by Paul Smith and Adam Prejean

Students at David Thibodaux STEM Magnet Academy (DTSMA) have been creating models for their VR environments in Maya. We went over their plans and models and will be mentoring and checking student progress.

• The tiny house project is meant to be a VR experience of an actual tiny house being designed and built by the DTSMA students.
• The second will be a simulation of the robot arena for the school’s robotics competition.
• The third project will be a virtual representation of different types of electrical circuits.
• Another project is a rolling ball demo that shoots out pellets or picks them up, and it will conserve the mass of the player sphere while doing so.
• One project will visualize atomic structures of various elements.
• The final project is meant to be a laboratory environment investigating the periodic table.

The course at DTSMA teaches students about VR application development. Students will learn design concepts, such as creating 3D models, applying textures with best practices, using project management tools for planning and collaboration, importing 3D models into a VR environment, and creating interactable objects.

There was also a fire drill halfway through the visit. One thing we will have to figure out is how University visitors are trained to deal with emergencies and drills. Currently, visitors exit as part of the classroom. The students generally have a better idea of where to go for these situations than we do.