Virtual Experiences - Real Impact:

VR4Good IAT 445 Project showcase, Monday March 31st 2025

On Monday March 31^st 2025 from 3–6:30, the stu­dents from my course on “immer­sive envi­ron­ments” (IAT 445) will be pre­sent­ing their final VR projects that they worked on for this semes­ter, on the Mezzanine on our SFU Surrey campus.

The design chal­lenge was Impact: Using immer­sive expe­ri­ence design to con­tribute to mean­ing­ful solu­tions to real-world chal­lenges. That is: what is a topic that you (and your team) care very deeply about that would help create a better world? A topic you care about so deeply about that it might be worth making a purposeful/transformative immer­sive VR expe­ri­ence out of it?

This year’s VR projects explore themes of envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­ity, emo­tional resilience, and interconnectedness—inviting audi­ences to step into the fins of a salmon return­ing home, expe­ri­ence life as a bee, restore bal­ance to frac­tured worlds, or break free from the weight of self-doubt. These pow­er­ful expe­ri­ences lever­age the unique affor­dances of vir­tual real­ity to spark com­pas­sion, reflec­tion, and action. Join us for an after­noon of inno­va­tion, imag­i­na­tion, and impact.

 

Details about the VR Projects:

Become Fish

The world will never be the same… once you’ve seen it from below.

Team 1–1

Razor: Our VR experience will have users embody a salmon, immersing them in the full life cycle, from pristine rivers to the vast ocean, only to return and witness the devastating impact of human-caused environmental change.

By becom­ing a fish and swim­ming through the ocean, this VR expe­ri­ence helps you feel what it’s like to live under­wa­ter as man-made inter­fer­ence changes your home for the worse. You will start in a beau­ti­ful, clean envi­ron­ment full of abun­dant flora and fauna, and then watch how pol­lu­tion from humans makes it harder to nav­i­gate your living space and sur­vival. By embody­ing a fish, you’ll under­stand why keep­ing our oceans clean mat­ters for all life on Earth. When you take off the VR head­set, hope­fully you’ll never look at ocean pol­lu­tion the same way again.

 

Project teaser video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3QBbhahmqM\

 

Final project video

 

 

P.O.R.T.A.L.

Un-abstracting  your impact.

Team 1–2

Razor: Our VR experience transports our user interdimensionally into the body of a lighthouse keeper, where they interact with a world where the smallest actions have the biggest consequences.

In our project, thanks to P.O.R.T.A.L’s (Perceptual Ocular Research Through Alternate Lifetimes) com­pany research, there now exists the tech­nol­ogy to link a user’s con­scious­ness to another body on an alter­nate earth. In our expe­ri­ence, users will be linked to a light­house keeper on an alter­nate ver­sion of earth, where space-time is dis­torted and the small­est inter­ac­tions have large con­se­quences on the world around you. The old light­house is dec­o­rated with props and oppor­tu­ni­ties for inter­ac­tion. As the player inter­acts with objects, each object seems to change the envi­ron­ment out­side, for better, or for worse. With their lim­ited time before their host expires, the user gets to bear wit­ness to how this earth met it’s end, and pro­vides P.O.R.T.A.L researchers with infor­ma­tion on how we may avoid a sim­i­lar fate.

 

Final project video

 

Harmonia: The Fractured Elements

Shape the world, restore the balance—step into the realm of Harmonia

Team 1–3

Razor: This is a VR journey where participants will learn the importance of balance in nature through abstract immersive exploration and interaction with elemental orbs.

Embodying a trav­el­ing entity that explores elemental-themed vil­lages in an attempt to find miss­ing ele­men­tal orbs in order to restore har­mony in a once barren land stricken by tragedies, through it under­stand­ing how the ele­ments work together to keep bal­ance and form our world. Discover clues by explor­ing the world around you and a whim of the world out of balance.

Project teaser video

Final project video

 

BeeZard - The Magic of Pollination

Bee the Change – Heal the Hive, Save the World!

Team 1–4

Razor: Our VR experience will immerse players in a bee’s journey—from joyful exploration and hive-building to confronting pollution and making transformative choices to restore environmental balance—while keeping the narrative engaging and accessible

Step into the trans­for­ma­tive world of BeeZard, a charm­ing VR adven­ture where you become a bee nav­i­gat­ing a vibrant, cartoon-style land­scape. Begin by enjoy­ing play­ful tasks like col­lect­ing nectar and build­ing your hive, but soon face the chal­lenge of rising pol­lu­tion that sick­ens the bees—including your queen—forcing you to gather spe­cial nec­tars and dia­monds to create heal­ing honey, with your choices ulti­mately deter­min­ing the fate of both your hive and the nearby fac­tory workers.

 

Project teaser video

 

https://youtu.be/dYywKxX_ZK0

Final project video

 

Currents of the Mind

Your path isn’t set in stone —break free, drift forward

Team 1–5

Razor: We will create a VR simulation set underwater, where users are trapped in a glass house that represents their limited beliefs about themselves. As they challenge their self-doubt, they will break free from these mental barriers.

Drift through a world shaped by your emo­tions in Currents of the Mind, a VR expe­ri­ence designed to help break free from the belief that you aren’t tal­ented enough to achieve your dreams and over­come the fear of taking that first step. Trapped in a glass house under­wa­ter, your self-doubt holds you back as the cur­rents push and pull. As play­ers progress and gain con­fi­dence, the play­ers must break through the glass walls, which is a phys­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of their self-doubt. This action sym­bol­izes their abil­ity to con­front their own inse­cu­ri­ties. As the glass shat­ters, the play­ers would be allowed to explore the envi­ron­ment more freely and expe­ri­ence a new­found sense of con­trol. The walls begin to crack, and the weight of uncer­tainty drifts away. This is more than a journey—it’s a space to breathe, let go, and redis­cover your true capa­bil­i­ties. We were inspired by the psy­cho­log­i­cal effects of imposter syn­drome, specif­i­cally how it could hinder per­sonal growth and suc­cess. We were also inspired by how VR has been pre­vi­ously used as a tool for cog­ni­tive ther­apy and its poten­tial in address­ing mental health challenges.

 

Project teaser video

Final project video

 

Beyond the Horizon

Embrace your past, find your way - take a step into the current day.

Team 2–1

Razor: Our VR experience will create new perspectives of hope and connections, by immersing the user into the role of a man who has lost someone dear.

Step into a deeply immer­sive VR nar­ra­tive in Beyond the Horizon, where every choice and inter­ac­tion shapes a per­sonal jour­ney of loss, con­nec­tion, and heal­ing. After a tragic acci­dent that takes the life of his best friend, the pro­tag­o­nist falls into grief and iso­la­tion. One day, he receives a phone call from his mother—not a direct order, but a gentle nudge, a reminder that life still moves for­ward. Encouraged by her words, he steps out­side for the first time in weeks, and he goes to  an animal shel­ter or street, where he meets a dog that changes everything.

Through inter­ac­tive sto­ry­telling, gaze-based mechan­ics, and dynamic envi­ron­men­tal changes, play­ers will forge an emo­tional bond with their new com­pan­ion. Beyond the Horizon is not just a story—it is an embod­ied expe­ri­ence of resilience and love, cul­mi­nat­ing in a pow­er­ful trans­for­ma­tion as the pro­tag­o­nist finds the strength to move for­ward, learn­ing that heal­ing often comes in unex­pected forms.

 

Project teaser video

Final project video

 

After 5

Do you truly understand the value of your time?

 

Team 2–2

Razor: Our VR experience will immerse players in the quiet struggle of an overworked employee, using dreamlike escapes to explore themes of burnout, emotional release, and the longing for freedom

After 5 is a VR nar­ra­tive expe­ri­ence that con­trasts the dull rep­e­ti­tion of office life with the vivid free­dom of long-forgotten dreams. Players step into the shoes of Owen, an over­worked employee trapped in a rou­tine of end­less CAPTCHAs and thank­less demands. As each work­day ends, Owen drifts into increas­ingly sur­real dreams—a sunny beach, ques­tion­ing whether his time in the office is worth it by the second time the dream hap­pens. These dream­scapes work like an escape and also a sig­ni­fier for ques­tion­ing the char­ac­ter and the player whether their time is spent on the things that they like to do. We try to give the player more action on the beach scene to find out what they like to do going from swim­ming and riding on a boat

Project teaser video

Final project video

 

 

Project Posters

Showase Impressions

 

 

 

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Course Description

Want to work with the latest in immer­sive tech­nol­ogy such as head-mounted dis­plays (HMDs)? IAT445 is an inter­ac­tive and project-focused course where you’ll design, create, and refine a deeply engag­ing expe­ri­ence that you will present in a final show­case to the public (often includ­ing guests from the vir­tual real­ity (VR)/gaming indus­try). In this course, we will use an immer­sion frame­work to design, create, and eval­u­ate immer­sive vir­tual envi­ron­ments and the inter­ac­tion between the user and the vir­tual envi­ron­ment. To do this, we will com­bine hands-on fun­da­men­tals with inter­ac­tion, ani­ma­tion, immer­sive vir­tual real­ity design, and the­o­ret­i­cal and research con­cerns. The project will serve to both moti­vate and implement/showcase these aspects. The course will cul­mi­nate in a final inter­ac­tive project show­case and project pitch (oral/video) of the team project..

What’s in it for you? 

You will learn how to design, build, and iter­a­tively refine an immer­sive and inter­ac­tive VR expe­ri­ence that should blow the user away and pos­i­tively affect them in a mean­ing­ful way. To do this, you will use the pop­u­lar Unity 3D game engine and guid­ance from immer­sion, pres­ence, and trans­for­ma­tive exper­ince design frame­works. You will most likely be imple­ment­ing this for head-mounted dis­plays so you’ll be able to show­case it wher­ever you go – includ­ing your next job inter­view or your next party. Combining a public project show­case  with a project web­site, an exec­u­tive sum­mary, and a final project video can fur­ther improve your resume/portfolio and marketability.

[offi­cial course out­line ]

see SFU’s Teaching & Learning blog for a news story on my first offer­ing of this course in 2013, enti­tled: “How a SIAT course in immer­sive envi­ron­ments exposed stu­dents to the real world”

Design challenge

This semester’s design chal­lenge for IAT445 is Impact: Using immer­sive expe­ri­ence design to con­tribute to mean­ing­ful solu­tions to real-world chal­lenges. That is: what is a topic that you (and your team) care very deeply about that would help create a better world? A topic you care about so deeply about that it might be worth making a purposeful/transformative immer­sive VR expe­ri­ence out of it?

Specifically, you will work in a team and use Unity and the guid­ing frame­works from this course (e.g., immer­sion, pres­ence, user-centered sys­tems design, agile devel­op­ment, trans­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence design etc.) to iter­a­tively ideate, design, pro­to­type, and eval­u­ate an immer­sive inter­ac­tive VR expe­ri­ence that takes advan­tage of the unique affor­dances and capa­bil­i­ties of immer­sive VR expe­ri­ences. You will design for user expe­ri­ences that have the poten­tial to pos­i­tively impact users’ emo­tions, cognition/perspective and/or behav­ior that would oth­er­wise be impos­si­ble (or not as easily acces­si­ble) to most people. How can you pro­vide inter­est­ing, inspir­ing, or mean­ing­ful VR expe­ri­ences that create a pos­i­tive change in the user? That is, what expe­ri­ences can you pro­vide in VR that are oth­er­wise dif­fi­cult, dan­ger­ous, or hard to expe­ri­ence? Instead of using VR as a diver­sion and ulti­mate sen­sory over­load tool to wow people, think of ways you can use it for some­thing more inter­est­ing, novel, excit­ing, and mean­ing­ful. How will you go beyond tra­di­tional dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences and take advan­tage of the poten­tial of immer­sive technologies/VR?

Resources on Unity & VR

if you don’t have a strong back­ground in pro­gram­ming or VR devel­op­ment already, I’d sug­gest to go through some basic Unity tuto­ri­als.  It’ll be useful to have at least a basic under­stand­ing of these areas for the course projects. Prior stu­dents have found the fol­low­ing tuto­ri­als quite useful:

• https://learn.unity.com/pathway/unity-essentials - lots of basic skills, pick and try out at least the basics until you can create basic VR/XR projects
•  https://learn.unity.com/pathway/vr-development - prob­a­bly the most rel­e­vant once you are com­fort­able w/ basic Unity things [optional if you’d like to go deeper]

Examples of prior students' VR/XR projects from Bernhard's classes:

Undergrad classes

• IAT 445: Immersive Environments
• Semester in Alternate Realities
• IAT 499: Graduation Project

Grad/mixed:

• IAT 848 Mediated, Virtual, and Augmented Reality, Fall 2024
• UBISS Summerschool 2024 1-week inten­sive VR Workshop/Jam “Virtually Real? The Art and Science of Designing Impactful (or Even Transformative?) Virtual Experiences”

Spring 2025 offering (in-person)

Virtual Experiences - Real Impact: VR4Good IAT 445 Project showcase, Monday March 31st 2025, 3-6:30pm

on Monday March 31^st, the stu­dents from my course on “immer­sive envi­ron­ments” (IAT 445) will be pre­sent­ing their final VR projects that they worked on for this semester.The topic was Impact: Using immer­sive expe­ri­ence design to con­tribute to mean­ing­ful solu­tions to real-world chal­lenges. That is: what is a topic that you (and your team) care very deeply about that would help create a better world? A topic you care about so deeply about that it might be worth making a purposeful/transformative immer­sive VR expe­ri­ence out of it?

details will follow

Team web­sites:

• Team 1–1
• Team 1–2
• Team 1–3
• Team 1–4
• Team 1–5
• Team 2–1
• Team 2–2

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Documentation from earlier course offerings and showcases

(first taught in Spring 2013)

Project videos from cur­rent and prior IAT 445 course offer­ings: see our youtube playlist

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Course Objectives, Learning Goals & Desired Learning Outcomes (DLO's)

Course Goal: By the end of this course, you will gain the knowl­edge, skills, and con­fi­dence to design and develop impact­ful and eth­i­cal VR expe­ri­ences. You’ll learn to pri­or­i­tize the user’s needs and per­spec­tives while con­sid­er­ing the broader soci­etal impli­ca­tions of immer­sive tech­nolo­gies. Through hands-on projects, col­lab­o­ra­tive team­work, and crit­i­cal reflec­tion, you’ll be empow­ered to create VR expe­ri­ences that not only engage and enter­tain but also con­tribute to a more informed, empa­thetic, and respon­si­ble future. 

Desired learn­ing out­comes (DLO’s):

1. Foundational VR Knowledge and Skills

• Understanding: Grasp the core con­cepts and ter­mi­nol­ogy of VR tech­nol­ogy (hard­ware, soft­ware, design prin­ci­ples), as well as rel­e­vant the­o­ries and frame­works for under­stand­ing user expe­ri­ence and immer­sive media, through hands-on expe­ri­ence and guided discussions.
• Application: Apply foun­da­tional knowl­edge (includ­ing rel­e­vant the­o­ries and frame­works) to ana­lyze exist­ing VR expe­ri­ences and iden­tify strengths, weak­nesses, and areas for improvement.
• Technical Skills: Gain pro­fi­ciency in using Unity as a tool for VR devel­op­ment, includ­ing basic inter­ac­tion design, ani­ma­tion, and prototyping.
• VR Design Principles: Understand and apply fun­da­men­tal VR design prin­ci­ples, such as immer­sion, pres­ence, inter­ac­tion design, and user com­fort, to create effec­tive and engag­ing VR experiences.

2. Human-Centered VR Design

• User Experience (UX): Design VR expe­ri­ences that pri­or­i­tize the desired user expe­ri­ence and user’s needs and pref­er­ences, con­sid­er­ing fac­tors such as usabil­ity, acces­si­bil­ity, and emo­tional impact.
• Immersion and Presence: Explore design strate­gies for cre­at­ing immer­sive and com­pelling VR expe­ri­ences that evoke a sense of pres­ence and engage­ment in users.
• User Comfort: Understand and address fac­tors that affect user com­fort in VR, such as cyber­sick­ness and other poten­tial adverse effects of VR..
• Ethical Considerations: Consider the eth­i­cal impli­ca­tions of VR design choices, includ­ing poten­tial biases, pri­vacy con­cerns, and the respon­si­ble use of immer­sive technology.

3. Designing for Impactful Experiences:

• Transformative Design: Understand the frame­work of trans­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence design and apply it to the cre­ation of mean­ing­ful VR expe­ri­ences that leave a last­ing impact.
• Ethical Considerations: Consider the eth­i­cal impli­ca­tions of design­ing immer­sive expe­ri­ences, espe­cially those deal­ing with sen­si­tive topics, and develop strate­gies for respon­si­ble VR creation.
• Storytelling in VR/XR: Explore how to lever­age VR’s unique capa­bil­i­ties to tell com­pelling sto­ries and create emo­tion­ally res­o­nant expe­ri­ences that sup­port desired UX, goals, and impact.

4. Collaborative Project Development and Community Building:

• Agile Methodology: Learn and apply an agile devel­op­ment process to create VR pro­to­types, incor­po­rat­ing iter­a­tive feed­back and testing.
• Teamwork: Develop effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion skills within a team set­ting to suc­cess­fully design and imple­ment a VR/XR project.
• Feedback: Give and receive con­struc­tive feed­back to refine both indi­vid­ual and team contributions.
• Community Building: Utilize tools and tech­niques to foster a sup­port­ive learn­ing envi­ron­ment within the larger class com­mu­nity, pro­mot­ing effec­tive learn­ing, growth, reflec­tion, and collaboration.

5. Critical Reflection and Self-Assessment:

• Metacognition: Reflect on your per­sonal learn­ing jour­ney, iden­ti­fy­ing strengths and areas for fur­ther development.
• Articulation: Clearly com­mu­ni­cate design choices, ratio­nale, and reflec­tions through both writ­ten and verbal communication.
• Continuous Learning: Develop a mind­set of con­tin­u­ous learn­ing and improve­ment in the ever-evolving field of VR/XR.

What projects are fea­si­ble? While stu­dents have con­sid­er­able free­dom in choos­ing their team projects, there are a few guide­lines and restrictions

• They have to be inter­ac­tive (includ­ing meaningul user inter­ac­tion and/or user loco­mo­tion, and poten­tial ani­ma­tions), immer­sive, and 3D. That is, you will design and build a 3D vir­tual expe­ri­ence in Unity and dis­play it immer­sively, e.g.,  using the pro­vided head-mounted dis­play you will be able to check out from the Surrey library. It should not induce neg­a­tive side effects such as cybersickness.
• No killing/torture/violent/combat games or pornog­ra­phy. Such topics are already over­done, and our goal is to encour­age and incen­tivize inno­va­tion and explo­ration of new ideas. Student teams are encour­aged to push the medium and chal­lenge view­ers to rethink common the­o­ret­i­cal, tech­ni­cal or cul­tural assumptions.
• Address this semester’s Design Challenge (announced and dis­cussed at the begin­ning of the course).