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What was the history and the development process of Virtual Reality?

Lesson Plan

Vincent Yang

Objectives:

  1. Students will identify the people who contributed to virtual reality’s development and understand the timeline of virtual reality’s development.

  2. Students will examine the future and prospects of virtual reality.

  3. Students will analyze the evolution of virtual reality and learn from its history.

Lesson:

  1. Introduce virtual reality games (Hook) - 1 min

  • Give students time to introduce their virtual reality experience.

  • Play a video that has other people’s reactions when they are using virtual reality equipment.

  1. The convenience of new generation virtual reality headsets (Introduction); Source: (“What’s New in VR”)- 2 min

  • Dell’s new Visor does something most VR headsets don't’: flip up without you having to remove the headset.

  • Oculus Go is the first-ever standalone VR headsets. It’s wireless and has its own small computer built inside.

Q: What is the function you hope virtual reality can have?

  1. Virtual reality products back to 1950s (Lecture); Source: (Brockwell) - 3 min

  • Before the 1968 Sword of Damocles

  • The first experimental product of virtual reality

  • Most people still had a black-white TV

  • “Morton Heilig made a 3D video machine that allows people to ride a virtual motorbike while experiencing the sounds, winds and even smells on the road” （Brockwell).

  • “Described by Heilig in his application as ‘a telescopic television apparatus for individual use’” (Brockwell).

  • But Heilig never received the recognition for his virtual reality product.

  1. The origin of VR (Lecture); Source (“VR @ 50”) - 3 min

  • Quote from Ivan Sutherland, “I never thought much about the future…” (“VR @ 50”).

  • The 1968 3D Head-Mounted Display System is known as the first virtual reality head-mounted display system.

  • Created by Ivan Sutherland and a team at Harvard University

  • The virtual reality graphics in 1967 before 3D Head-Mounted Display System were inspired by a helicopter company.

  • Working principle of 3D Head-Mounted Display System

  • The helicopter did important experiments that gave Sutherland confidence.

Q: What is your evaluation on Sutherland’s project ?

  1. The timeline of virtual reality process (Activity); Source: (“History Of Virtual Reality”) - 5 min

  • Introduce important events about virtual reality from1960 to 2019

  • Students will vote for the “most important year of virtual reality” and explain their reasons.

  • Students can add more information or events they believe are helpful for virtual reality development.

  1. Epilogue; Source: (“Horzion: Facebook’s New Virtual World”) - 1 min

  • Facebook started to exploit virtual reality.

  • More and more companies are involved in virtual reality exploitation.

  • More competition in the virtual reality market

Materials:

  • Photos of different virtual reality headsets

  • Video of people’s reactions using virtual reality headsets

  • Pictures of 1968 Sword of Damocles

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Link to the slideshow: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17yd_As6Wr9KprOKp2C-XeIa671xSaYcExBJC2Wcln38/edit#slide=id.p



 

Annotated Bibliography

 

Brockwell, Holly. “Forgotten Genius: the Man Who Made a Working VR Machine in 1957.” TechRadar, TechRadar, 3 Apr. 2016, www.techradar.com/

    news/wearables/forgotten-genius-the-man-who-made-a-working-vr-machine-in-1957-1318253.

 

This resource provides information I didn’t know before about the first man who made the first headsets with the purpose of virtual reality. It is the first man-made equipment that began the idea of virtual reality and started a new era.

 

Conferences, SIGGRAPH. “VR @ 50: Ivan Sutherland's 1968 Head-Mounted 3D Display System.” ACM SIGGRAPH Blog, 27 Sept. 2018,blog.siggraph.org

    /2018/08/vr-at-50-celebrating-ivan-sutherland.html/.

 

This resource gives me information about the first virtual reality headsets that most people agreed about, and it brings out Sutherland, the godfather of virtual reality. Sutherland’s evaluation of his virtual reality headset is very important for virtual reality’s history.

 

“History Of Virtual Reality.” Virtual Reality Society, www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/history.html.

 

This is a really useful resource that helped me to understand the timeline of the development of virtual reality. It includes most of the important events that happened in the history of virtual reality. It was hard for me to find information about virtual reality history. I would like to find more detailed information about the year and events mentioned in the article.

 

“Horizon: Facebook's New Virtual World.” Youngzine, 30 Sept. 2019, p. NA. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A601927157 /GPS?u=va_p_

    wakef_s&sid=GPS&xid=7578c7a6. Accessed 27 Jan. 2020.

 

This resource introduced Facebook CEO’s evaluation about Facebook’s own virtual reality and explained that their purpose in making virtual reality is to keep the user using Facebook. This information reflects the importance of virtual reality as time goes on.

 

"What's New in VR: Five things ten know about the expanding world of virtual reality." Boys' Life, Mar. 2018, p. 55. Gale In Context: HighSchool,link.gale.com

    /apps/doc/A529948438/GPS?u=va_p_wakef_s&sid=GPS&xid=eb5852a0. Accessed 27 Jan. 2020.

 

This resource gives me information about the things I need to know about the new age of virtual reality, including Dell’s virtual reality headsets. Dell’s virtual reality headset is important to virtual reality’s history.

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