Event

Vivejam - Collegiate VR Hackathon

Do you think Virtual Reality has the potential to help people learn? Can a virtual experience help someone comprehend a difficult concept or truly see through another's eyes?

At foundry10, we believe that the right idea made by the right team can help teachers connect their students with the virtual world in a way that expands student learning. And who better to understand how to form those ideas than students?

So, foundry10 is hosting a hackathon for college students around Seattle to develop content, for the HTC Vive, designed to explore the idea of learning with VR.

Event Details:

Ticket
Includes access to an opening mixer on Friday, July 8th at 7:30pm, as well as the Hackathon which starts the following Saturday at 8am. It also includes breakfast/lunch/dinner for both Saturday and Sunday.

*This event is for college and university students only, you must have a student ID to enter.

Hardware
No computer or Vive? No problem, foundry10 is able to provide all the VR kits, and Valve Software will be providing PCs to run them. Of course if you have a computer, you are more than welcome to bring it.

Categories and Prizes
There will be 3 primary categories that judges will be looking at content through. As we mentioned above, these categories will be focused on combining VR with learning through creative content. Prize money will be split across all members of a team.

1. Best blend of VR tech and learning - $500

When we ask students what is important for VR in the classroom, they talk about how they want content to be engaging to the user while still conveying classroom information. We want to see how developers think about bridging this gap to capture the essence of VR in the experience while still promoting learning.

Some questions to consider: is it clear what players are supposed to take away from the experience? How does the experience really make use of VR tech? Is it fun/impactful?

2. Most usable in a classroom - $500

VR brings many exciting opportunities to classrooms, but it also presents a number of challenges. One of the biggest is finding content that works within classroom structures. Things like space and time requirements, number of players who can participate at once, and replay value are all things to consider for this category.

Some questions to consider: does the content utilize playable space effectively? Does the time the content takes feel meaningful? Is the content able to engage multiple participants at once both in and out of VR?

3. Most intuitive/user and noob friendly - $500

In classrooms, there is no way to account for the experience levels of all students at once. When teachers are looking for content, they are thinking about each student and need to find experiences that are easily accessed by those who may have never picked up a controller.

Some questions to consider: do the controls make sense and are they conveyed well? Could a student pick up this content and get going in minutes? Is the point of the content easily explained and implemented?

Some individual categories will also be recognized at $100 per prize. These will be awarded to participants directly, rather than teams. Those categories are:

Best Visual Designer
Best Sound Engineer
Best Experience Designer
and (of course) Most prolific social media-using participant :)

Mentors
Finally, we will be bringing in industry experts and mentors to help participants with technical and design challenges, and maybe give a talk or two.

Come hack, network, and help set the stage as VR makes its way into the hands of teachers and students around the world!

Location

foundry10 (View)
100 NE Northlake Way
seattle, WA 98105
United States

Contact

Owner: Marc Pacampara

On BPT Since: Feb 26, 2015

Tom Swanson

foundry10.org/vr-content-l...

Q&A

Question:	Is it going to be an over night venue? To continue hacking over night.
Answer:	Yes, we will be allowing overnight work on Saturday-Sunday only.

Question:	Will you allow overnight work for Friday and Saturday night? Or just for Saturday.
Answer:	Overnight work is only on Saturday. The Friday event will go until midnight, then return at 8 on Saturday.