We’ve delivered another great project for Western Sydney university. This time it is a proof of concept research prototype intended for interactively teaching hazard perception to young drivers.
Imagine how much more effective your driver training would have been if you could live through all the dangerous things that could happen to you on the road? Would you be more careful with checking your mirrors if every time you start driving there was a cyclist passing next to you? How would you feel about someone leaving the kerb without indicating? What about cars that keep following you in your blind spots? All of this, of course, can be easily simulated in Virtual Reality.
In our proof of concept prototype, we’ve created a virtual car with fully operational mirrors, reconstructed the streets around Western Sydney University’s Parramatta South campus and put some simplistic looking driving companions on the road. Check out the above video showing our prototype at the Cebit exhibition. People quite enjoyed it, but some did get motion sickness. Maybe a vibrating and moving chair could help? Something for us to consider in the future.