Constructing a New Reality
Open-Source Mixed Reality Headset Kit for Education
I am a maker. I like to build things and take apart things I have so that I can understand them. One thing I did not understand, and was not willing to take apart, was my VR headset works. This lead me to looking into DIY Mixed Reality (MR) Head Mounted Displays (HMD). While doing this and talking about it with my mentors, Dr. Derek Ham and Payod Panda in the Mixed Reality Lab at NC State, I had a new line of questions not only about VR but also about other maker experinces and learning.
I started to ask myself about the impact of DIY on learning, which was integral to me. I wondered about VR in education, as well as why educational DIY kits often did not create projects that were comperable to technology we use regularly like smart devices. This all lead me to begin pursuing a project about all these questions.
I wanted to create a VR headset kit for DIY making in an educational setting. To begin this, I looked back at the DIY HMDs that I started this line of questioning with, specifically the Realativty HMD. With this as a foundation, I worked on adapting the HMD to use an Arduino and other easily sourced parts, as well as adding passthrough Augmented Reality.
Building this headset involved a few technical desings. Firstly, I had to build a stereoscopic display to allow for depth perception that MR is know for. This used two fresnel lenses and a LCD that is often used for DIY projects. Secondly, we needed some motion tracking. This was enebaled with an Arduino Due and and MPU 6050 IMU. The MPU 6050 sends accelerometer and gyroscope data to the Arduino which is configured as a Human Interface Device (HID) that allowed low latency communication of the IMU datat to the computer. Finally, I added a stereoscopic camera to allow us to pull this into a Unity camera rig that created a Passthrough Augmented Reality environment. All of this was then combined in a 3D printed body that I designed for these components.
I am really proud of this project. While I was not able to conduct user studies I was able to get a greater insight into the strengths, weaknesses, and inner-workings of VR.
