## Inspiration

The best learning is interactive. We have an interest in education, Virtual Reality, and fun. This was the intersection.

## What it does

Beginning of an interactive, 3-dimensional Virtual Reality game. Our vision for this game is rooted in education and fun, designed to draw on users' knowledge of words and vocabulary-building. Although we would still have to create logic to guide user interactions, we have created the (virtual) fundamental building blocks for such a game.

## How we built it

We built it using Unity, HTC Hive, and C#. The main frame of the program and building of Virtual Reality system was programmed with C#.

## Challenges we ran into

Unity presented a large learning curve, and compounding our lack of previous experience with Virtual Reality, we had a large learning experience ourselves!

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

Building blocks, creating scripts for interactions, and working towards our vision for this game. Overcoming our lack of knowledge and building our skill set. Solving unanticipated problems associated with combining different softwares.

## What we learned

Camaraderie. the kindness of mentors, a whole lot of newfound technical expertise on C#, Unity, and Virtual Reality.

## What's next for Virtual Reality Language Builder

Time provided, continued building with the hope of forming a complete educational game.
## Inspiration

The inspiration comes from my (Mari Liis's) childhood. When I was 7-8 years old, I read a children's book about the beauty of mathematics, and one of the topics discussed was Pascal's Triangle. I was amazed by the concept and I spent weeks drawing triangles and coloring out different numbers, trying to see what patterns will emerge. Today, I'm a studying to become a mathematician, and that little book just might have played a significant role...

## What it does

It visualizes Pascal's Triangle and provides interesting mathematical details. From the menu, it is possible to highlight numbers divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, to highlight certain interesting diagonals, and more.

## How I built it

Out of hardware, we used Samsung Gear VR with Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. To develop the project, we used Unity and C#.

## Challenges I ran into

Various aspects of VR development were definitely challenging, since we had never done it before! Making the input work and working with the visuals was difficult, but also fun. Ray casting was probably one of the most difficult challenges, but we managed to get it to work nonetheless.

## Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Since we had never done development for VR before, and we managed to finish this product, we're quite happy and proud. We learned that taking up new challenges and working with completely new technologies is not as hard as we thought it would be, and this gives us courage to attempt it again in the future!

## What I learned

We improved our coding skills and Unity development skills. None of us had created projects for Android before, let alone Virtual Reality, so there was a lot to learn!

## What's next for PascalTriangled

There are so many modifications that can be made! There are many, many more interesting aspects of the triangle worth noting, more descriptions and proofs/justifications of interesting patterns to be added. It excites me just to think about all the mathematical aspects of that triangle that can be explored.
## Inspiration

We wanted to give virtual reality a purpose, while pushing its limits and making it a fun experience for the user.

## What it does

Our game immerses the user in the middle of an asteroid belt. The user is accompanied by a gunner, and the two players must work together to complete the course in as little time as possible. Player 1 drives the spacecraft using a stationary bike with embedded sensors that provide real-time input to the VR engine. Player 2 controls uses a wireless game controller to blow up asteroids and clear the way to the finish.

## How we built it

Our entire system relies on a FireBase server for inter-device communication. Our bike hardware uses a potentiometer and hall-effect sensor running on an Arduino to measure the turn-state and RPMs of the bike. This data is continuously streamed to the FireBase server, where it can be retrieved by the virtual reality engine. Player 1 and Player 2 constantly exchange game state information over the FireBase server to synchronize their virtual reality experiences with virtually no latency.

We had the option to use Unity for our 3D engine, but instead we used the SmokyBay 3D Engine (which was developed from scratch by Magnus Johnson). We chose to use Magnus' engine because it allowed us to more easily at support for FireBase, and additional hardware.

## Challenges we ran into

We spent a large amount of time trying to arrive at the correct configuration of hardware for our application. In particular, we spent many hours working with the Particle Photon before realizing that it's high level of latency makes it unsuitable for real time applications. We had no prior experience with FireBase, and spent a lot of time integrating it into our project, but it ultimately turned out to be a very elegant solution.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are most proud of the integration aspect of our project. We had to incorporate many sensors, 2 iPhones, a FireBase database, and a game controller into a holistic virtual reality experience. This was in many ways frustrating, but ultimately very rewarding.

## What we learned

In retrospect, it would have been very helpful to have a more complete understanding of the hardware available to us and it's limitations.

## What's next for TourDeMarsVR

Add more sensors and potentially integrating Leap Motion instead of hand held gaming pad.