Design of a Virtual School Environment for Power

Wheelchair Training

By Max Edmands, Alana Searleman, and Katelynn Wilton

Mentored by Professor Janice Searleman

Outline

• Goal• Previous Work• Process

– Importation

– Physicalization

– Storyboarding

– Intelligent Agents

• Demonstration• Future Work

Purpose and Goals

• Training is:– necessary for funding– inconvenient and dangerous

• Virtual wheelchair is a good alternative

• Focus group: Children with cerebral palsy

• Goal: Create a “serious game” that takes place in a virtual school

The Virtual Reality Wheelchair Simulator

Previous Work

Previous Work

• Kyle Burdick's house

• Chad Homan’s Wheelchair training facility

• Cassandra Dearborn's school– Created in 3D Studio Max– Needs conversion to Virtools

Process

• Exporting from 3D Studio Max

• Importing to Virtools– Converting from english to metric units– Placing objects– Replacing textures– Duplicating– Renaming

• VSL renaming script

Physics

• Havok physics engine• The physicalization

process– Attach the “Physicalize”

building block– Rediscover a script to

physicalize groups of objects

– Manipulate the wheelchair in our new environment

Storyboarding

• A school schedule• Objectives in each room, for

each class– Obstacle course in gym

– Computer game in computer room

– Hunt for a book in the library

• Player has to get to classes on time

Intelligent Agents

• Characters that walk around the world– Classmates– Teachers– Assistants– Janitors

• Differing levels of challenge based on difficulty level of game

Demonstration

Future Work

• Finish importing the virtual school– more classrooms– more tasks– sound & sound effects– lighting

• Optimization• Customization• Other Applications

– e.g. life skills training

Thank You To

• Cassandra Dearborn

• Kyle Daniel Burdick

• Ajay Sonar

• Chad Homan

• Dr. David Craig & the Honors Department

References

Sonar, A. V., Burdick, K. D., Begin, R. R., Resch, E. M., Thompson, E. M., Thacher, E., Searleman, J., Fulk, G., Carroll, J. J. Development of a Virtual Reality Based Power Wheel Chair Simulator. IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, Sep. 2005.

Chatham, R.E., “Games for Training,” Communications of the ACM, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 36-43, July 2007.

Burdick K.D. “Virtual environment design for a virtual reality wheelchair simulator.” Unpublished undergraduate honors thesis, Clarkson University, 2005.

Burdick, K.D. and Searleman, J.T. Virtual Environment Design & Human Computer Interaction with a Virtual Reality Wheelchair Simulator. SURE conference, Clarkson University, Aug. 2004.

Homan, C. “Design of an Intelligent Tutoring System for Teaching Power Wheelchair Operation in a Virtual Environment.” Unpublished master’s thesis, Clarkson University, 2005.

Dearborn, C. “Realistic modeling of a virtual environment for a virtual reality wheelchair.” Unpublished undergraduate honors thesis, Clarkson University, 2007.

Osterberg, A.E. & Kain, D.J. Access for Everyone: A guide to accessibility with references to ADAAG. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 2002.

Gauthier, J.M. Building Interactive Worlds in 3D: Virtual Sets and Pre-Visualization for Games, Film, and the Web . Burlington, MA: Focal Press, 2005.

Kelly, H. et al. “How to Build a Serious Game.” Communications of the ACM, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 44-49, July 2007.

White, D., Burdick, K., Fulk, G., Searleman, J., Carroll, J. A Virtual Reality Application for Stroke Patient Rehabilitation. IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, Sep. 2005.

Questions?