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Middle schoolers experience virtual reality at UM

RE's middle school Interactive Design in Virtual Reality class met with professors and graduate students at the University of Miami to learn more about immersive technology, including virtual, augmented and mixed reality. RE faculty members Jessica Merrick and Pedro Silva led the Nov. 16 trip to UM's School of Communications in Coral Gables, which allowed students to experience student research projects and UM-led real-world initiatives.
Among the highlights:
  • UM's Director of Interactive Media Kim Grinfeder and his team shared a project they are working on in conjunction with the Miami-Dade County Fire Department to create a virtual reality experience for middle school students that teaches them how to escape if there is a fire. RE's students learned the hows and whys of gathering data, interpreting survey results, and making a complex project flow chart. They also learned about the importance of constantly reflecting upon and improving a work product.
  • RE students visited the school's virtual reality center and sampled applications created by UM students.
  • RE students sampled some of the high-tech VR tools available to UM students; each got to "Walk the Plank," putting on a high-powered Vive headset, taking an elevator to the top of the Empire State Building, and walking a plank 10 feet long into the sky over New York City. 
  • The students tested out an augmented reality app called Ophthalmoscopy Sim. The app is an ophthalmoscopy simulation that allows health professionals to see inside the fundus of the eye and other structures using an iPhone camera.
  • RE students experienced a virtual reality program designed by UM psychologists to help small children overcome their fear of bugs. 
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Phone: 305 250 6850

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Founded in 1903, Ransom Everglades School is a coeducational, college preparatory day school for grades 6 - 12 located on two campuses in Coconut Grove, Florida. Ransom Everglades School produces graduates who "believe that they are in the world not so much for what they can get out of it as for what they can put into it." The school provides rigorous college preparation that promotes the student's sense of identity, community, personal integrity and values for a productive and satisfying life, and prepares the student to lead and to contribute to society.