Last week the Brookline Hub wrote a story about our cutting-edge Boston Marathon Moments project, a collaboration to gather and share community stories in augmented reality (AR) with Traces, a startup founded by London-based neuroscientist, Beau Lotto. Read the story here:
http://brookline.wickedlocal.com/article/20160526/NEWS/160527132
Runners and spectators can add their own stories before, during, or after Marathon Monday through the Traces app, found at Traces.io. Along the marathon route on Beacon Street, near Coolidge Corner and Washington Square, spectators and visitors can use the app to view the stories floating through the air along Beacon Street, waiting to be discovered, caught, and read/watched.
BIG is partnering with Traces to create original local content to be placed around Brookline and the surrounding communities in the app, which community members can then view. Bisbee is interested in sharing and expanding this project, hoping next year to have each town along the marathon route involved in creating and sharing their stories along the Boston Marathon miles through their towns. Initially, this project will focus on the Boston Marathon route as it winds through two miles of Beacon Street in Brookline.
[Above: Our favorite Brookline runner’s Marathon Moment (so far!) that will be shared in augmented reality (AR) through the Traces app.]
To participate through the production studios at BIG, one can sign up to come in to BIG on a Tuesday evening or Wednesday afternoon to briefly talk about their marathon memories, which could range from a yearly tradition, standout memory, or even their thoughts on this famous event. Participating will take no more than 30 minutes. BIG will professionally film, edit, and produce a brief video for each participant, and then place their story along the marathon route in Brookline. Alternatively, anyone in the Boston area and on Marathon Monday can add stories directly through the Traces.io app to the “Marathon Moments” storytelling campaign.
[Above: Co-founder of the Public VR Lab, Kathy Bisbee, transforms into a Princess Leia hologram to promote the first ever VR Ecohack.]
Join us for the VR EcoHack, a regional hackathon in Brookline, MA on April 21-23rd, 2017 where teams of students and adults can create climate change content in virtual reality, augmented reality and 360 video.
We’ll have lesson plans from educators with a focus on science and media literacy that attendees can follow to develop content, and mentors and volunteers will be available all weekend to help inspire and guide teams.
Bring a formed team or meet new teammates at this hackathon to create and test your stories and games on multiple headsets, including HTC VIVEs, Hololens, Oculus, PSVR, Samsung Gear, and more.
Use the Public VR Lab’s 360 cameras, computer labs, television studios, and 3D asset libraries to create your team’s content. Food, fun and ample caffeine. Cash and awesome equipment prizes will be provided in all three categories. [Above: *free Vr EcoHack stickers to all!]
Participants over 13 and of all levels of VR, AR and 360 experience are encouraged to sign up.
NEW TO VR? If you’re new to VR, we welcome you to sign up for a FREE week-long pre-bootcamp beginning on Tuesday, April 18 through Friday, April 21st to help you learn new skills in 3D object creation, 360 video, Unity, VR illustration tools, Simmetri, and learn the basics of Aframe to create content in Web VR.
Thanks to the VR EcoHack partners: Brookline Interactive Group, The Public VR Lab, Boston VR, Teach for America, Wayfair, Fasility, VR Doodler, Mass Media Literacy, Traces.io, LearnLaunch, VR at MIT, the Brookline Public Schools, Lifeliqe, Simmetri, VR- Before It’s Too Late, the VR/AR Association, ROTU, and the Transformative Culture Project.
The Public VR Lab is a collaborative effort to facilitate a public dialogue and projects around new VR-related technologies; to support the community creation of 360, virtual and augmented content, provide access to tools and headsets; and to generate socially-relevant and locally-focused public interest VR experiences. Brookline Interactive Group (BIG) and Northampton Community Television (NCTV) launched this VR accessibility and literacy initiative at their community media centers in Northampton and Brookline, MA, beginning in Spring of 2016.
In this short video, BIG’s Executive Director, Kathy Bisbee, who co-founded the Public VR Lab with NCTV’s Executive Director, Al Williams, shares the vision of the Lab’s work to bring the public access to VR/AR, local content creation, expertise and public trainings through several initiatives.
Since then the Lab has offered free weekly public demos of VR experiences via the HTC Vive headset and controllers at both locations, at senior centers, fairs, and at pop-up public events, and created a fall VR Academy to train Brookline High School students. The Lab held its first Meetup in Boston in August 2016 with speakers from the VR content creation team at FRONTLINE on their pioneering immersive journalism films and projects, and has since partnered with VR/AR Hackathons, other mixed reality creators and labs, and in collaboration with Boston VR, the Science & Media Awards Summit, the Pioneer Valley Game Group, and curated the interactive component of the 2016 Northampton Film Festival. The Public VR Lab recently offered a mini-VR Lab talk and demos in Charleston, WV to offer opportunities to residents there. Back to top↑
FREE & Accessible Virtual Reality Demos
Since May of 2016, through the Public VR Lab, BIG and NCTV have provided free public demos of over thirty virtual reality experiences to hundreds of local residents. This free public access allows any community member the opportunity to experiment with VR-related technologies and storytelling in VR. In 2017, the Lab will also offer augmented reality (AR) demos as well. List of VR demos and experiences available.
Brookline Interactive Group, 46 Tappan Street, Brookline MA. 3rd Floor of the Unified Arts Building, Directly next door to the Brookline hills green line stop.
The VR Academy is a project of the Public VR Lab that began in Fall 2016 to help facilitate content creation through classes, workshops and hackathons focused on training high school and college students, as well as adults. The VR Academy also will launch regional and nationwide training programs in 2017 to train non-profit organizational staff, small businesses, and education administrators how to use, create, and implement VR-related technologies into their day-to-day services and programs. In 2017, the VR Academy/Public VR Lab will offer classes and workshops in Brookline/Boston and western Massachusetts in Unity, Simmetri, 3-D Modeling for VR, 360 Filmmaking & Cinematography, Digital Storytelling in 360, Storytelling in AR, and larger scale hackathons with a goal of training and content creation generated from the Lab and shared throughout the VR and broader community. Back to top↑
Special Events
BIG & NCTV has and will continue to set up free community demos at a variety of locations, including senior and youth centers, at housing projects, libraries, conferences, hospitals, community fairs, business events, colleges, and in public places throughout 2016 and 2017. Check here for a link to our events calendar for the Public VR Lab. Back to top↑
“Humans have long been able to immerse themselves in other worlds, through oral story or novels, painting, photographs, television, cinema and pure imagination. The mind does not travel alone — the body most certainly comes along for the ride.”
– Nonny de la Peña, Co-Founder, Emblematic Group
Explore the immersive nature of storytelling with both your mind and body at the Northampton Film Festival for our second Public VR Lab event. Sink yourself into our national parks; navigate through stories about loss, abortion and domestic violence; feel the experiences of others in immersive journalism; and create art in VR/AR.
VR/AR and 360 developers and content creators will give short talks from 4-6pm about some of the ten interactive and immersive experiences on many HTC VIVEs, Gear VRs, Google Cardboard, and Hololens.
Explore a 3D experience of the human body via the award-winning HoloAnatomy using a Hololens; watch a dramatic unfolding of domestic violence situations as one of the
characters in Emblematic Group’s volumetric VR piece Kiya; experience firsthand what it feels like to cross the line at an abortion clinic inAcross the Line.
Join us for an awesome four days in western Mass -art, world-class films (film and workshop schedule available here), storytelling, games, VR, and community participation. As part of the NFF, Mono No Aware from Brooklyn, NY will offer a day-long 16mm and Super-8 filmmaking workshop on Sunday, October 2nd, 2016, and participants’ films will screen that evening at the Festival.
The Crowdsourced Cinema community art project will also screen their version of the Princess Bride on Sunday at 7pm, where 40+ teams each contributed their remade scenes to remake this classic film, whose newly-crowdsourced original score was created by multiple western Mass musicians.
