Using problem-solving and virtual-reality-development skills, a team of five students from the Shawnee Mission School District earned recognition and equipment to support their class.
These students participated in the weekend-long VRoKCs Hackathon earlier this month at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The team, made up of students enrolled in the Animation and Game Design Signature Program, earned third-place honors and won $200 worth of virtual reality equipment for their program.
This fall’s VRoKCs challenge asked students to develop a radio tower repair simulator. Teams received the challenge problem on a Friday morning and worked all day Friday and Saturday to present solutions on Sunday. The Shawnee Mission School District team used 3D modeling to help build their solution. Eight teams from the Kansas City metro area participated.
Teams are given the option to win individual prizes if they continue to build the app as part of the VRoKCs competition. The Shawnee Mission team plans to continue to complete the app through March.
“The app will be used to train employees for the job of radio tower repair,” Bryan Johnson, animation and game design instructor said. Using virtual reality, it will be easy to determine if an applicant is skilled for a job involving heights.
Team participants included Justin Bardwell, Zen Dalton, Austin Mitchell, Ivan Noble and Alex Torres.
Professionals from the technology industry and education judged the competition. A similar competition will be held in the spring.