Summer School Alum Story: ‘The virtual world will be as important as the real world’ – Students created new sense experiences during the Intro to VR summer course

Meizixuan Wang and Frida Peung from China, Eline Van de Weyer from Belgium and Yuwien Qian from Shanghai collaborated as a team on the Intro to VR summer course this July. As their final course project, the team developed a fantastic VR experience that tied together nostalgia and the ability to relive and capture memories in a new way with inspiration from Pixar movie Inside Out and Virginia Woolf’s world-famous novel A Room of One’s Own. 

Why did you join this course at Aalto University Summer School?

Meizixuan: As a student in architecture, I wanted to prepare for my master’s studies and learn new ways of showing people different spaces, like through virtual reality. As a bonus, I am really into the architecture of Alvar Aalto.

Frida: I am currently studying computer science and environmental science at the University of Boston. Travelling to Finland has always been a dream of mine. As a child, I was very into Santa Claus, so travelling to his home country for the first time means a lot to me.

Eline: I wanted to prepare for my master's studies by learning the basics of virtual reality before studying it in depth. Additionally, I had never visited Scandinavia before, which is something I had always wanted to do.

Yuwien: I have my eyes set on a career within virtual spaces – it was the perfect opportunity to combine this course with experiencing Finland.

Holistic learning approach

Course instructor Gautam Vishwanath, Game Designer and Doctoral Researcher at Aalto University believes VR can be a universal, democratic medium that breaks down accessibility barriers. His doctoral research involves designing a "Pop-up VR Museum" for Helsinki's Design Museum, allowing care home residents to experience exhibits they can't visit in person. Similarly, VR is advancing in fields like architecture, where it lets clients explore future homes, schools, or hospitals before construction.

Building a prototype may have been a key objective, however, the course placed a strong emphasis on storytelling, human-centered design, and expanding the possibilities of the VR medium.

‘The majority of the students were new to VR, with barely minimal exposure to headsets, game engines, and programming. Despite these challenges, they worked effectively in teams and successfully created beautiful VR experiences as their final course projects. This is particularly impressive considering that at Aalto, some introductory programming courses for beginners take several weeks.’ says Gautam.

‘We also explored other mediums, such as augmented reality (AR) and audio design, and conducted research-based evaluations of our experiences. Additionally, the course featured lectures from three guest speakers, providing students with a broad perspective on the subject,’ Gautam concludes.

The course grande finale was a presentation event during the last day, where the different student groups set up stations to showcase the VR-related project they had been working on during the course. Among the different VR worlds, we found ourselves berry picking, fighting skeletons, and reliving some of the course participants' childhood memories, to name a few.