Google Blocks & Gravity Sketch:
Digital design to 3D printing is one way in which VR is being integrated within DT - Gravity Sketch allows students to design and build within VR before 3D printing their creations.
We have now built a lot more capacity for this type of digital fluency to be taking place, plus further integrating these techniques within 3D scanning and eventually programming/coding with Arduino. We are however missing someone with the competency and capacity to pull these threads together and work with both staff and students in the same way as we have had success in the Visual Arts.
Both ‘Gravity sketch’ and ‘Masterpiece VR’ programs will facilitate this process and also allow students to further test and reflect on ideas created using more traditional approaches (virtually) before committing to manufacture. Masterpiece (using two Vives) and Gravity Sketch will allow students to collaborate on the same work, fusing potential cross curricular work between Design Tech and the Arts.
Virtual tours of design museums or architecture (Dreams of Dali, VR Museum of Fine Art) will allow students to grab inspiration during the design phases. VR will also allow students to bring in screen grabbed images from their desktops to have as inspiration. There is also the opportunity to bring STL and OBJ files back into VR for fine tuning before submitting the work. VR could also be used to allow students to imagine themselves in the shoes of the end user, a product designed for use by a specific group (people with disabilities for example).
At the moment this is happening in a very ad-hoc and piecemeal way, but through DT classes, Design Thinking and the Da Vinci Project we could see these skills being built in a very sophisticated and meaningful way.