SoraNews24 —Japan News—

Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.

RocketNews24 Japanese

Featured

Japanese middle schoolers build an awesome real/VR roller coaster for their class project【Video】

Combines modern technology and old-school carpentry in a way that puts ordinary science fair projects to shame.

Every fall, Japanese schools hold what they call a culture festival. Held on the weekend and open to the public, these are Japan’s version of open houses, where alumni and people from the community can tour the campus and see the current students’ school spirit and ingenuity on display.

Common student-run culture festival projects include cafes and haunted houses, but some of the third-year students at Takanawa Junior High School in Tokyo’s Minato Ward had even bigger ambitions They wanted to build a roller coaster, and they did just that, cobbling together a wooden course that snaked its way around one of their classrooms. Then, to make it even more awesome, they gave riders a VR headset which transported them from the school’s interior to a coaster zooming above a virtual cityscape.

https://twitter.com/pansan1029/status/1045962725195624450

The video, shared by Japanese Twitter account @MobileHackerz, shows the coaster in action. Just as the clip ends, we can see what the rider is seeing projected onto the classroom’s blackboard, but for a better look, Twitter user @pansan1029, the student who made the VR visuals, posted their complete version.

https://twitter.com/pansan1029/status/1045962725195624450

What’s arguably even more impressive is the humble bundle of tools @pansan1029 used to craft the VR component. All he needed was popular construction game Minecraft and a pair of mods (one called ExRollerCoaster and another to improve lighting and shadow effects), and the end result was immersive enough that people who rode the students’ VR coaster said the ride felt longer than the 20 seconds it actually lasted.

@pansan1029 wasn’t entirely satisfied, though, saying that the team had difficulty matching the start of the VR program to the exact moment when the physical roller coaster car began moving. With more time and resources, he’d have liked to work out some sort of touch sensor to perfectly synchronize the timing, and also to render the virtual environment using Unity, a higher-spec software development engine than a modified version of Minecraft.

Still, this is an incredible feat for a group of 14 and 15-year-olds, and we look forward to seeing what kind of amazing things @pansan1029 and his friends will do for their high school culture festival next year.

Source: Twitter/@MobileHackerz, IT Media
Top image: Pakutaso

Like this:

Like Loading…

Related Stories

Trackbacks

  1. There are no trackbacks yet.
  2. Trackback URL

Trending Today

  1. Japan ends tax-free shopping system for foreign tourists, new refund request system now in effect
  2. Beautiful Ghibli diorama kits lets you build anime characters’ homes inside yours [Photos]
  3. Japanese government announces criteria for creating backup capital of Japan
  4. Japan’s TeamLab digital art group is opening a permanent museum in America
  5. Starbucks Japan releases now Tokyo Reserve Roastery Christmas drinkware collection [Photos]
  6. This hot spring near Osaka’s Kansai Airport resolves the pick-two-out-of-three bathhouse dilemma
  7. Japan’s mini Shikoku Pilgrimage walking tour left us feeling immensely satisfied
  8. Tokyo Skytree set to offer breathtaking Diamond Fuji natural phenomenon view this month
  9. Starbucks Japan invites us to par-tea with its new Earl Gray Frappuccino [Taste test]
  10. Family Mart releases 47 convenience store socks and stickers, one for every prefecture in Japan

© SoraNews24 —Japan News— / SOCIO CORPORATION

Powered by WordPress VIP

%d