Constantinos Panayi I 3D Art Generalist

As part of the ‘Healthtech VR/AR for Good’ Conference , there was also a Hackathon running that same weekend. I decided to get involved in my first Hackathon as it would be a new experience for me and something that sounded exciting.

There were many people there from different backgrounds, such as a GP and a Doctor, coders, project managers. Once we formed our groups, we were given 2 briefs that were focused on mental health; agorophobia and parkinsons. Our group chose to create a Virtual Reality project to help aid in reducing agorophobia.

I was lead designer and created a G.P waiting room (this was in fact a replica of the GP’s work place who was in our group!). We used the Gear VR headset for this project.

The idea: The player places the headset on them. They are sat in the GP waiting room. Then by pressing the button on the side of the headset, a 3D character appears, which starts to talk. With another press of the button, another character appears, and then a 3rd character appears again (max 3 character used in the project).

The idea is to gradually fill the GP room with different 3D characters, easing the with many people, so at the players own pace, the feel at ease and relaxed in the open space they are in.