Not long ago, I was treated to just about every project that Structure Sensor power user and host of the All Things 3D podcast Mike Balzer was working on. His numerous projects covered everything from a virtual operating room for medical education to accessories for making 3D scanning with the Structure even easier and more precise. Now, Mike has taken one of the items shown to me that day and launched it into a complete Kickstarter campaign. If it succeeds, Mike will be able to manufacture the NEODiVRjr, a VR viewer made specifically for kids. On top of that, though, he’ll also be able to help out children’s hospital wards around the world.
Available in two standard models (with variations of those models possible depending on the pledge), the NEODiVRjr is a VR viewer that has been tailored to the tiny heads of children. Powered by the iPod Touch 6G, the viewer offers a Google Cardboard-style VR experience, but with a high-quality, but low-priced, frame. Simply slide your smartphone or iPod Touch into the device and kids can begin experiencing stereoscopic VR through a number of apps and all sorts of videos on YouTube. While the NEODiVRjr BASIC resembles a pair of futuristic opera glasses, held up to one’s face by a handle, the NEODiVRjr xTREME is a complete headset that can be worn for a hands-free experience.
Both are available at reasonable prices, with the BASIC beginning at $19 and the xTREME starting at $29. These are early bird prices, but standard pricing is only a few bucks more for each. And, if you contribute just $18, you can have the STL files for printing your own BASIC at home, while Mike sends you the poly-carbonate lenses, the aluminum disc that acts as a capacitance trigger for the device, the conductive tape, and the silicone eye tubes for putting it all together. These are pretty reasonable prices for such a product, but, more important than the prices backers pay is that every purchase will go to a good cause.
$5 from every backer of this project will be used for Mike to 3D print NEODiVRjr case shells himself, which will then be assembled with the help of Clint Slaughter, MD, the CEO of Mike’s local MakerSpace, and some young volunteers. They’ll then be sent to children’s hospitals worldwide as a means of introducing VR to children as a means of distraction from the pain of being sick or injured. See, Mike previously brought his own 3D scanning system, relying on the Structure Sensor, to Shriners Children’s Hospital in Sacramento, where he presented the device as a means of accurately measuring the bodies of burn patients for creating fitted pressure garments necessary for the healing process.
While there, however, he says, “I was able to present how VR could be used as tool for distraction and even modifying body skin temperature based on research done at the University of Washington to help burn victims to cope with pain.” This was particularly enhanced with the Structure’s ability to use positional tracking for VR experiences that involve moving around one’s environment, what Mike calls “environmental Awareness Virtual Reality” or eAVR.
He continues, “Needless to say the demonstration left a great deal of buzz in the air, including the reaction of a renowned physical therapy researcher from UC Davis who saw the potential of using NEODiVR with eAVR for physical therapy by creating VR worlds to give kids incentive to move around and actually engage in activities necessary for recovery. Not more than a week had past when I received an email that they were able to use the test VR viewer I left them to help a severely burned child who had been difficult to work with. A week later I had my first prototype specifically for children and NEODiVRjr was born.”
If the Kickstarter is successful, Mike will be able to 3D print and hand assemble as many NEODiVRjr devices as possible to send to children’s hospitals around the globe, where kids will be able to use a number of apps that Mike is already in the process of developing. These include the ORSurgery app I described in my previous interview with Mike, in which you can move around a virtual OR to learn about the various tools and individuals involved in a surgery.
Other apps are an MRI simulator, the Inside Van Gough developed by French 3D artist Ruslan Sokolovsky, a spooky Halloween-themed game, and Alps, a downhill skiing game that, when a Structure Sensor is attached, actually enables players to control their movements through their own posture. He has a few other apps in the pipeline as well that may even include the exploration of Neolithic caves and promises to bring eAVR to the apps next year, allowing users to move around while playing for an even more immersive experience. And, after I presented him with my own Unity game that I’d like to see as a VR app, he said he might be able to help me out, expressly telling me that, if anyone’s interested in porting their own non-VR game to VR, he’d love to talk to them.
I believe that Mike will be taking some of his grown-up products to Kickstarter as well, but, if you’ve got a kid and you want them to experience VR, this is a guy who knows what he’s doing and, more importantly, backing his campaign goes to a worthy cause. Might make a nice present for the holidays? Mike concludes, in an email to some of his friends, “After hearing… how VR is actually working to help kids cope with the poking, prodding and the unpleasantness of being sick or injured. I look forward to more stories on how NEODiVR is being used to make a child’s life a little better.” To learn more head over to the Kickstarter page or to experience it in VR, check out the video below by sliding your phone into a Google Cardboard device.
