Tech Solutions team wins AR/VR Hackathon
CAPS Technology Solutions students Gibson Corcoran, Aaron Campbell, Alex Valler and Cody Hatton placed 1st in the recent VRoKCs Hackathon. The event was held on December 15 – 17 at UMKC and was the first AR/VR hackathon for high school students in the Kansas City metro area. Students were challenged to build education-related AR/VR experiences. Professional developers were there to mentor and guide the students as they learned various AR/VR tools and software. A special thanks to Rohit Chaube and Joel Stephens for spearheading the initiative.
The CAPS team enlisted the help of CAPS Teacher Education students to narrow their topic to a critical middle school student educational application. The team focused on organizational skills, something that can be a challenge for middle school students. The team developed an AR/VR environment where students enter a virtual classroom and by pressing a button, they disorganize the classroom. Then students embark on a “scavenger hunt” through the messy classroom under timed conditions. The next step requires students to reorganize the classroom in order to repeat the scavenger hunt. By completing this exercise, the middle school students recognize the benefit of organization in terms of efficiency and time management. The Tech Solutions team coded parts of the application named “Jumble Tumble” and presented their idea and environment to a panel of judges.
As the winning team, Gibson, Aaron, Alex and Cody received $500 to purchase additional virtual reality equipment for their CAPS classroom.