Skip to main content

Using CoSpaces VR with my FLL robotics team

By

I really enjoy attending ORCSGirls classes on really every topic. In August, 2023 I attended a ORCSGirls class on virtual reality (VR). In the class I learned how to import characters and images into games I created in CoSpaces. After going over how to code really anything you’d need I got to design and share my own game. The mentors and Dr. Proffen were all so kind and patient, willing to help with any problems with the code or anything I ran into along the way in the class, and pretty soon everyone had their own working game and the class was very successful. It was so fun to share my game and see what everyone else had created.

At my school I participate in the FIRST Lego League robotics team. This is my fourth year on my robotics team, and on it I help to both build and code our Lego robot. I also work with other members of my team to help create the Innovation Project.

The innovation project is a portion of FLL that is based off of a broad prompt, and teams have to create their own project that goes along with the prompt in their own innovative way. This year the prompt was “How can you use technology and the arts to share your hobbies with the world?” My team, 51985, or the Water Dragons is using a VR headset from ORCSGirls to create a game that shows what we enjoy doing for our innovation project. I really enjoyed working with VR in ORCSGIRLS, and this seemed like a great way to share our hobbies using technology, so I shared it with my team and they agreed.








On December 2nd, 2023 12 FLL teams from across east Tennessee gathered at Hardin Valley high school for a regional event. They have worked all year creating unique robots, codes, and innovation projects to compete for a chance to get into the state competition.

My team’s VR creation went through many stages of different ideas, such as basketball, soccer, and a break-out room in preparation for the event, but we ended up with a game that shared the core values of FIRST Robotics. We created riddles to solve and characters around the map to interact with and help. I helped my team to learn conditionals, and taught them how to import characters, pictures, and music.


We have recently learned that our team will be continuing onto the state competition in February, and there are multiple changes we want to make on our game. These include making mini games around the map and fixing some small bugs with the point system. We are excited to explore CoSpaces more and keep working on our game.





We are so happy to be able to continue onto the state competition and keep working on our VR game, and a big thank you to ORCSGirls for providing the VR headset and inspiration for our project.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Birth of ORCSGirls Jr.

By
    It's 1 PM on a Monday afternoon. 13 elementary school girls are waiting patiently for the camp to start. The excitement and anticipation can be felt through the Zoom screen as I start to talk... "Hi, my name's Katie! Welcome to the first ever ORCSGirls Jr. Virtual Reality Camp! Let's get started."      Last summer (2022), I had the idea to run a coding camp for young girls through ORCSGirls. Regular ORCSGirls classes are only open to girls in 5th through 10th grade, and as a middle schooler, I wanted 2nd-4th grade girls to have a chance to explore computer science too. The goal of ORCSGirls is to inspire young girls to pursue careers in technology, and giving them that spark as early as 2nd grade is an awesome opportunity.      A lot of planning went into making this camp possible. I started with an interest survey, which is how I chose virtual reality as the topic for the camp. Then I spent months gathering a team of counselors, making forms,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Leah's Story

By
ORCSGirls is such a positive environment, and their mission is to inspire girls to pursue careers in computer science. I would like to share a few ways that ORCSGirls has inspired and empowered me. I took my first ORCSGirls class as a fifth grader in 2019. The first day I walked in and saw about twenty or more girls all on computers. Before this time I had never met any girls my age that were interested in programming and computer science. I took my seat and listened as Dr. Proffen introduced himself. Then, all the volunteers shared about themselves, and we played a game. I could tell I liked this already. We all opened  CoSpaces , a website for building VR games. My knowledge of how to operate a computer came in handy, and we soon got to work making a treasure hunt game. Even though I already knew a little bit about programming, I will not deny that I needed a lot of help. Thankfully, the volunteers were very helpful, and I soon got the hang of the CoSpaces environment. I left tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Environment Monitoring Camp Recap

By
 In July 2022, ORCSGirls ran the Environment Monitoring Camp for the second time. At the camp, the girls learned how to take environmental readings through a device called the  ESP32-S2 TFT Feather . Using  Adafruit ’s technology, they programmed a working sensor that they could access through their computers. They used Adafruit’s  IO program  to create unique ways to display their data. They also made an app on  code.org  using an API from Adafruit. Two of the counselors, Katie and Kristen, are experienced with environmental technology. After participating in the camp, they expanded their knowledge to create a  ProjectCSGirls  entry. Now they’ve written about their experiences to share here. Katie shares her experience… “When I took the Enviro Monitoring Camp last summer, I learned so much about sensors and the environment. Afterwards, I kept exploring technology and took more environment monitoring classes. Eventually Kristen and I paired u...
Post a Comment
Read more