Using CoSpaces VR with my FLL robotics team

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.

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