By Fatemeh Paryavi
for Unwind Magazine
Photo courtesy of Fatemeh Paryavi
The Tryables Program, at the University of Maryland Libraries, is part of the John and Stella Graves MakerSpace, which is a program designed to educate students on virtual reality and new technology.
The program’s showcase includes technology such as the Microsoft HoloLens, Google’s Tango-supported phones, Microsoft Kinect and virtual reality video games
Yitzhak Paul, library services specialist and co-creator of the Tryables program, said the goal of the program is to familiarize students with the virtual reality technologies that will play a role during their careers.
“That’s my biggest thing: I want the campus community to understand that these things are coming, and that they should start thinking about it,” Paul said. “But I also want it so that when a potential employer plops, you know, a VR device on their table, this isn’t the first time they’re seeing it.”
Paul believes that VR is the future, so the university should try to make the technology accessible to students the way books are–in a controlled environment.
When selecting technology for the showcase, Paul and his team wanted electronics that were available, but not owned by most of the public, such as 3D printers.
Although the technology is available for a seven-day lease period , Paul said this is not set in stone. If students have a good academic reason, they may be able to lease the technology for longer.
Heather Adair, a PhD student in analytic philosophy, reached out to Paul last semester regarding loaning VR equipment from MakerSpace, because she was fascinated by the dilemmas with these technologies.
Another purpose of the showcase is for every student to try the technology and be inspired to integrate it into real-world scenarios.
Eleanna Weissman, a sophomore criminal justice major, said one idea would be to make a virtual reality experience for prisoners who have not been outside in many years, so that they can ease into society after years of unfamiliarity with the world.
“I’m interested to see if/how virtual reality might be utilized for rehabilitation purposes. I want to see how immersive the VR environment is in its current state and if it can be used to help re-integrate convicts into society so they’re more prepared,” Weiss said in an email.
Since the purpose of the MakerSpace is to help students become more familiar with new technology, one of Paul’s ideas is for students to think of “foldable phones” as the next big thing.
“There’s some really neat looking phones that literally open up and fold. And so they basically turn a 6 inch phone into a 12 inch tablet.”
After asking about how the casing would work for a foldable phone, Paul continued that “that’s what we want people thinking about, ok ‘how would I design a case for this?’”
“That’s a great question for a business student, is: ‘How do I make a case?’ ‘How do I market that?’“
“For a computer science major, this thing would be like, ‘ok, how do I develop for a technology that has two different screen sizes?’” he added. “You know, so ‘how do I make a program go from this to this, when I do this?’”
Paul envisions the program to go on as long as technology advances. He said that students may come in and use the technology during business hours and if they have an academic reason.
The MakerSpace labs can be found on the second floor of McKeldin Library.
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