BORN TO ROAM
VR for peace project
March-June 2020
Role: Team lead and Production Manager
In collaboration with Joseph Candler Hospital and SCAD
Savannah, GA
Virtual Reality media through Occulus quest, Google cardboard, HTC vive
Project Brief
Virtual reality has shown to have a great impact on the mind of the users because of its fully immersive nature. Alternate realities through VR have proven to be quite convincing, persuading the brain to momentarily accept it as the original reality, leaving deep penetrating effects on the users. The medical industry is now taking advantage of this aspect of virtual reality to utilize it in new non-invasive ways of healing and pain management, in hopes of moving away from the addictive opioid-based painkillers.
Joseph Candler hospital tasked the SCAD collaboration team to create 3 virtual reality experiences for the Hospice and Palliative care patients. These patients are victims of terminal illnesses that are often not only physically painful but mentally scarring. How might we utilize virtual technologies to aid the healing process of patients and their caretakers and beat the Opioid crisis?
Result
A Virtual Reality hot air balloon tour across the world. Our bucket list experience is geared towards the underlying theme of unfulfilled dreams. Our target audience, especially those in hospice and palliative care have been rendered unable to fulfill their bucket list. So, we decided to bring their wishes to them!
Travel, being a common wish across the audience is the subject of our experience.
Starting in Forsyth park, Savannah, the tour flies across the world to destinations such as the Amazon rainforest, the great wall of China, Venice, Petra of Jordan, and the northern lights of Iceland.
Accompanied by a parrot tour guide, Henry.
Approach
Target Audience: Patients in hospice and palliative care, mainly those who might be bedridden and have low to no mobility. Ages typically 65+. But this experience is not only for people in hospice, but for general analgesia in any wing of medical care.
Goal: This VR experience can be harnessed for:
Chronic pain management
Procedural analgesia for burn treatment or minor procedures
Stress reduction
Relaxation
Used to prep patients for Chemo and radiation
Anxiety Relief
Method: To meet the goal of serving multiple unique use cases and making it accessible to the audience, we chose to curate a passive experience. The pseudo interactive nature of the experience is all-inclusive and also allows users that are bedridden and not technologically apt to participate and immerse themselves in the experience.
A passive experience would also give us the freedom of platform. Since there is no game engine required to run the experience, we can export it to video streaming platforms that can be easily accessed and run on inexpensive hardware, providing opioid-free healthcare for all.
Sketches and Concepts
Tour map to visualize journey
Features:
360 live action video
3D animated tour guide and hot air balloon
2D graphics in post
Immersive sound
Amazon Rainforest
Previsualization of rainforest footage
Final footage, sponsored by v360 Videos
Great Wall Of China
Previsualization of Great Wall Of China
Final footage, sponsored by AirPano
Our Tour Guide
Henry Scarlet Rouge
Our 3D animated scarlet Macaw, named after famous British explorer Henry Morton Stanley.
Scenes from Final Render
Rising balloon
Post Project
The experience was shown to the patients.
This is Joy, a resident at Savannah Hospice.
