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Hurricane Heroes

An asynchronous cross-platform (Oculus + Desktop) Dreamscape experience for Intro to Meteorology Lab students, with a focus on hurricane forecasting, decision making and safety procedures.

📝 Project Lead: Rachael Kaye

🎓 Student Leads: Alex Vuong, Alexandra Barret

🎨 Tech Artists/Designers: Evan Koutsogiannis, Derek Sanchez, Christian Boesch, Sharliz Reyes, Krupa Kapadia, Saeed Pulatov, Mackenzie Leichtman

💻 Developers: Dion Pimentel, Austin Porter, Mehul Srivastava, Abhirup Gunakar, Ashray Inala

🏫 Advised by: Dr. Robert LiKamWa

Introduction

A three act hurricane experience for "Introduction to Meteorology Lab" students showcasing different careers before, during and after a storm makes landfall. Students are able to engage in the narrative experiences in two different formats - desktop or virtual reality! Students are placed in the shows of those reporting on the hurricane before, collecting the information within the storm, and those experiencing the hurricane on the ground and coordinating rescue. The experience focuses on forecasting, decision making, and safety procedures implemented during hurricane season.

Key Goals

  • Immersion: Focus on making the user the center of the decision making and the environment accurate with real-world data and audio from actual hurricanes.
  • Education: Explain the nuances and complexities of being a meteorologist and show the impacts of collaboration during times of high stress across multiple teams.
  • Engagement: Make the experience enjoyable and dramatic to encourage students to complete multiple acts at different stages.

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In the Classroom

“Hurricane Heroes” was an experience created for the Introduction to Meteorology Course (GPH 212) at Arizona State University, specifically being a part of the course’s lab (GPH 214). Being online and for any major, any student at ASU is allowed to take the course and go through the experience through desktop and virtual reality. And, for those students without a VR headset, the university offers to mail out and let students borrow headsets specifically to play the game as intended in VR if they'd like as a part of the lab.

Students are given real data from Hurricane Irma that has been redesigned to be easily digestible for the students at any skill level. Students are also given quizzes and answer questions based on the experience to ensure understanding of what is happening during the storyline. The experience correlates to topics discussed in the classroom as well, allowing the students to recall lessons and memorize information using the game.