Math VR has undergone several iterations now as the academics and technologies evolve. The goal in all cases was to bring students into a VR space where they could work with vectors and vector operations to get a clearer understanding of how they work in 3D (which many students struggled to grasp by other means).
Project Details
The Math VR experience has been used in first year Mathematics courses to great effect as well as High School events for prospective students interested in STEM disciplines. In VR the player can drag and drop the vectors and their operations in an intuitive and dynamic way that brings the concepts to life. Matt Cabanag presented the project and his research at SIGGRAPH Asia in 2023.
TECHNOLOGY & DEVELOPMENT
The active design and development of the project continues in collaboration with Mathematics academics. The staff and work integrated learning student developers are using the Unity game engine to bring together all the elements and deliver the VR experience using our Meta Quest 3 headsets.
Credits
"MathVR gives students the unique opportunity to develop their intuitive understandings of abstract ideas from class by experimenting with vectors in 3D space. They are able to see how continuously changing the direction and magnitude of vectors affects vector addition, subtraction, cross products, and projections in real time! This software removes a layer of abstraction from drawn images on computer screens or boards as students are able to move around and with vectors."
Dr Nathan J Jackson, Associate Lecturer (Education Focused), School of Mathematics and Statistics
Key Academics
Nathan J Jackson (Associate Lecturer, Mathematics and Statistics, Science)
Daniel Mansfield (Ex UNSW Lecturer in Mathematics and Statistics)
Design & Development
Matt Cabanag (Associate Lecturer, Art & Design)
Xueqing Sherry Lu (Immersive Technology Specialist and Developer, PVC Education)
Work Integrated Learning Student Placements
Jagrit Nandrajog (Software Engineering Thesis)
Get Involved
There are internal Teams Channels, Miro Boards and working groups covering the development collaboration with Mathematics (Science) academics. To find out more, join the team, get a demo or have your class or promotion use-case included just get in touch.
- Email: [email protected]