XR EcoHack 2020

Hosted by Unity College XR Innovation Lab in partnership with Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media, University of Michigan’s Alternate Reality Initiative, MetaVRse, Esri, LBX Immersive, and Quinnipiac Game Design & Development,  XR EcoHack 2020 was a 24-hour dynamic virtual hackathon that took place November 28-29, 2020. 

In the news: 

Inaugural EcoHack brings students from across country to Unity College — virtually. The 24-hour Hack-a-Thon event ran Nov. 28 and 29 and involved students from across the country working together to solve a problem. Read More

What is the XR EcoHack? 

XR = eXtended Reality

XR is reshaping how we imagine, design, and experience the world. Students dive into virtual, mixed, and augmented reality and expand their own reality.

Creating Sustainable Solutions

Teams created sustainable solutions to global environmental challenges using emerging XR technologies such as the rapid prototyping tool MetaVRse Engine.

Collaboration

Students partnered with industry thought leaders and mentors: game developers, climate scientists, XR experts, 3D artists, and UX designers. And they met new friends who are passionate about XR technology, the environment, and education.

Teams and solutions from the 2020 XR EcoHack: 

Virtual Panthers
The Virtual Panthers created an XR simulation that allows the user to reallocate resources in Florida in order to battle the rising sea levels that threaten to put the state underwater.

WolVRine
School: UMichigan Team
The WolVRines created a simulation of a board room meeting where policy change is made. The user is asked to make choices in this scenario that will affect the policy change around global warming.

Brocode
School: York University
Brocode created a simulation of a person’s average everyday scenarios and ask the user to make everyday choices in which they are presented with the effects those choices have on our environment. The team’s simulation then guides the user in alternative choices that will have more positive effects on the environment.

Reformed Grasslings
School: TKS
The Reformed Grasslings created a simulation of a farm where the user makes choices about allocating resources, planting crops, raising livestock and overall attempting to create an ecofriendly farm amidst the challenges of climate change.

EcoHeroes
School: TKS
EcoHeroes created a simulation where the user would have an interactive experience with wildfires and their intensity as climate change effects the intensity of the fires. The game allows users to build a cabin and home animals where they will soon experience a wildfire and need to make choices on how to save them.

Team QU
School: Unity & Quinnipiac
Team QU designed an XR experience where users travel the world and are asked to make a series of choices that will affect the health of our planet.

Be a part of the next XR EcoHack 2021!

Partner with Unity College on the next XR EcoHack taking place in 2021.