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Minecraft+Oculus Rift for Community Development | KCPL Wiki
Report-Outs
- November Report-Out
Minecraft + Oculus Rift Showcase
Posted by aellis On November 18, 2014 0 Comment
On Friday, November 21st, we will celebrate the Minecraft + Oculus Rift project that involved youth from Trails West, Southeast, North-East and the African Centered Preparatory Academy.
Who: You
What: Minecraft + Oculus Rift and KCDML showcase
When: Friday, November 21, 2014 at 6pm
Why: Why not? Food, Fun, Future Tech!
Where: Sprint Accelerator, 210 West 19th Terrace, Kansas City, MO
RSVP: http://kcdml.eventbrite.com
Participants were challenged to create their ideal neighborhood in Minecraft with the library as the base. They created restaurants, banks, and railway systems. The project required an immense amount of collaboration between participants, the ability to problem-solve and think logically about what it takes to make a neighborhood function, while also allowing them to imbue the neighborhood with their own creative perspective.
The Oculus Rift is virtual reality technology that then allows the youth to fully immerse themselves in the Minecraft neighborhood they created. It also introduces them to this next generation technology and encourages them to think about how it is/isn’t relevant to their future lives, and how they can play a part in its development.
- October Report-Out
Oculus Rift at the Lab
Posted by aellis On October 31, 2014 0 Comment
Oculus Intro
Oculus at the lab!
The Rifts have arrived. Youth got a chance this week and last to experience the equipment using an Oculus demo world. It was mind-blowing and participants are eager to see it deployed in Minecraft.
It has been an interesting process as the team has tried to make them work in Minecraft. There are challenges using the Rift wth 3.0 USB ports. The team immediately set about to test a variety of different work-arounds. Most recently it has worked seamlessly on a desktop computer with a 2.0 USB connection, but unfortunately the lab operates primarily with laptop computers. It was also tested with a Lenova laptop through a 2.0 hub and after much adjustment finally worked, but for some reason it will not work with the lab’s Lenova computers even if we use a 2.0 USB hub. It is the beauty of a development kit. Oculus Rift never claimed to be plug and play. So the quest continues.
In the meantime lab participants continue to build an impressive world in Minecraft. As we get closer to showcase time they are really digging in and creating an engaging experience.
- Week 6 | September 4
It’s Already Week 6?
The Minecraft project for KCDML continues to be a whirlwind experience. On Saturday, August 16th KCDML youth, staff, and other adult collaborators attended the Ethnic Festival in Swope Park. This annual festival features over 60 The Media Crewdifferent cultures sharing their food, music, and crafts with tens of thousands of visitors. KCDML, in cooperation with festival organizers, took pictures, interviewed performers and took in all the sights, sounds, and tastes of this amazing event right in the heart of our community.
The footage from the festival will be used to populate our Minecraft world, helping it become even more specific and relevant. This was an unexpected addition to the project, but one that we feel is important in really grounding the virtual space in real world activities.
ACE left viewKCDML staff was off-site this week attending a 4-day retreat in Pennsylvania, but the project continued moving forward with the assistance of KCPL Teen Associate Gabi Otto. That has been one of the greatest gifts to the project, having library staff that wasn’t assigned to KCDML jump in and participate because it resonates with the work they’ve been doing with KC youth for years. In fact, we understand clearly that’s the only way our work will continue to be sustainable.
The retreat that KCDML staff attended was funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the MacArthur Foundation. They brought together representatives from 24 YouMedia/Learning Lab/Digital Media Lab sites around the country. KCDML is part of a national movement to use Connected Learning and HOMAGO principles to engage our country’s youth in a way that is creative, powerful, and pertinent to youth.
This Minecraft project is a direct outgrowth of that philosophy and we believe that both the product and the process of this adventure will prove useful to the youth development field.
- Week 5 | Aug 25-29
The Minecraft project for KCDML continues to be a whirlwind experience.
On Saturday, August 16th KCDML youth, staff, and other adult collaborators attended the Ethnic Festival in Swope Park. This annual festival features over 60 different cultures sharing their food, music, and crafts with tens of thousands of visitors. KCDML, in cooperation with festival organizers, took pictures, interviewed performers and took in all the sights, sounds, and tastes of this amazing event right in the heart of our community.
The footage from the festival will be used to populate our Minecraft world, helping it become even more specific and relevant. This was an unexpected addition to the project, but one that we feel is important in really grounding the virtual space in real world activities.
KCDML staff was off-site this week attending a 4-day retreat in Pennsylvania, but the project continued moving forward with the assistance of KCPL Teen Associate Gabi Otto. That has been one of the greatest gifts to the project, having library staff that wasn’t assigned to KCDML jump in and participate because it resonates with the work they’ve been doing with KC youth for years. In fact, we understand clearly that’s the only way our work will continue to be sustainable.
The retreat that KCDML staff attended was funding by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the MacArthur Foundation. They brought together representatives from 24 YouMedia/Learning Lab/Digital Media Lab sites around the country. KCDML is part of a national movement to use Connected Learning and HOMAGO principles to engage our country’s youth in a way that is creative, powerful, and pertinent to youth.
This Minecraft project is a direct outgrowth of that philosophy and we believe that both the product and the process of this adventure will prove useful to the youth development field.
- Week 3 | Aug 11-15
The Secret is out | A Note from Shay
“My name is Shay. I’m a freshman at Lee’s Summit North High School. Minecraft is revolutionary in that it helps you learn more about the outside world.”
Last month KCDML was awarded a grant from the Mozilla Gigabit Fund. Our proposal was to extend the work being done in the lab using a popular gaming program – Minecraft.
While working with youth at the North-East and Southeast branch of the Kansas City Public Library a common conversation began to surface. Andrew wanted to know why there were so many abandoned houses in his neighborhood. Other students spoke of the discrepancy between the amenities in their neighborhood and those in other parts of the city. Out of those discussions came the idea of using Minecraft to design their ideal neighborhood.
The grant allows us to purchase additional laptops, provide for staff hours, consult with experts from the Immersive Education Group, and (drumroll please) incorporate Oculus Rift virtual reality technology.
So periodically, on this page, you’ll get updates on the progress of this project. Minecraft Launch Screen
To begin, since the formal announcement on July 23rd we’ve secured Minecraft licenses and server software through MinecraftEDU. We also decided to house the server software on a local computer for ease and immediacy, with an intention to migrate later to an external server. The Oculus Rift development kits have been ordered. Marcus Brown, our facilitator on the ground, has been working with KCDML adult collaborators to define the basis of the virtual world in which the youth will build their ideal neighborhoods.
The team has added a second site in Southeast Kansas City which allows us to expand the number of youth that can be involved without substantially increasing the work necessary to accomplish the goal. By partnering with the librarian at the Kansas City Public School’s African Centered College Preparatory Academy, KCDML can offer access to equipment, software, and expertise while allowing school staff to focus on recruitment and retention. We are also in talks with another location in the Northeast area to accomplish the same goal.
Many of our youth are already familiar with Minecraft and are excited about this challenge. Twelve year-old Haven even brought in a booklet about the program and introduced both the adults and youth in the space to previously unknown aspects of the virtual world and capabilities available in Minecraft. “What I like about Minecraft is you have the ability to build whatever you want,” he said “I also like how it’s a free roam game and you can go anywhere you want. Most importantly you can expand your imagination and create architectural designs.”
Of course there are others that are just being introduced to this game, but their learning curve is immensely short. They are jumping right in and getting a handle on the software.
As you can imagine there’s still a lot more to do. Staff is in the process of developing evaluation tools, and creating and implementing a social media strategy. The most challenging part, which is often the case in the nonprofit world, is having the time to both implement the grant while making sure to document and promote it. Yet it is a reciprocal process. You have to implement the project in order to satisfy the grant, but you also have to document and promote it in order to effectively use the success to create opportunities for more sustainable funding. It’s an old story, but an important one.
Stay tuned, next time we’ll give you a snapshot from the perspective of a KCDML mentor.
- More to come...
KCPL Partners
Metrics & Outcomes
Tech Outcomes
We will build X. Y people will visit it. Z remixes will be made. This technology is new and innovative because... Etc.
Learning Outcomes
By participating in the pilot, X number of people will learn the Y...
We will measure these learning outcomes by X, Y, and Z methods.
Community Outcomes
We will share how our project impacts the KC community. Stay tuned!
Show & Tell
- More to come...
