I was waking around South Point mall when I passed an empty Microsoft store. Since I wasn’t doing much at the time I decided try a 15 minute demo of the VR headset the HTC VIVE. Even thought I thought the experience would be marginal at best I thought better this than just walking around aimlessly so I went ahead and tried it. Little did I know that I would find the whole experience so surreal and immersive. If you’ve never tried virtual reality here’s how it basically works. You are given some weird ski-mask like goggles with some headphones that are connected to a computer, then you’re given some “wineglass esq” controllers that act as your hands. You’re also allowed to walk around in real life and by doing so you can walk in the game (with real life boundaries of course). If that sounds confusing it’s because it is, but it all feels natural trust me.
Now onto my experience. The first place I “went” to was the Solar System. Although I could tell it wasn’t the real thing it felt so cool. I was allowed to pick up the planets with my controller and throw them around anywhere I wanted. It sounds dumb but it actually felt so amazing, being able walk around, pick up Jupiter, and toss it across the solar system just felt like I was the king of the universe or something. The next thing I tried was a virtual painting experience, now I suck at painting but being able to paint in 3 dimensions was lit. Like I could paint a volcano on the floor then have fire spitting out everywhere around you. Even though it looked like hot garbage it was still amazing. The last game I played was a archery game where I had to shoot at stick figures by walking around with a bow an arrow. Now if you asked me last week if that sounded fun I would have said no but by the end of it I was actually so emotionally attached to winning.
Even though at no point did I think I was actually in space or actually painting it felt like I was in like a weird video game like way. VR is just so immersive that it feels like you’re in the game rather than just clicking buttons. Playing VR brought me back to the magic of trying the Wii for the first time and I recommend anyone to give it a try, who knows you might get pleasantly surprised like me.
Naisaan's Blog 
I have tried a virtual reality machine that one of my family members owns. I agree that it is such a cool experience and feels unlike anything else. The machine that I used allowed me to “travel” to almost every country in the world and had live images of different cities in those countries. It was awesome because it looked so real and made me forget that I was actually just siting in my living room. I believe that these machines will become more popular in the near future.
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I tried a VR machine twice. The first time was when I went to an engineering Q & A across campus, and the second time was a few weeks ago when AT&T visited different residence halls to give a presentation on texting and driving. The AT&T one simulated a car with a texting driver, and the first one I mentioned showed the solar system and some person’s house. They were both really cool, and it makes me wonder if VR machines will soon become a common accessory that most households have.
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I’ve seen these things everywhere on the internet but never a single time in person. They always look so cool but I couldn’t imagine the feeling of not being about to see anything in real life yet having to actually walk around and stay balanced in real life. I wonder if these are going to be the next huge thing that everyone will have in their house, but I guess that just depends on the price and how much space is actually needed to use it.
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