The Harbor by Philip Cadoux and Tinrey Wang
This VR experience will put our user in the position of an apprentice harbormaster. While being trained on the night shift by an old harbormaster who has seen the slow decay of his environment, the two are confronted with the resilience and power of an ocean that is dying.
This experience is multisensory, adding motion, scent, and air haptics to the basic VR experience. We have built a special mechanism that will sit underneath a Kayak. This kayak will then be rocked back and forth by a docent of the experience. At certain key parts of the experience, an air mover will be switched on, simulating wind, and a special perfume will be sprayed into that air to wash over the user. Additionally, the sounds of the sea will be felt throughout the body.
Given the opportunity to work on this piece longer, we would be able to workshop and further develop this. As of right now we are doing an amazing technical experience, but the story could be tighter.
The kayak mount was created to have the kayak rest on top of it and rock back and forth. The key features that this needed to have was that it couldn't be so round that the user would feel like they are falling and they needed to be connected by bars so they wouldn't fall forward or backward.
For this, we drew and modeled a basic shape, where we then created a jig, drilled and sanded, and then we were able to rest the kayak on top of it.
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The air mover will be tied to a remote controlled outlet. When the right point in the experience is reached, a docent will turn it on and it will blow the winds of the ocean at the user.