Inspiration
Children from low income families are often unaware of career opportunities that are available to them. Such unawareness could be the difference that causes these children and their children to remain in poverty. If a child sees their parents or family members working in low income jobs then their vision of their own careers could be limited to these low income positions. Our idea is to expose these children to various career paths with everyday items that are familiar to them. These children may have seen these items before, but through the hololens and our program they will have the chance to see these items in a new light with endless possibility for their future.
What it does
The user (a child) can tap on objects using the Hololens e.g - a slice of cake, a kitten, a guitar, firehose etc. and people in those professions will appear. These professionals will briefly explain what they do, what they love about their job, and how they got to where they are.
How we built it
We installed Visual Studio, HoloLens Emulator and Unity3D on our Surface Book. We checked the Assets Store for characters and humanoids; and prepared audio recordings for them. We then programmed Hololens in C# and developed gesture recognition techniques to make the humanoids appear; and a timer to make them disappear again.
Challenges we ran into
This was our first exposure with HoloLens and Unity and figuring out implements such as gesture, tap, spatial sound etc provided a good sized learning curve. Also, HoloLens has certain hardware requirements and the Emulator could run on only one of our systems. We ran into multiple software complications throughout the night from setting up our environment to figuring out how to implement our project while trying to stay positive and believe in ourselves and our collective ability.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We all were able to learn new skills associated with new technologies and work together to create a successful proof of concept. We came together as strangers and quickly became a team and even friends.
What we learned
We learned about the Unity Platform, the Hololens emulator and majority of us used Visual Studio for the first time. We also learned about the importance of sticking together as a team and approaching a problem as a cohesive group. Communication was also a key component to the overall experience.
What's next for CareerLens
We aim to partner with organizations like Disney, Microsoft and Khan Academy to launch educational programs for all youth in the United States and beyond. This would help them make an informed choice on potential career opportunities and help improve their own futures as well as their local community.
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