Inspiration
Surpisingly one of the biggest things we have missed due to virtual lectures is physically sitting in the lecture theatre -- we decided that we could come up with solution to this.
What it does
It effectively serves as a virtual lecture theatre, allowing people to listen to a lecturer's presentation, whilst taking notes from their slides. Using rooms created by the lecturer, other participants can easily join the room using a simple code, then have access to tools to raise their hand, and make notes. Voice chat allows people to talk to other participants and the lectuerer in the the hall. There were plans to have a menu to have character customisation in the lecture, however time constraints prevented us from implementing this.
How we built it
lectVRe is built using Unity, due to its support for the Google Cardboard platform. The backend server that handles the user's character customizations, positions and loading of the slides is written in Python using the Django framework.
Challenges we ran into
We had a number of issues working with Unity, as the majority of the group had not used it at all, and the others had not used its more advanced features. One of the biggest problems we had to deal with was that we wanted to use a WebView inside the app, as the screen in the lecture threatre -- however, none of the solutions supported rendering to the screen. Therefore we had to build our own bespoke solution for rendering a Google Slides presentation to the screen.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Getting multiplayer to work, so that people can see each other and interact.
What we learned
Making something using a game engine is very difficult.
What's next for lectVRe
Greatness !
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