PowerUp Buffalo History Museum: Team 9

Inspiration

We were inspired by the fascinating history of the Pan American Exposition that occurred in our current location, Buffalo, New York.

What it does

Our project implements virtual reality to create two different experiences for the Buffalo History Museum to showcase the Pan American Exposition. One experience is an immersive, 4-Dimensional gondola ride that moves back and forth using hydraulics to simulate a trip through the canal around the perimeter of the Pan American fair with virtual reality. The second experience includes a virtual "walkthrough" of the fair that shows the current state of the land with image pop ups of the Pan American Exposition that depict how the fair looked in comparison to current conditions.

How we built it

We are using virtual reality to create the videos for the walkthrough and ride through experience. Also, we will be using hydraulics to move the gondola around to create the experience of riding the gondola around.

Challenges we ran into

We worked through the challenges of estimating how much this project would cost especially with the need for software engineers and the creating of the virtual reality. We estimated a figure for the cost for everything, but, in practice, it may be difficult to actually implement the virtual reality.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the individuality of our project with the 4-D experience with the gondola ride because this is unique to any experience that I am familiar with and immerses participants in an experience that can bring them to 1901.

What we learned

We have learned about the Pan American Exposition because we have conducted research and observed videos that highlight the Pan American Exposition, which most of us were not familiar to. Also, we learned about how to integrate virtual reality into a history museum to learn about different events and feel immersed with these events.

What's next for PowerUp Buffalo History Museum

Next, the Buffalo History Museum could create changes to make this experience to tailor it to be more feasible to their exact case and then begin to apply for grants to implement this idea into the museum.

Built With

• virtual-reality