Financial VRality

Main Menu
Open a savings account
Making a decision - Concert
Option Menu

Inspiration

Our team noticed that most young adults do not understand finances or have experience applying their skills, and resources that teach general financial concepts are not engaging. We believe that the best way to learn is through an experience, so we decided to implement a virtual reality(VR) solution to help increase young adult's financial literacy.

What it does

Virtual VRality personalizes the experience to our target user, young adults with a source of income, and aims to create realistic experiences that the person can extrapolate to their actual life. Although there are many crucial financial skills, we decided to focus on savings in our prototype because 63% of Americans do not know how to save money according to research. In the prototype, the user sets a 5-month goal (buying a laptop) and undergoes the process of opening a savings account, making decisions like saving or going to a concert, and finding out if they saved enough for their goal.

How I built it

We used Unreal-Engine, iclone, and character-creator to create the scenery, characters, and interactions in the program.

Challenges I ran into

We had to figure out the best way to collaborate on Unreal Engine, so we could track one another's changes. To resolve the solution, we all worked on different levels using the same assets, so we could easily merge the levels together as we finished.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Every aspect of our experience was ideated by and created by one of our team members. The team created all characters, environments, camera movements, interactive objects, and graphics. Most of our members were new to Unreal Engine, so we're proud that we were able to learn and apply a new skill in a short amount of time.

What I learned

I became more knowledgeable in how savings accounts work and the 50-30-20 rule as well as how to use the Unreal Engine.

What's next for Financial VRality

Financial VRality will start to implement critiques received during the hackathon and add more scenarios to the savings module. Ultimately, we hope to release Financial VRality as a FREE resource that can be used by anyone with a phone.

Built With

character-creator
iclone
unreal-engine

Submitted to

HackGSU - Spring 2018

Created by

I created widget blueprints for main menu and options menu for setting sound effect and music volume with unreal engine.

Fattaneh Ameri Mahabadian
I toke part in the creation of the VR components to the project. And assisted in the creation of other aspects of the project.

KeeperOne
I took part in creating the ideas for the story line of the project. I contributed by creating different scenes within our simulation. I'll also assist with presenting as one of the speakers of the group.

Annette Owusu
I helped create some of the VR character models and set pieces. This was overall one of my first times using the Unreal Engine and character creator appliccation.

Atsimbwom Akuchu
I was involved with design of the VR simulation, character/ setting design, and animations.

Maya Campbell
Overall, I was in charge of being project manager, so that we could stay informed and productive. In the product, I created the stage area for the concert as well as the outside of the bank which made me learn how to use Unreal Engine.

Kalil Garrett