Inspiration
Our main inspiration for VATS was a mix of things. Both Paul and I have always found it silly that people would need to spend time and money to get an appointment for something as simple as a vision test, and with the current circumstances of coronavirus and a rise in the amount of people unwilling to go out unless absolutely necessary, we thought a VR solution to this issue would be just what the doctor ordered. Additionally, we were turned towards this idea by the mini challenge hosted by Anthem.
What it does
The goal of VATS was to implement four main things: A virtual environment that is visually appealing, sensory and physical tests such as ones for vision and hearing, the ability to accomplish clerical tasks like renewing prescriptions, and even a built in chat if you need to speak with a medical professional.
How we built it
The core of building VATS lied within integrating the Oculus Quest with the Unity Game Engine via a link cable. From there we developed every line of code ourselves from scratch by writing scripts in C#. Additionally, we used modeling software such as Blender and Qubicle to create all of our own assets.
Challenges we ran into
The main challenge we ran into was that of time, we took on a large load of work with a relatively lofty goal, especially since neither Paul nor I has had experience developing VR software in the past, which led to us not being able to implement every feature we wanted.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
The main accomplishments we are proud of are making a VR program work with an interactable environment, and the integration of the sensory tests. The sensory tests were always the most important part to us because it was the main inspiration for us wanting to make a virtual office, as we believe it was the part of the process of going to the doctor's office that needed to be made more efficient the most.
What we learned
We learned quite a bit from this hackathon. From a technical perspective both of us learned how to create a fully working virtual reality program. And from a design, project management, and timing perspective we both learned that planning ahead even when in a time crunch is key and that focusing on what you can do when you can do it is another essential skill that will lead to the maximum amount of work getting accomplished.
What's next for Virtual Appointment and Testing Suite - VATS
In our eyes, what's next for VATS is two main things. First, a completion of all of its intended features and perhaps the addition of a few more improvements. Second, we believe that it is a program that could become highly proliferated in coming years, with new technologies able to track things about your body becoming cheaper and more advanced, we believe VATS could be a highly effective free physical testing program as well as being an efficient method for non-serious doctor's visits.
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