FOUNDRY 45s – S04E08 – Dr Kit Martin

 

Penn State

Hi, welcome to Foundry 45s. Today we’re excited to have Dr. Kit Martin, Professor of Computer Science at Penn State. Hey Kit, what can you tell us about Refuge VR and the power of meditation in VR?

Hi, Dave, thanks for asking. Refuge VR is a virtual reality meditation temple. It basically has two functionalities. The first one is a series of guided meditations, you can take wherever you are, you put on the headset, and we walk you through a series of reflections. And the second one is a series of high def, self paced meditation rooms where you can go and find a piece of mindfulness. The major benefit of this environment is it gives you the ability to find peace, even in a chaotic world. So at the workplace or with the kids screaming in the background. And because of the affordance of VR, of isolation is you can create this piece anywhere. I developed the environment in Unity and deploy it on the Quest using sideloading. And the experience was designed by my long-term collaborators Sigin Oiulu.