Duke’s Immersive Virtual Environment easily lends itself to Star Trek comparisons. Located in the Fitzpatrick Building, it’s a cube-shaped room with a sliding door. There are projectors shining images at every inside wall, including the roof and ceiling. When one moves, objects move around you. There are only a handful of comparable environments in the United States. On Friday, The Chronicle's Gautam Hathi chatted with alumni and their families along with a few current students, who stopped by for a tour.
“You got to understand, I took a computer science course and we had stacks and stacks and stacks of paper cards with holes in them, and we would put in one card at a time.” —Jim Vankirk, Trinity ’84
“This is all new to me. I’ve never been on this campus before. So far from what I’ve seen it’s gorgeous. I love the gothic buildings, but this is amazing, and I didn’t even know that this existed.” —Trisha Vankirk, family member of an alum
“It was unique and I never imagined doing anything like that. I’m very impressed. I think it’s a great tool.” —Chris Sussingham, Pratt ’83
“I felt like I was about to be hit in the head numerous times by cabinet doors. Even though the visuals leave a little bit to be desired, but it was real enough where I felt I was going to be concussed, so that was pretty sweet.” —Jon Martin, Trinity '09
“I felt something was going to come at me, and there was that point where someone walked past one [one] side at it felt like there was a stalker coming into the room. But it was really cool. It was really cool with the kitchen how you could pick everything up and how it would change based on the perspective.” —Sam Tasher, Trinity '09, Law '12
“I was an engineer for five years and I never saw this. I would like to see this technology eventually combined with video games just to have a full immersive experience, like a combat situation.” —Martin Steren, Pratt '12
"It felt pretty real. You immerse yourself into it, so it’s like a video game, you feel like you’re in the skin of the person.” —Nancy Renaud, Graduate '11
"I am sad that I had to wait until senior year to realize that this existed because it was beyond awesome.” —Iyanu Oke, senior
“It reminded me of the Magic School Bus. It was really cool. It was like Wii meets Magic School Bus." —Jessica Huang, senior
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