Stemming From Disaster: People are often unaware of the impact Natural Disasters can have on a community, and are even less aware of the processes involved to fix what was destroyed. In addition, kids are often told to go into STEM fields, but are often not given any direction or information about different jobs or career paths within STEM. To inform people about these issues, our team is developing a simulation in Unreal Engine 4 that immerses kids in the aftermath of a natural disaster. They will have the ability to view different environments that the disaster has affected, and they will be able to spend virtual money to fix some things that have been damaged by the disaster. The user’s interests will be determined by what they observe and what they spend their virtual money on, and those interests will be translated into different careers and STEM disciplines the user might be interested in studying. The simulation will target Desktop and Virtual Reality platforms.

Team members include Camden Williams, Cameron Rosales, Chance Atkinson, Janna Duke, Justin Schultz, Andrew Ragland, David Bugbee, Jeffery Okhuozagbon, Mario Torres, and Samin Yasar.