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.