One of the newest research facilities at Northern Arizona University doesn’t incorporate beakers and chemicals. There are no lab coats or protective goggles. Instead, the Virtual Reality Lab is set up with only computers, a projector, a blank wall, and futuristic headsets.
And yet, the IVR lab is set to innovate the way students learn at NAU.
The previous Director of the IVR Lab, explains the purpose and possibilities of the lab.
“When I… Read more
Although virtual reality technology is most often associated with video games, the emerging medium offers the potential for more than just entertainment. According to the research of Dr. Heidi Wayment, professor of social psychology at Northern Arizona University (NAU), in some applications, virtual reality has the ability to reduce stress and anxiety, and increase mindfulness among users – part of a concept Wayment describes as the “quiet ego.”… Read more
IVR Lab Shares VR Technology with Campus and Community
Northern Arizona University’s Immersive + Interactive Virtual Reality Lab opened its doors to the campus and community for its first-ever open house on March 8, 2017.
The lab’s official debut, held inside NAU’s School of Communication building, showcased the lab’s current projects and capabilities, and introduced visitors to virtual reality’s various applications and potential.
During the event, visitors had the opportunity to visit and… Read more
A group of researchers at NAU are currently working in a collaborative effort to propose new ways to explore the surface of Mars. For over 30 years Mars has been extensively mapped and explored by space probes and and planetary rovers. They have yielded enormous amounts of data but often scientists have not been able to interpret much of this data.
Current rover science is limited to a semi-autonomous probe with on-board instruments
to sample and send back data to… Read more
Research scientists at NAU are no strangers to big data. In fact, big data is everywhere, and developing analytics tools that enable scientist to gain insights from complex data sets has been an ever-present challenge. Here at NAU researchers use big data in many fields, including climate science, water conservation, energy, and resource management, among many others.
By themselves, these data sets are meaningless without effective analytics tools to assist researchers in… Read more