KIDS DAY ’09 DHS S&T

A Visit To
TechApplication Island
VR LAB
In Second Life
 T h e T h e m e : “ IT’S NOT JUST A GAME”

Cast Of Characters

The characters were developed for the event to include First Responders from EMT, Fire
and Police.

Each Avatar provided could be transformed into any of the characters in real time,
causing much fun as the avatars morphed between characters.

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 T h e T h e m e : “ IT’S NOT JUST A GAME”
Gathering and Transforming
The kids logged in and
gathered on the Auditorium’s
terrace. This is where their
mentors at DHS, Paul
Stregevsky and Sean Lang
showed them the basics of how
to move and how to transform
their Avatar into the character
of their choice.
They were joined by host
Apollo Lyon, also known in RL
(the real world) as Theo Mayer,
Senior Technology Advisor of
TechApplication.com and the
proprietor of the TechApplication
Island Lab in Second Life.
Also joining the group was Ammit
Demontrond, AKA Michelle Wallace in
demonstration projects that
include a briefing auditorium, a
virtual Executive Command
Center, a remote mining
operations center, a general
media lab, a GIS “Map Walker”
experiment, and more...
RL, Chief Architect and Designer for
TechApplication Island.
The island is an experimental
laboratory for using Metaverse
Technologies for real world
applications and is set up with a
number of facilities and
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 T h e T h e m e : “ IT’S NOT JUST A GAME”

A Little History And Context

The short History of Virtual Reality The kids were told that they would
is “A long time ago” history to the spend the rest of the time on the
kids. Island exploring that question by
visiting the Executive Command
Using the Auditorium’s media Center, and the Map Walker to see
presentation technologies, Apollo how First Responders might use these
presented a brief slide show about the same tools to deal with a real world
history of virtual reality, and how video crisis.
gaming transformed advanced
computer graphics from “really

expensive and special” into the

incredible X-box, PlayStation and
computers the kids enjoy and play
with.

The question was asked: “How

does this apply to Homeland Security
and crisis management?”.

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 T h e T h e m e : “ IT’S NOT JUST A GAME”
The Executive Command Center
Sitting on a hilltop behind the
Auditorium is the ECC (Executive
Command Center). This is a small
6-10 person (Avatar) facility is
equipped some advanced briefing
tools including streaming media, desk
screens, and projection displays.
The kids learned that in a virtual The kids learned how, by looking
reality world like this, through their Avatar’s eyes, even in a
experts from many virtual reality meeting like this one, the
locations could gather fact that (virtual) eye contact is kept
to get briefings and to between speakers (the avatars look
make plans for how to where the user is looking) really helps
deal with a crisis. After in understanding and
all, they were in communications.
Washington, DC,
Apollo was in Los Then is was off to the Map Walker
Angeles, California and to explore a giant map walk-around
Ammit was in San map can be used for planning.
Antonio, Texas.
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 T h e T h e m e : “ IT’S NOT JUST A GAME”

The Map Walker

Floating in the sky high police, fire, EMT and

above the island is the Map other crisis managers
Walker. It is a great tool in can plan command
planning strategies for crisis center locations,
management. It features a evacuations, where to
large survey map, plus the place their resources
giant walk around map where based on the crisis.
For the kids, it was an
experiential introduction
to the ideas of GIS,
resource allocation and
multidisciplinary
interaction without ever
having to use any of
those words.
Most important, it was an
opportunity to finally run around all
over and even to explore one of the
most exciting aspects about virtual
worlds... YOU CAN FLY!

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 T h e T h e m e : “ IT’S NOT JUST A GAME”
This journey into a virtual world
laboratory would have been more
ideally suited to high school rather
than middle school and grade school
kids. However, the contextual
experience they had, seeing “grown
ups” using their “toys” to do work is
likely to have more of an impression
than we might think.
It was also somewhat controlled
chaos! The pictures in this article
showing the well postured avatars
sitting neatly at attention belies the
reality. Simply keeping the kids
together in a group, when they literally
have the power to fly away is definitely
akin to herding cats! Just imagine
being 12 years old and suddenly
Summary
discovering you can jump into the sky volunteered her time to prep the
and fly... Wouldn’t you? avatars and the lab for the event.
Michelle AKA Ammit also acted as our
The overall experience was a very in-world photographer.
rich one for the TechApplication Island
Lab team, and hopefully for the kids. To learn more, please contact me
The experience was contextual, at theo.mayer@techapplication.com
experiential and definitely immersive.
It was a great combination of
learning and playing for everyone
involved - including the kids.
CREDITS AND MENTIONS:
Many thanks to all who helped
make this experiment possible. At
DHS S&T, Paul Stregevsky, Sean
Lang, Elise Rand the IT team that
made Second Life accessible
through the DHS firewalls. Special
thanks to Michelle Wallace, who
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