The Observer, September 2, 2005
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1
Virtual Worlds lab now open for work and play
So you just finished sitting through a long lecture on organic chemistry and are totally drained. You've got a break between classes and could use a pick-me-up, but where do you go? Wackadoo's for a beer? No, you're under 21 and could live without the beer breath. Nord for a nap? Not enough time to make it worthwhile. Olin for a quick round of Halo? Bingo. The Virtual Worlds Lab is Case's newest addition and offers some great PR opportunities for the university.
The lab is located on the fourth floor of Olin and boasts some very impressive statistics. There are six rooms, each with very different hardware. The main room houses 18 top-of-the-line Alienware Aurora 7500 gaming PCs, each with a massive twenty-four inch Dell LCD monitor. These machines are built for speed; top of the line when I started writing this article, but who knows now. Every hot new game will be installed on these machines. There is also a music room with two computers: one for production and one for synthesis. Inside the music room will be a variety of instruments and everything you could need to record your own tracks.
The virtual reality room contains two graphics workstations, two 3D head mounted displays, and various tools that will allow you to interact with the environment. For the premeds out there: imagine going into a med school interviews and being able to say you have already felt what it is like to hold a scalpel, open up a chest cavity, and resuscitate a person's heart. That is what the virtual reality room can do for you.
The lab also houses an immersion room, a black painted cavern with a graphics workstation, Xbox, PS2, surround sound system, La-Z-Boy matinee chair, and a $43,000 3D projector. With the use of a pair of 3D glasses and some special software you can actually see missiles coming at you from a game in this room…all while you recline in what looks to be the most comfortable chair on campus.
The last room in the lab is the gaming room. A long hall with four projectors, four Xboxes, four PS2's, and two Gamecubes, there is little doubt this room will be anything but riotous. Stop by between classes for a game of Madden or maybe rent out a PSP for some portable action: the lab is already equipped with a variety of games, and will be updating the collection regularly.
According to Dr. Marc Buchner, Director of the Virtual Worlds Lab, one goal of the Virtual Worlds Lab is to provide a place where students from all of Case's schools can work cooperatively. EECS 396L, a course on advanced game development, will put together students of all expertises, including English, music, theater, and programming, to create a game. In time, more new courses will be added, including EECS 290, an intro to gaming class requiring only ENGR 131 as a prerequisite. Some existing courses, including Artificial Intelligence and Networking, will also make use of the new lab.Sounds great but expensive. Is this the reason for the tuition hike? Rest assured that the money for this project came from a Provost Opportunity Grant that is given to a new, innovative project on campus every year. The grant totaled $375,000 in addition to the roughly $100,000 contributed by the School of Engineering for the physical construction of the lab.
Why does Case need this kind of lab? The gaming industry earned $7.3 billion in software sales last year. Christian Miller, a student involved with the creation of the lab, attended a gaming industry conference in San Francisco to spread the news about the Virtual Worlds Lab and get an idea about how the industry operates. He discovered that you don't get into the gaming world without previous experience creating a game. This lab will provide Case with opportunities other schools don't offer.
Ostensibly, another thing this lab will provide is publicity for the university. Say a potential employer wants to know something interesting about Case, something no other school has. Fancy new dorms won't work, and neither will those technology enhanced classrooms that professors can never figure out.
Case is in the middle of a large transformation. Vice-Presidential debates, new logos, new dorms, and now new labs. Are we in the presence of the most powerful learning environment in the world? Not quite yet. Most powerful gaming lab in the world? Maybe. But what does that mean? Visit the fourth floor of Olin and check out the lab. You might come for the Halo but you'll stay for the new, exciting opportunities.
Focus editor Megen Vo contributed to this article.
