The holiday season was a mixed and dizzying experience for me this year, to say the least. The lead-up week to the holidays included Christmas surprise balls, a stressful cross-country move, the entire-family-gathering thing, suffering through profound cat allergies, a white Christmas, the flu, and scrumptious biscuits and gravy. Did I say ‘mixed’?
Anyway, the Christmas surprise balls did their magic, reminding me of a tradition practised by my grandfolks during each and every holiday season of my childhood. Crepe paper was wrapped into a ball, with a huge prize at the center, and hoisted by a dozen anticipation-building mini prizes all along the way. All you had to do was unwrap it for thirty minutes of absolutely giddish childlike delight. Here’s a description of how these surprise balls are made. And here are some fancy versions of Christmas surprise balls. And here’s a modern day version called the Saran Wrap ball.
Okay, back to work. The considerable time I spent at the ISTE ed-tech conference in the Merge VR booth reminded me of—you guessed it—a delightful Christmas surprise ball. Lots of interesting things to do, to see, to unwrap—and all in one attention-hugging package. Mmmm. The featured tagline for Merge VR is ““Be transported to virtual worlds“. This San Antonio-based company operates, in a sophisticated way, in the spheres of VR/AR gaming and education. Here are some of the many surprises I unwrapped:
Big Surprise! Two in one. In a logical fashion, just as their name suggests, Merge VR actually merges VR and AR by offering a dual-application headgear, pictured below, capable of viewing either VR or AR with one viewing device. Any time we can use less devices to do the work we need to do, that’s a very good thing. That also saves educators money. And to bring a hands-free liberation to the typically hand-reliant world of AR in schools—that’s even better.
The Merge VR/AR Goggles. Note the cutaway section that enables the headgear to operate both ways.
Surprise! A Universe of Curated Content! Okay, just a mini-universe. Merge VR bundles free and/or premium educational VR content with their solution, including the likes of Dino Digger, Wooble Wobble physics game, Virtual Speech speaking simulator, Cleanopolis, and a range of YouTube 360 offerings. According to Taryn Saavedra, Marketing Director for Merge VR: “We have not created 360/VR content – we just test and curate experiences for Miniverse.io. Boy, have they!
Surprise! The Merge Cube! See my previous article on this divine physical device, the Merge Cube. The Merge Cube recently won an award from KAPi (Kids At Play Interactive) at CES 2018 as best AR/VR application. Oh my!
Surprise! Customer co-exhibitors! In a quirky twist, the layout of the Merge VR booth was reversed compared with most I’ve seen. Merge VR pulled customers into the booth, but had them facing outwards, creatively using them as an interactive part of the display for others to see. It really worked. Their booth was thronged with potential customers.
Customers gaining stage center at the Merge VR booth, assisted by Mergies (top)
Surprise! Customer Safety! Having nearly killed myself in two other VR-hawking booths while attempting to view their products, it was a delightful surprise to find a group that considered customer safety in their booth design. Educators could view their products in the safety and ease of comfortable seats. No more banged knees, touchy-clingy salespeople keeping me upright, or painful and awkward falls, of which I had a few in other booths.
– Len Scrogan
