Kazakh students work on virtual reality education system

Almaty students are developing a training system based on virtual reality, Tengrinews reports citing one of the authors of the project - Synergy startup - Zhanserik Kenes.

According to the developers from the IT University, they used existing solutions, such as Xbox’s Kinect camera, Oculus Rift helmet and motion capturing device Leap Motion. The main challenge was to get the different parts of hardware and software work together.

They are planning to use the device to study sciences - physics, chemistry, geography, astronomy, and others.

The most time-consuming process, according to Kenes, is modelling of space for practical training in virtual reality. The students have already completed work on a beta version of the model of the starry sky. This allows users to visually examine the positions of celestial bodies or take a small "interstellar tour."

For chemistry classes they are planning to create models of atoms, molecules, and various compounds which can be manipulated by a hand.

Kenes added that some models could be borrowed from other developers. For example, to add virtual tours of different parts of the world they are thinking about connecting Google services, such as Street View.

Reporting by Dmitriy Khegai, writing by Dinara Urazova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina