Tag: final

Zoology is a virtual game that can be played with an Oculus Rift headset or google cardboard. Its objective is to raise awareness to the tightly compiled spaces, night cages, and poor living conditions animals endure while living in zoos, circuses, and aquariums. The zoo segment is inside chapter 1. The game begins with the player being a zookeeper. The goal is for the zookeeper is to rescue all the animals in the zoo within 30 hours. Doing so, the zookeeper will encounter a series of mini games that will teach the player how to rescue each type of animal.  Once all the animals are out of the zoo, the zookeeper will drop all the animal off at a set location, built within the game. Then the player will be able to advance to chapter 2. Chapter 2 will be the same concept but now the zookeeper will be rescuing animals from the circus. Finally, will be Chapter 3 where the zookeepers mission is to rescue all fish in the aquarium and return them back to the ocean. All in all, this game will be educational and entertaining, and a fun way to learn about animals and animal cruelty.

The whole idea of keeping animals in zoos can have positive and negative impacts. There has been examples of animal cruelty inside of zoos. Many cruelty treated zoo animals experience negative changes in behavior. The New York Times Upfront stated, “Zoos provide animals with few opportunities to engage in natural behavior and little mental stimulation. In these artificial, restricted conditions, animals may have a mental breakdown and develop “zoochosis”–a form of psychosis that can cause them to sway or pace continually, chew on their own limbs until they bleed, or pull out their own fur or feathers” (New York Times Upfront, “Are Zoos Ethical?”). This article is stating that zoo animals can experience detrimental mental effects from living in the zoo that can cause them to hurt themselves. Worland stated, “….. giving new insights into how they may suffer from anxiety and depression when they are removed from nature” (Worland, “The Future of Zoos”). Worland is stating that the zoo animals are also suffering from anxiety and depression just from living in captivity.

When releasing the animals back into the wild, they might have trouble adjusting to life outside of captivity. Morell Virginia stated, “The young science of reintroduction biology is struggling to map out those strategies for success” (Virginia, “Into the Wild: Reintroduced Animals Face Daunting Odds”). Virginia is insisting that zoo animals have not been very successful in adjusting to their new lives after being released. We should release the animals into the preserves or sanctuaries to help them be able to survive. We should track the animals and monitor them every once and awhile so they don’t struggle with adjusting to a new lifestyle. As an alternative to people visiting zoos, we are offering people the ability to see and learn about the animals in the new virtual reality game that we have created. Our goal is to prevent all animals from behavioral changes, by teaching kids why and how places like zoos, circuses, and aquariums impact the animals lives

User Interface is the varying method of having interactive visuals for the user to respond to. Think of an iPhone; it’s easy to use because of it’s interface which includes legible text, icons, and colors that are attractive to the brain. In Zoology, we are able to navigate it by a main menu, which shows levels and settings. With your VR headset and haptic feedback gloves, you will have a holographic imagery of the main menu, settings, and you will be able to click what you want to do next by just reaching out.  However, a cheaper and simpler alternative will include a joystick, and google cardboard. In the game, our goal is to educate about animals and life captive in the zoo. With the addition of a story and virtual graphics we are able to enrich that experience and add some fun.

The proper user experience comes with an easy navigational experience. The choices of using a joystick, haptic feedback gloves or a balance board. Joystick which is the common and more traditional game controller will have a twist in which instead of a screen that you look at, you will have goggles on to mimic the VR 3D effect. Nevertheless, users will not have the complete experience to feel like you’re in Zoology world, because it uses less resources and is less expensive. It can be used with consoles such as Sony’s playstation and Microsoft’s Xbox. Since Wii was built on the idea of user motion, we will try to improve its use of balance boards and joysticks to recreate a more realistic movement experience in the virtual world. According to research done in Comparing two types of navigational interfaces for Virtual Reality, Forty university students participated in this study. Results show that participants were more efficient when performing navigation tasks using the Joystick than with the Balance Board. This statement proves that the Balance board isn’t yet completely ideal for the accessibility when it comes to virtual reality. Haptic feedback is a tool that will be increase the effect of realism when playing console games.

Zoology is operated by a virtual headset and gloves set that can take you through the game with the menu options operation being apart of the headset. Additions on the prototype is adding more players to the game so that multiple people can rescue the animals and players will also be able to challenge one another. Past the prototype, the headsets will be able to sync to other headsets online, and around the world. Once headsets are able to sync around the world, multiple people will be able to choose options to rescue animals around the world from bad habitats.

The target audience of our Virtual Reality game are kids aged 5-12. However, our primary target market are the parents of the children, since they our the main contributors of household income. The Virtual Reality game will demonstrate animal cruelty in a way that’s not obvious. Also it will educate children on different types of species such as, the Rhinopithecus bieti, and the Short nosed sea snake. This game will allow kids to experience these animals first hand rather than to read about them. Its one of our long term goals to be able to sell our Virtual Reality game to public and private schools. This game can be used in animal science classes, or a Bioscience class. Our company feels with the VR game, schools will be able to incorporate it into their curriculum allowing students to be graded on the chapters they complete.

We will sell our game “Zoology” through different Application stores such as iTunes, Google Play, PlayStation 4, and XBOX One. For PlayStation 4 and XBOX One, the game will cost $23.99. People will have to use a VR headset to play the game on XBOX One and PlayStation 4. On the two applications store such as iTunes and Google Play, the game would only cost $2.99. Also, users will be able to use Google Cardboard to play the game on their phone. We will promote our game “Zoology” through various social media handles such as, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus, we will pay famous Youtubers gamers to promote our game on their channel. Also, we will create an advertisement to be played on Youtube and on Television which will consist of a video that demonstrates trailers of the different parts of the game. On top of that,  when people explore different websites, they will have the ability to see the advertisement on the side of their webpage. Lastly, we will also create unique flyer to be hung at game shops and and featured in magazines like the National Geographic.

This game has potential to raise awareness about the intentions of zoos, circuses, aquariums and all animal captive environments. We believe this game will start making children have mixed emotions about these places. For instance author Lisa Uddin, stated in her book Zoo Renewal “what is it about zoos that provokes our bad feelings?” (Uddin). Children will realize watching animals suffer, and perform for human entertainment is not right. In addition, this game could influence a change in policy for these companies. For example, circuses can prohibit the use of animals, or zoos can change their concept and only be used for learning purposes of rare breed species. Only animals that are exotic and or going into extinction should be cared for at the zoo. On top of that, their environment should resemble the environment in the wild. Therefore each animal should have a large amount of space with trees and insects.

Nevertheless, this virtual game can also be therapeutic to people that have a zoo-phobia or a ophidio-phobia. Patients would be able to hold and interact with the animals that they have a fear of touching in the real world. Virtual Reality has been proven to be effective as a healing technique. It may not cure all animal fears, but it has the potential to reduce them.

All in all, this Virtual Reality game is a new and refreshing way to deal with social issues. This game will not only educate, but it will also teach children to be  more empathetic towards animals. This game deals with an issue that not fully recognized enough by society. A lot of research went into making this game so we are sure this VR game will be successful.

References

“Are Zoos Ethical?”. New York Times Upfront, vol. 149, Issue 5, 21 November 2016, pp. 22.EBSCOhost, http://ezproxy.stevenson.edu:2063/eds/detail/detail?vid=7&sid=86c2b539-fbb7-46ac-9038-63fbb7f48f9d%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=119640923&db=eue. Accessed 1 May 2017.

Teixera, Luis. “A VR360° player with enhanced haptic feedback.” VR360HD. ACM, n.d. Web. 10 May 2017. Web.http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2993404 Accessed 6 May 2017

Uddin, Lisa. “Zoo Renewal.” Project MUSE. University of Minnesota Press, 2015. Web. 10 May Web.https://muse.jhu.edu/book/39497. Accessed 6 May 2017

Virginia, Morell. “Into the Wild: Reintroduced Animals Face Daunting Odds.” ScienceMagazine, vol. 320, 9 May 2008, pp. 742-743. Web. http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/124/1247142843.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2017.

Worland, Justin. “The Future of Zoos.” Time, vol. 189, Issue 7/8, 27 February 2017, pp. 54-61. EBSCOhost, http://ezproxy.stevenson.edu:2063/eds/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=86c2b539-fbb7-46ac-903863fbb7f48f9d%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=121318862. Accessed 1 May 2017.

Andrea Tice (CEO)

Jewel Bowlding (Learning Specialist)

George Lowe (Technical developer)

Faith Tyson (Lead Writer and editor)

http://www.storyboardthat.com/storyboards/geolowe3/driving-under-the-influence

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WGDQpT5hKUm2L0Zy24NQE1lLlZUSKGKt9wfvn2J-dz0/edit?ts=591458e8#slide=id.p

References (Jewel):

Taxman, Faye S., and Alex Piquero. “On preventing drunk driving recidivism: An examination of rehabilitation and punishment approaches.” Journal of Criminal Justice 26.2 (1998): 129-143.  Accessed April 27, 2016

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235297000755

1.Faye Taxman, and Alex Piquero. Taxman is a professor at  University of Maryland Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology College Park. Piquero is a  professor at Temple University of Criminal Justice Philadelphia.

2. They are strongly passionate about it.
3. I am sure I can find this information somewhere else. It Is general.
4. It seems pretty trustworthy because they are professors at big universities.
5. It deals with the subject heavy but I can’t read the whole book or article.
6. I’m not sure if any are cited because I cannot find the whole book. They aren’t too recent because it was in 1998.
7. Not considered bias because they are focusing on one topic.
8. March- April 1998

Taxman, Faye S., Matthew L. Perdoni, and Lana D. Harrison. “Drug treatment services for adult offenders: The state of the state.” Journal of substance abuse treatment 32.3 (2007): 239-254. Accessed April 27, 2016

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740547207000177

1. Faye S. Taxman, Matthew L. Perdoni, and Lana D.Harrison. Taxman Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University. Perdoni Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University. Harrison Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies, University of Delaware, Newark.
2. Passionate because they good give evidence.
3. The information is pretty originally to me because they give statics and used pass studies. Specific details.
4. This information seems pretty trustworthy because these people are high in and are collaborating together.
5. It deals with the subject first hand because they have good details to back it up.
6. They cite the TASC, ISPs,  Etheridge, and etc. Having links and siting people make their information more reliable. They are complete and not that recent (April 2007) but it is still a good help.
7. I don’t consider this book bias.
8. It was published in 2007.

Peled, Sharon, et al. “Geometrically constrained two-tensor model for crossing tracts in DWI.” Magnetic resonance imaging 24.9 (2006): 1263-1270.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0730725X06002128

1. Sharon Peled, Ola Friman, Ferenc Jolesz, and Carl-Fredrik Westin. Peled Harvard Center For Neurodegeneration and Repair Boston. Friman Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Jolesz Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Westin Laboratory of Mathematics in Imaging Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
2. Empathic. I say that because they give a lot of details and go in dept.
3. This information is original , I think I could find this information somewhere but this is more reliable. Specific details.
4. It is trustworthy because the people who wrote it.
5. The authors do a good job with the subject.
6. They use theories, I didn’t see too many references of people or other books or authors.
7. In my opinion I think they are too focused on one type of technology they could talk about different types of technology 
8. It was published in 2006.

www.anderson-schuster.com/what-happens-when-you-are-pulled-over-for-driving-under-the-influence-dui-part-i/

References (Andrea) :

Wagenaar, A. C., P. M. O’Malley, and C. LaFond. “Lowered Legal Blood Alcohol Limits for Young Drivers: Effects on Drinking, Driving, and Driving-after-drinking Behaviors in 30 States.”American Journal of Public Health. U.S. National Library of Medicine, May 2001.

Web. 01 May 2017.

1. Wagenaar, O’Malley, and LaFond are all responsible for this source. All three of these people are professor in Sociology or of health outcomes.
2. The general attitude is sympathetic and considerate of the effects of drunk driving.
3. The information is an original and has been cited by people 124 times.
4. It is trustworthy because it was written by real professors and who are knowledgeable of the circumstances.
5. They completely deal with the subject.
6. This article has been used in books, in MedGen, and PubMed.
7. They focus on a problem and a solution and i feel as if they should focus on more than just a solution. More action and less talking.
8. This was published in 2001.

Dai, Jiang Peng, Jin Teng, Xiaole Bai, Zhaohui Shen, and Dong Xuan. “Mobile Phone Based Drunk Driving Detection.” Mobile Phone Based Drunk Driving Detection – IEEE Xplore Document. N.p., 7 June 2010. Web. 01 May 2017.

1. There are five people responsible for this source. Dai, Jiang Peng, Jin Teng, Xiaole Bai, Zhaohui Shen, and Dong Xuan. All except four are apart of the department of school of computer science and Zhaohui Shen is apart of the division of physical therapy.
2. The general attitude toward this idea is interested and supportive.
3. This is also very original and has be cited 42 other times.
4. It is proven trustworthy because of the people who wrote it and there are other articles related to this specific article.
5. They deal with the subject they are presented with.
6. This site contains links to other related sites that base their ideas on this topic. It adds authority because it is accurate information.
7. They are biased because they focus on technology (mobile phone apps) in preventing the increase of death rates due to drunk driving.
8. This was published June 2010.

Wattal, Sunil, and Brad N. Greenwood. “Fewer Drunk-driving Fatalities Nationwide.” PsycEXTRA Dataset 41 (2016): 1-3. Ride-sharing Apps Really Reduce Drunk Driving Fatalities. London School of Economics, 8 Dec. 2016. Web. 1 May 2017. <http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/74357/1/blogs.lse.ac.uk-Ride-sharing%20apps%20really%20reduce%20drunk%20driving%20fatalities.pdf>.

1. Sunil Wattal and Brad Greenwood are responsible for this source. They are both professor. Wattal is an associate professor of management information systems and Greenwood is an assistant professor of management information systems.
2. The general attitude towards this subject is passionate and aroused by how uber and lyft has helped those who are drunk.
3. This article is cited by other people and is used in other blogs.
4. Very trustworthy.
5. Deals with the subject completely.
6. This site relates to a recent blog.
7. This is biased because they show favoritism to lyft and uber.
8. This was published in December 2016.

References (Faith):

1. Daniel Eisenberg, professor at School of Public Health, University of California-Berkeley.
2. Informative.
3. General information that you can find anywhere if you google it.
4. Very trustworthy, cited by 76 articles.
5. Deals with organizations that try to prevent drunk driving, more than dealing with the aftermath of drunk driving.
6. The online article cites the statistical facts, this adds authority to the cite because it shows that the author of this article did not make up “facts”, and whatever he said can be found, and proven.
7. Does not talk about any other organizations but MADD.
8. March 4, 2013.

Eisenberg, D. (2003), Evaluating the effectiveness of policies related to drunk driving. J. Pol. Anal. Manage., 22: 249–274. doi:10.1002/pam.10116

1. Thomas K. Greenfield, PhD. Scientific Director; Senior Scientist. And John D. Rogers, is an attorney for John Foy & Associates.
2. Informative.
3. You can find the information of this article if you looked for the study/survey.
4. Very trustworthy, cited by 32 articles.
5. Talks about the information gained from the survey, the interaction between beer and alcohol consumption, and self reported drunkk driving.
6. Cited a survey from 1995 about people in an household who drinks.
7. Not really bias, just states statistical facts about people’s drinking patterns, beverage choices, and perceptions risk of drinking before driving.
8. May 3, 2002.

Greenfield, T. K. and Rogers, J. D. (1999), Alcoholic beverage choice, risk perception and self-reported drunk driving: effects of measurement on risk analysis. Addiction, 94: 1735–1743.

1. Christopher Carpenter, The University of Michigan School of Public Health
2. Does not really have a feeling, just explained the results of the study they used about drunk driving.
3. You can find this information if you looked up the drunk driving law.
4. Very trustworthy, cited by 58 articles.
5. Talks about the zero tolerance for drunk driving law,
6. It cites the behavioral risk factor surveliance system (BRFSS). Has drunk driving using data. As recent as 2001.
7. Biased when it comes to age group.
8. January, 2004.

Carpenter, C. (2004), How do zero tolerance drunk driving laws work? Journal of health Economics, Volume 23, Issue 1, January 2004, Pages 61–83.

Intro:

Every 53 minutes, one person dies from a drunk driving vehicle crash. That averages 28 people just in one day. In 2015, 10,265 people died in alcohol-impaired crashes, an increase of nearly 300 from the year before. This VR stimulation will take you on a journey behind the body of an intoxicated individual. This is intended for all audiences ages 13 and over. The purpose of this app is to create a sense of emotion and to decrease or altogether stop the effects of driving under the influence. This is a learning experience for those who do drink and for those who do not drink. This simulation will be designed using stages. The different stages will represent different levels of intoxication and the effects behind each one.

Learning Outcomes:

The user would have more knowledge about the laws of their state involving drunk driving. They will also learn their limit when it comes to drinking or even if you are drunk when should you stop accepting or taking drinks (enough is enough). The user will learn how many drinks it will take to get over the legal limit (Maryland Legal Limit 0.08%). The user would feel remorse or bad for drunk drivers because drunk driving can end up going left and they lose their life. They will know what it feels like to be drunk and driving if they never experienced it. For example in the state of Maryland, if you are drunk driving and pulled over you will be expected to take a variety of field sobriety test. These test are used to “examine whether your mental and physical abilities are impaired by alcohol” (Anderson & Schuster).

User Experience:

Within our VR realm we will be able to give the user a simulated feeling of the rise in their blood alcohol content and its effect on them behind the wheel. Each user will get to see how much alcohol it takes them to surpass the legal limit, then after drive a car. Each subject will get to see the DUI process first hand as a police officer will pull you over and run sobriety tests accordingly. The overall objective is to provoke empathy in the user, ultimately allowing them to make the better decision when a time like this arises in the real world.

User Interface:
Once you power up our VR program there will be a simple home screen displayed. From this page you can select the DUI simulation, the system will then analyze your body through a camera to develop the most accurate body reaction to the alcohol. You are then able to choose from a variety of drinks that are laid out in front of you. As you consume more and more the screen displays a number in the top right corner that corresponds with your BAC. Once the legal limit (.08) is surpassed you are directed to a car where you then see the alcohol’s effects on your decision making and reaction time. The road will display many hazard such as fallen trees, tight curves and sudden stop signs. Each user will have to react to these changes and at the end they will be pulled over by a police officer. The officer will then run a series of sobriety checks and ultimately put you in the back of a squad car, ending the simulation.

Commitment and Research:

There is an existing mobile app that detects sensory readings and compares these readings with an average drunk person. When the slightest evidence of drunk driving is present, the app will immediately notify the police or it will alert the driver. This program has been proven to promote high accuracy. I would add this idea into my VR because it could be used in a scenario whereas the driver disregards the alert from the app, gets pulled over, and so forth.

Implementation Strategy:

We would see what technology cost less and try to use that and just change it or advance it more. For example a DUI breathalyzer it would not have to be too expensive especially if you have to keep it in your car. Since people always have their phones with them  maybe they should breath into the phone since breathalyzer are expensive. To reach out to people we would advertise with posters, talk with police and see if they can make that an option when they pull drunk drivers over.  Also a MR diffusion tensor imaging of the brain and spine provides a unique tool for “both visualizing directionality and assessing intactness of white matter fiber tracts in vivo (Peled). This type of equipment would be very expensive so it would have to change the type of imaging equipment. The barrier with technology will always be the money situation or the people drunk driving who would not want to follow thru with what will help them for the better. For future purposes for drunk drivers it would be something like if you are at a bar without a DD you can’t have over a certain amount of drinks like 3 ½. Solutions to overcome these barriers are having more responsible people, have a class to help people but not a rehab class because some people have been to something like that and then will never go back. Maybe have something like a gathering where people tell if they have a problem with drinking or just to express their experience.  To tell everyone about this new class we would implement it into Driver’s Ed classes and this could be another way for police to tell people too instead of rehab classes.

Long-Term Vision:

  As for the long term vision, I am hoping that this will open the eyes of the younger audiences and change their perspectives on driving under the influence. I do not want this to be seen as an app that people use once and get rid of it just because they’re bored with it and complete all stages. Hopefully if this is used, more scenarios will be added every week, in other words, whoever downloads will have to update every week or have it automatically done.