Design & Development in XR (CSCI 379)
A hands-on, project-based course I created in 2024 and have taught four times. Using Unity, C#, and standalone headsets (Meta Quest 3), students build immersive applications with:
- locomotion
- hand and controller interaction, and grabbable objects
- mixed-reality features such as spatial mapping and persistent anchors
Human-centered design, comfort and accessibility guide everything. AI-assisted development tools are used throughout. The semester ends with a self-directed final project. Development of the course was supported by a Bucknell Curricular Development Grant.
What students have built
A sample of recent final projects:
- Virtual chemistry lab: analytical dilutions with a balance, liquids and powders
- MRI slice viewer: three orthogonal panels with a slider, handed off from desktop to Quest
- Gamified electronics workshop: wiring circuits and building an RC car
- Hand-tracked orchestra conductor
- Mixed-reality detective game that uses your own room
- Barista training game, escape rooms, and a mixed-reality horror game where monsters break through your real doors and windows
- Molecule-building sandbox, an educational VR garden, a kitchen cutting simulator, and VR code/graph visualization
Background: Extended Reality (XR) on the blog.
Student showcase
A few favorite final projects.
XR barista simulator by Ryan Koes ’26 (Fall 2025). A step-by-step espresso tutorial in VR: grind, tamp, lock in the portafilter, and pull the shot.
Escape room by Phong Kao (Fall 2025). A dimly lit old house full of clues, locked drawers and a keypad puzzle. Find your way out.
Haunted graveyard by Ryan Koes ‘26 (Fall 2025). A spooky Halloween scene to explore, with jack-o’-lanterns, glowing trees and things to interact with in the dark.
VR chemistry lab by Victoria Burek (begun in Fall 2024 and developed further as an independent study in Spring 2026; she was also a TA for the course in Fall 2025). Guided acid–base experiments at a lab bench: add base to an acidic solution and watch the phenolphthalein and bromothymol blue indicators change color as the pH rises.