VR Mobile Mine Safety Training Prototype (2010–2015)

Goal:
To demonstrate how a mobile device solution can deploy as a portable, convenient, low-cost, high quality, and engaging training experience.

Summary:
In 2011, the Informatics Innovation Unit (IIU) pursued an alternative approach to an existing National Institutes for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) area that is a large-scale virtual reality laboratory for mining safety training. The IIU/NIOSH collaboration resulted in a prototype to demonstrate how a mobile device solution would be deployed as a portable, convenient, high-quality and engaging training experience. The functional prototype/proof-of-concept optimized to run on Apple’s iPad. In the current prototype, the user (trainee) can explore sights and sounds of a virtual mine shaft where the screen of the iPad or iPhone is a window into the mine (i.e., to look up at the ceiling of the shaft, the device is directed toward the ceiling), and interact with the environment via the touchscreen. Based on their activities, the trainee receives messages and questions and the mineshaft environment changes to match the response criteria.