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January 2019

The Dome

A low cost 360° video experience

The Dome was a project I undertook beginning my Sophomore year at Winchester High School. The art department had built a 20ft wide geodesic dome for one of their projects, and once that they had finished with it, I envisioned a future life for it as an interactive 360° theater.

Using a variety of low cost materials, including marine shrink wrap, plastic construction sheeting, and an array of retired classroom projectors, The Dome came to life with the help of a team of fellow students.

The Dome helped fill a need left open by previous virtual reality experiences. While in my previous projects headset based systems had shown great promise when tested with educational material in classrooms, by only allowing one student to experience the content at a time it limited the total length of each student’s experience. By scaling these educational VR experiences up to a room scale, entire classes could experience longer format VR content.

The Dome was made possible by a grant from the Winchester Foundation for Educational Excellence.

Read more about The Winchester Star’s visit to the dome here.

Gallery

Students sit inside the dome while a video plays across the surface.
A group of students on a virtual tour through the inside of a cell.
A person holding a section of assembled metal tubing in a pentagon shape.
Assembling the metal structure of the dome was a challenge at first, but after repeating it 8 times we became pretty efficient.
A 20-foot wide geodesic dome outside.
The dome before being 'skinned'.
A pentagonal piece of plastic attached to one face of the dome.
Test fitting the first plastic section. We named each section of 5 triangular panels a 'pentapanel'.
A student stands on a ladder inside the dome which is mostly covered with white plastic panels.
Finding an affordable material to cover the dome that was easy to work with and also allowed for bright projection was one of the biggest challenges we faced.
A test frame projected on two different materials.
Early testing of different types of projection surfaces. Lycra (left) is smoother, but plastic (right) is cheaper, easier to cut and join, and brighter.
A picture of a nucleus is displayed on a small section of the dome.
Proof of concept showing the nucleus of a cell projected onto a small section of the dome.
Two white plastic pentagons on the floor of the school library.
The library floor was appropriated to assemble so-called 'pentapanels' before bring brought to the dome.
Students attach plastic panels from the inside while a calibration frame is being projected.
First setup and calibration as 'pentapanels' are being attached.
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