To an observer, Mahlet Yeshitla is sitting in a chair with a large headset covering most of her face, waving her arms at the empty space in front of her.
But from her perspective, she's using cubes to create building blocks.
“It does feel like you’re in a room, at a table, just building things,” Yeshitla said.
Yeshitla was testing out a game created by a team at the Kansas City Virtual Reality group’s first Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality hackathon. The event was sponsored by Oculus, Mozilla Foundation, and Pulse Design Group.
Participants formed teams on Friday night had until Sunday to create an app or game that has benefits in the classroom. The game Yeshitla was trying out is intended to help students understand physics.
Steve Biegun co-hosted the hackathon. He's a virtual reality developer at Pulse. He says that Pokémon Go has made more people aware of AR and VR technology.
“There’s a lot of interest from people who play Pokémon Go and want to learn more about the technology,” Biegun said.
He hopes the momentum will continue and go beyond games to have real-world applications in Kansas City.
"If we're not going to keep it relevant, we're not going to take advantage," he said.
Winners of the hackathon were to be announced Sunday afternoon at the event. They'll be posted to Kansas City Virtual Reality group's Facebook page.
